The recession was expected to hit and it was supposed to be a bad time to switch jobs.

It was a roller coaster ride right from the beginning but I enjoyed it thoroughly. The first all hands meet (all hands meets in startups are NOT about going to a fancy hotel and spending the day playing games), we discussed the recession that was about to hit and several alternatives were discussed to cut the costs and extend the runway. Things didn’t work out as expected and the next all hands I saw the team strength reduce to roughly half!

Right from the beginning, I liked the “openness” culture that was part of the company. Engineers got to decide to a large extent the roadmap and product features, and also interact with and learn from the users directly. A lot of what was being built was being determined based on user feedback. We had a whole bunch of success stories on the way.

4 months into my job, I came to know that we were about to be acquired. It came as a surprise to me, because things appeared so drastic. We had only started tasting success. Why this sudden decision? What about my dreams of working in a startup? Will Ugenie continue to function like one? How will things be different? Will our dreams be crushed by this parent company? Will there be a change in culture?

However, things didn’t change a lot – if anything it got better. While we did gain some financial stability, which allowed us to think about and execute longer term projects (measured in weeks instead of days), things didn’t change drastically in terms of work and the responsibilities that people had. Plus, we got to work with an excellent team over at Lulu spearheaded by Bob.

Now when I look back, I feel, making the switch was one of the most important decisions I took in my life. The last 1.5 years has been such an experience that I could not have expected from IBM.

So, after this wonderful journey, here I am, making the next leap in my career. I have accepted an offer from an early stage seed funded startup and am beginning work early next week. Why the decision? Well, it just feels right and I am mentally prepared to take up the responsibilities that this job entails.

During the course, I made some amazing new friends each of whom is unique in their own personal way. I would like to thank every one of you, who I have interacted with directly or indirectly, for the many things that I have learnt from you. It was a pleasure to know you.

A parting quote:
…, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. –

If you liked this, you may also like

• January 16, 2008 — Bye bye IBM, hello Ugenie
• August 5, 2008 — It’s official – Lulu partners with weRead
• April 19, 2008 — iRead – a social book discovery revolution
• November 9, 2008 — weRead – what’s new?
• April 20, 2008 — Big fish, small fish – my personal experience of working in a startup
• December 23, 2007 — Random thought
• October 13, 2007 — Eclipse workshop in IIIT Bangalore
• September 28, 2007 — Workshop on Eclipse in VIT, Pune
• July 27, 2007 — Two down; still going strong
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch

Considering that I have been blogging in Livejournal since 2004, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. However I had to take the plunge some day, and I thought the time has come.

So what have the major painpoints been?

• LJ does not allow script inclusions. In this world of Web 2.0, it is almost impossible to not have widgets in your pages.
• Analytics: You have absolutely no idea how many people reached your site and via which sources or keywords and why your blog is valued the most.
• Very limited customization – frankly the themes seem very Web 1.0′ish.

Things were not easy. Exporting my Livejournal blog posts and importing them to WordPress was one thing. Setting up WordPress as my primary hosting, while allowing the rest of the site to function smoothly was another.

Once these were done, the rest was easy and the results are fascinating. I was able to setup my photo albums, analytics, Feedburner and integrate widgets for Friendfeed, Twitter in no time.

There are still some minor issues here and there, especially with migrating my content from the old site to the new one – I will work on them as and when I find time.

So, feel free to browse my site and let me know what you think!

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• May 29, 2009 — Optimizing website bandwidth consumption
• July 16, 2006 — Flock – a Web 2.0 browser?
• March 10, 2006 — Happy birthday ? /\ /\/ /\ /\/ `/ /\

Having spent about two and a half years in IBM, which is a mammoth on any scale, and working in Ugenie now, which has a really small employee strength, what changes do I see?

I guess most large organizations have similar characteristics, so instead of naming IBM in the rest of my post, I will just mention it as ‘Big Fish’ to represent all large organizations. Again, I guess nothing is unique about my feelings of Ugenie and most startups have similar characteristics, so I will call it ‘Small Fish’.

If I look back into the days I spent at Big Fish, I have mixed feelings. There are quite a few things that I have gained, but some that I had to lose.

