Why I believe that 2012-2014 will be the "golden age" of innovation?

Rising!

Before you label me as a super optimist, please allow me to state my assumptions regarding the context:

The overall economic horizon will remain very rough: The next two years are going to be very tough for medium and large companies who focus on European markets - especially France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and United Kingdom. 2012 and 2013 will also be tough for traditionally more resilient economies like Germany and Switzerland because they focus on exports to keep growth or rely on tourism from their neighbors and around the world. And aggregate demand will remain low as consumer confidence will remain shaky in most parts of the world.

Leadership will be more rhetoric and less action: Most incumbent CEO of large companies as well as political leaders will talk a good talk but do little to spur real investment, however there will be exceptions that will break the drudgery of incompetence and insincerity. The reason is "short-termism" as CEO's have to make their quarterly numbers in an exceptionally turbulent market and political leaders have re-election on their horizon. They will be forced to go to various talk shows, conferences and meetings to make grand proclamations but their opponents (in politics) and accountants (in business) will ensure that the real investment will not be made and job losses will be announced. This will further weaken the consumer confidence and further accelerate the viscous circle.

So why do I believe that the next two years will usher in the golden age of innovation in South & North America, Europe and various parts of Africa and Asia-Pacific?

The simple answer is: People will be forced to find new sources of income to live a decent life. And that will spur innovation. My goal is to play a part in this revolution.

Entrepreneurship is an art form

Entrepreneurship is an art form, ask any entrepreneur!

Many believe that entrepreneurship is a scientific process - business planning before you prototype followed by testing and then technical launch followed by market launch and subsequent success. This is almost like describing that a painter conducts research followed by mixing the paint and getting the canvas ready so he can apply his brush with harmonious precision. That is clearly not true.

What is true is that entrepreneurship is a collaborative art form. Here is why?

1. All art forms focus on self expression, so does entrepreneurship. All entrepreneurs see opportunity where others only see risks and by the time others do see the opportunities, great artists re-invent themselves and move on.

2. All artists collaborate with like-minded artists irrespective of age, race etc. This is so true of entrepreneurship!

3. Most artists struggle and have to overcome many hurdles, before they find recognition by their peers (hence the popularity of Oscars etc). And the ones who find success without a struggle find it extremely difficult to sustain balance.  

Now at Majamba, we are creating something very cool that you will love. Watch out for mid-February. I saw the preview today...amazing!

Rising in 2012!

Rising in 2012

During my winter break apart from meeting family and friends, I read newspapers, watched TV and hardly touched the computer. What I discovered is that there is a lot of fear out there. Politicians (especially in Europe) are leveling with their citizens that the year 2012 is going to be tough. They are certainly doing a good job in bringing down the expectations. There is so much fear, uncertainty and doubt that people are freezing.

Obviously, people are uncomfortable with the present situation and current leadership in Europe, US and Asia is distracted due to various reasons - reelection for one. As a result, half baked and disconnected statements about the future are doing more to scare the people instead of providing a clear way forward. That is really not nice.

So what does it mean for Majamba? Should we wait for others to provide leadership or should we pick up mantle and rise to the challenge. Well, we choose to rise! Here is the plan:

1. Team Focus: We now have a balanced team that is now cooking up more good stuff. We have learnt a lot over the past few months. It's not just about one person's ideas but complementing each other ideas and building something new which each team member can take pride in.

2. User Focus: We are focusing much more on our users, our customers. We continue to develop what they want. Over 900 people have used Majamba in the past 3 months. Our users tell us that they like what they see BUT they need more content. In 2012, we plan to rise above our capabilities to do something good.

3. Partner Focus: We are nothing without our partners. They have trusted us and provided us with all the support we could have asked for. Now it's our turn to support them meet their objectives.

This is the year, where we will focus on moving forward. Whatever the odds, keep moving forward (Badhe Chalo! in Hindi).

Wishing everyone a successful 2012

May god give you the courage to follow your dreams; and we wish you the strength to persevere in 2012.

"If it's not fun, why do it?"

Ben and Jerry started the ice-cream company with $12,000 in 1978 after struggling for many months. $8,000 was from their savings and they had a $4,000 loan. The friend who helped them write the business plan (Jeff Furman) is now the Chairman of the Board. Here are some powerful ideas that have propelled them to do good even when Ben and Jerry's was sold to Unilever in 2000:

1. Business can be a force for good. They were one of the first companies to support the Occupy movement.

2. Businesses should not bankroll politicians. This is going to be their focus for 2012 (get the dough out of politics).

3. Go Fair Trade! Most of their products are fair trade.

4. If it's not fun, why do it? That's their motto. 

Truly inspiring! My heroes - Ben and Jerry. Thank you!