The immediate change that I saw in Small Fish is the rate at which things move. Ideas emerge by the minute, and are implemented within a couple of days or for ideas taking more time, a week. More time is spent in getting things done than on planning and processes. Long term goals are perhaps goals for the month and I guess there is no point thinking about a year down the line or anything on a similar scale! The ‘tomorrows’ or ‘over the next week’ are replaced by ‘now’ and ‘today sometime’. There are lesser ‘meetings’ and they are short. You definitely don’t need a calender for your meetings.

The second change I see is how large organizations spend lots of money on infrastructure and how startups tend to save on every penny. I remember the ultra modern conference rooms, the posh pantries/wash-rooms, the money that was spent on things like events, all hands, yearly gifts, interior decoration, posters talking about “X” day (replace X with Innovation, Mothers or something like that) etc, I could go on. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying Small Fish does not spend on its employees, but every penny spent is done so cautiously.

And now let me delve into the differences in terms of:

Breadth/Depth: I guess one of the reasons that made me stick to Big Fish is the breadth of technologies on offer. Every day, you would come across someone working on a project that you never knew existed or you come across a page on the Intranet that excites you. Every day, you keep widening your breadth of knowledge.

Things are different in Small Fish. Small Fish offers the much required depth.

I remember someone telling me of how there needs to be a balance between the breadth of our knowledge and the depth in some specific field. This is like the letter ‘T’, with the top horizontal line representing the breadth and the vertical line representing the depth.

Ownership: I don’t see too much of a difference here. While in Big Fish, I used to own the components I developed and I was responsible for timely delivery of that component and ensuring that the consumers of my work are kept happy. Things are similar in Small Fish, may be with minor differences. The ownership here tends towards the whole of the product/application than just the component you own. (This is closely related to the Roles/Responsibilities observation below).

Priorities: Back in 2005, when I was working on product development, there was a phase where I found it difficult to prioritize my tasks. There were a bunch of bugs to fix, there were some mails to respond to and there were some bug databases that I had to update and it seemed like all of them had the same priority.

If I compare that period with the present, I would say it’s quite similar. There is more work than anyone can handle, there are some things that only you can do and the deadlines are sometimes impossible to meet because of various technical/non-technical issues.

However I seem to be a bit more comfortable in my present position than I was back in 2005. This could be attributed to the fact that I have two and a half years of experience behind me now or to the fact that I am in a startup now and it is normal for everyone to have their plates full.

Roles/Responsibilities: I would say there is no such thing in a startup. While in Big Fish, we had clear responsibilities and having completed those tasks, we could consider our job done, in Small Fish, things work differently. There is no such thing as ‘my responsibility’. Or if you really want to put it in terms of that, you would have to say, ‘everything is my responsibility’. While many people don’t like that, I see every such occurrence as an opportunity to learn and I really enjoy it.

Opportunities: There is no dearth of this in Big Fish or Small Fish, but there is a difference. In Big Fish, you need to search for them or understand that ‘x’ is opportunity knocking at your door, while in Small Fish you would just take it up, without perhaps realizing that it was an opportunity.

Social network: Well, if we are talking of getting to know more people with diverse personalities and skill sets there is really no end to how many people you can connect with in Big Fish. This is severely restricted in Small Fish. I remember having some technical discussions with people who have significantly more experience than me in Big Fish and I should say the things that I learnt then are things that you don’t get to learn from a book. This has definitely added to my experience. It was about ‘learning from the failures/experiences of others’.

Smaller fishes tend to have a younger crowd. So while the teams are dynamic, the number of people with more experience than you and with diverse skillsets is limited. This has nothing to do with the actual people in Small Fish, but is rather because of the size of Small Fish, which, because of its very nature is small.

Awards/Recognition: Frankly, there was no dearth of it in Big Fish. But on second thoughts, other than the monetary rewards and the benefits of the actual work that you did to earn the award, do these awards really matter to the rest of the world?

Other activities: This is severely restricted in Small Fish. Big Fish invests a lot on employees. So every day you hear people being on training or attending some conference or even having gone abroad to learn some technology.

Processes: If you ask anyone working at a startup, especially someone who has worked in a large organization before, I guess one thing they would mention is the processes. What is my take on this?

I would say there needs to be a balance. While on one side too many processes is definitely going to be time consuming and a pain on the employees, having a well defined process would mean that everything that needs to be taken care of is actually taken care of. So if Big Fish is tending towards one end of this spectrum, Small Fish is towards the other end, with the best point being somewhere close to the middle.

So people ask me, do you think it was worth it?
Well, no doubt about that. I guess you have to lose some things to gain some things. And the things that Small Fish offers it’s tough to expect that from Big Fish and this, to a major extent, holds the other way round too. Now having had enough experience in Big Fish and no experience in some Small Fish, I would say, yeah, it was worth it and I am glad I decided to join Ugenie.

Now remember that these are my observations and I could be wrong in terms of how various Big Fishes/Small Fishes work or even in terms of the Big Fish where I worked and the Small Fish where I currently work. Also my own opinions might change as I gain more experience at Small Fish and compare it to my experiences in Big Fish.

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• August 28, 2009 — Adios Ugenie
• January 16, 2008 — Bye bye IBM, hello Ugenie

I quit IBM this week and took up a new position in Ugenie today [1][2].

This news came as a surprise to many, who considered that I was quite loyal to IBM. IBM has been a splendid place. There is no dearth of opportunities there. The more you are ready to take up responsibilities, the more you are given.

So what on earth made me switch?
The primary reason for the switch is, I wanted to work in a startup on something that is directly used by non-technical end users.

How do we serve a large user base? How do we keep up with the ever increasing and conflicting demands of users? How are things prioritized? How is it that a small group of 15-20 individuals can do something in a matter of days, that large organizations take weeks to implement?

The equation in a startup is quite different from that of large organizations. I have read this before, but have never had first hand experience. So I decided to take the plunge and experience it myself.

And then there was the question of the 'right time'.
Is this a good time? Should I wait? What will I gain, what will I miss? The more I thought about it, the more it confused me. So finally I just chose to go with Ugenie.

The work seems to be interesting. I am looking forward to it!

With some people predicting a dot-com crash in 2008, was this a good idea?
Time will tell. But whatever the case, I am not quite concerned.

If you liked this, you may also like

• August 28, 2009 — Adios Ugenie
• April 20, 2008 — Big fish, small fish – my personal experience of working in a startup
• April 19, 2008 — iRead – a social book discovery revolution
• October 13, 2007 — Eclipse workshop in IIIT Bangalore
• September 28, 2007 — Workshop on Eclipse in VIT, Pune
• July 27, 2007 — Two down; still going strong
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch
• December 16, 2006 — Here it comes
• September 1, 2006 — About my work
• July 27, 2006 — One year up in IBM

Congratulations to those selected. And a suggestion to those who were not: It is not the number of companies that you are placed in that matters, nor is it the pay. It is your fundamentals that will take you a long way. Don't blame the company if you are not offered a quality job. Ensure that you have what it takes to get one.

If you liked this, you may also like

• May 6, 2006 — ISL Project Interview
• March 11, 2006 — Technologix 2006
• October 4, 2007 — ApacheCon US 2007 / OS Summit Asia 2007
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch
• December 5, 2005 — ISL Fusion Funda

The campus is great, so are the students. It was the most interactive session I have ever been to. The students were quite active throughout the day and all of us were filled with enthusiasm until the very end.

The workshop began at 9:30 am with Sudar Oli giving the kick off speech on IBM University Relation activities. This was followed by 2 theory sessions, followed by a hands-on session. The workshop lasted till 8 pm and I hear this is quite normal for guest lectures in IIIT!

If you liked this, you may also like

• September 28, 2007 — Workshop on Eclipse in VIT, Pune
• August 28, 2009 — Adios Ugenie
• January 16, 2008 — Bye bye IBM, hello Ugenie
• October 11, 2007 — Eclifox – bringing Eclipse to the browser
• October 4, 2007 — ApacheCon US 2007 / OS Summit Asia 2007
• September 17, 2007 — Lecture on Eclipse in VTU Edusat
• July 27, 2007 — Two down; still going strong
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch
• December 16, 2006 — Here it comes
• September 1, 2006 — About my work

We had 3 theory sessions and about 3.5 hours of hands-on sessions. We covered the following topics during the theory and practical sessions:
* Introduction to Eclipse
* Plug-in development in Eclipse
* RCP application development in Eclipse.

The response was decent and I truly enjoyed the day, although at the end of the day it left us really tired.

This workshop was conducted as part of the IBM Technology Day series that is being conducted in various colleges in India. This is the second time I am being involved in a IBM Technology Day.

The very first IBM Technology Day in India was conducted in SJCE, Mysore in April. This was a 2 day workshop with about 7 speakers from IBM Software Group, Systems Group and Global Services. There were students from 7 colleges in and around Mysore who were part of this.

If you liked this, you may also like

• October 13, 2007 — Eclipse workshop in IIIT Bangalore
• August 28, 2009 — Adios Ugenie
• January 16, 2008 — Bye bye IBM, hello Ugenie
• October 11, 2007 — Eclifox – bringing Eclipse to the browser
• October 4, 2007 — ApacheCon US 2007 / OS Summit Asia 2007
• September 17, 2007 — Lecture on Eclipse in VTU Edusat
• July 27, 2007 — Two down; still going strong
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch
• December 16, 2006 — Here it comes
• September 1, 2006 — About my work

Here is what I liked about the program:
* Excellent use of technology to reach distant colleges in Karnataka.
* Currently Edusat has cast more than 3000 lectures. All of these lectures are available to the students if needed.
* There is good industry backing. This can help bridge the gap between industry and academia.

There are some things that will hopefully improve:
* It is more of a monologue right now. So there is absolutely no way of knowing the skill level of the students and tweak the lecture.

Hats off to the guys behind this mission. This is a good first step; however there are things that can improve. If you are part of University Relations in your company, do join the Edusat program and make a difference!

If you liked this, you may also like

• October 13, 2007 — Eclipse workshop in IIIT Bangalore
• October 11, 2007 — Eclifox – bringing Eclipse to the browser
• October 4, 2007 — ApacheCon US 2007 / OS Summit Asia 2007
• September 28, 2007 — Workshop on Eclipse in VIT, Pune
• May 3, 2005 — Eclipse Modeling Framework

Movies I watched:

• Cast Away
• Forrest Gump
• Road to Perdition
• Insomnia
• Whole Nine Yards

So I started off at 3:25 pm from Indiranagar. I reached the Marathalli junction at around 3:45. My plan was to return to this exact same location and then return home.

Just to give you an idea of the route I took, here are some places I came across during my trip:

Marathalli, Sarjapur road, BTM ring road, Bannerghatta road, Deve Gowda petrol bunk, Kathriguppe, Pantar Palya, Bangalore University, RVCE, Kengeri, Papareddy Palya, Peenya, Tata tea, BEL circle, Hebbal fly-over, Devanahalli (had lost my way), back to Hebbal fly-over, Banasvadi junction, back to Marathalli.

I lost my way thrice during the trip. On one occasion I was on my way to Hyderabad. Little did I realize that I had taken the wrong way from Hebbal. It was only after I reached Devanahalli a good 25 km from Hebbal fly-over that I realized I had hopelessly lost my way!

After having travelled for about 150 km, for about 4 hours 15 minutes, I returned home safe and tired. Wow, that was a memorable journey!

If you liked this, you may also like

• June 30, 2009 — Trip to Gopalaswamy betta and BR hills
• May 23, 2009 — Trips to Ranganathittu, Varthur lake and Sankey Tank
• July 19, 2010 — Trip to Dubare, Pollibetta, Talakaveri, Bhagamandala
• July 6, 2010 — Trip to Mandalpatti, Madikeri, Dubare and Bylakuppe
• March 3, 2010 — Sunset at Sankey Tank
• February 28, 2010 — An evening in Lalbagh
• February 9, 2010 — Trip to Turahalli, Chudahalli, Agara and Begur
• August 10, 2009 — Lalbagh Flower Show – August 2009
• June 14, 2009 — Early morning in Lalbagh
• September 9, 2007 — Sankey tank – sunset

I see a blend of skills, knowledge and passion in the people. I have been involved in a variety of projects, which have helped me understand IBM's business and the role of technology better. There is still a lot more to learn and contribute.

If you liked this, you may also like

• August 28, 2009 — Adios Ugenie
• January 16, 2008 — Bye bye IBM, hello Ugenie
• October 13, 2007 — Eclipse workshop in IIIT Bangalore
• September 28, 2007 — Workshop on Eclipse in VIT, Pune
• February 14, 2007 — ISL Innovator watch
• December 16, 2006 — Here it comes
• September 1, 2006 — About my work
• July 27, 2006 — One year up in IBM
• July 16, 2006 — Hackday @ IBM
• May 6, 2006 — ISL Project Interview