Full Conference: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303128-1 (if you are in a hurry, go straight to 24:55 to listen to Ben Cohen)

Majamba, a Swiss Innovation that will change the world!

Fact: It is not easy to get funding and support for new ventures. Only 1 to 2 business ideas out of 100 get financing and its only getting harder. And even the ones that do get financing find it difficult to get the right mix of people to grow their venture or not-for-profit.

What if there was a platform that could support anyone starting something new and anything good. That’s Majamba.Me, the world’s first Volunteer Micro-Jobs Exchange. 

Here is how Majamba works:

1. you collect Majamba Hugs by solving missions, essentially helping entrepreneurs
2. with your Hugs, you can reward others who support your mission
3. your supporters or you can use the Hugs to get fair trade gifts

The more people use Majamba, the more will be the utility of the network. Success will mean Start-ups will have resources; Students & Professionals will be able to use their skills in new ways and get fair trade gifts; and Social Enterprises will create jobs for the makers of fair trade gifts. The overall goal is to contribute to the fight against youth unemployment and underemployment affecting millions and poverty impacting billions of people. 

Majamba Limited is a Swiss company co-managed by two entrepreneurs and four students (three from HEC Lausanne and one from International School Geneva). Yes, we are using the Majamba platform to build the Majamba exchange. Majamba is also supported by the Vaud SELT and the IBM Global Entrepreneur program. Majamba has established alliances with partners such as Self Employed Women Association from India, PayPal and FedEx. 

Rajiv Srivastava is the co-founder of Majamba. Rajiv holds an MBA from University of Southern California and international work experience with Hewlett Packard and as Director of Strategy at Orange Communications in Switzerland. Rajiv launched Majamba with his wife Jeannine Srivastava. And recently Enea Bello, Mattia Barardi, Maya Rikhye from HEC Lausanne and John Nicholas Lung from International School Geneva joined the core Majamba strategy team.

Currently the team is working on launching Majamba.Me with the social marketing campaign expected to start in February 2012. 

How can you help?

If you have one or two hours of free time to offer, put your skills to help start-ups trying to change the world, please join www.majamba.me for free! You even get 100 Hugs for just joining. You can solve fun missions, collect more Hugs; get Gifts or get others to support your missions.  

2011: The Year of Transformation

We are currently testing different campaign concepts before putting our marketing dollars behind the one that gets the most traction. After testing different concepts, we still feel that we are one step away from the campaign that will change the world!

Here is what we are confident about:

1. Concept: A Volunteer Micro-Jobs Network where companies post good Missions; people solve those missions and get Hugs; with their Hugs they get fair trade Gifts or post Missions of their own.

2. Partners: We have an all-star line of partners who have provided Seed Capital, Technology, Guidance and Encouragement.

3. Platform: The platform is pretty comprehensive: social network + catalog + social currency + mission apps. And now we are starting work on the Mobile App.

4. Team: We have a powerful team of Web Design, Web Development, Strategy and Business Development pros.

So what do we need to work on:

1. Identity: A stronger visual identity complete with a cool video to engage audience.

2. Gifts: Boost our gifts catalog. More variety.

3. Missions: More missions. More diversity.

4. Campaign: Once we have the Identity, Gifts and Missions - we will launch a marketing campaign that will target 2 geographic regions at one time.

Good vs. Bad Entrepreneurs (instead of Old vs. Young Entrepreneurs)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/the-case-for-old-entrepreneurs/2011/12/02/gIQAulJ3KO_story.html


(This is a reaction to the speech by Mr. Vinod Khosla, who segregates entrepreneurs based on their age).


I think we all look for generalizations that can help us focus on what makes an individual or a venture more successful. Age, gender, race, nationality, wealth, qualifications, grades and experience are just some of the filters people use.  
 
Imagine, if you are lucky enough to get 200 new business plans emailed to you every day along with emails, phone calls and plenty of encounters with hopeful entrepreneurs from all over the world, you can feel compelled to develop a framework, a guiding principle regarding how you say no to people. Also when you do invest in hundred's of entrepreneurs and only a small minority succeed, you end up developing a formula that allows you to filter.


People like Mr. Khosla are super successful, intelligent and networked. They have created their short-cuts based on experience acquired over many deals. Everyone is entitled to his or her views. But I think Mr. Khosla represents a very dangerous point of view (age as one of the most important metric for deciding where to invest) that leads to prejudice against thousands if not millions of highly qualified, generous, hard working people. 
 
Today, more people are starting new ventures and even more want to start new companies but find it difficult to raise money. This is because the venture model has not been adapted to our age. It remains surprisingly "Industrial". Committees find it difficult to understand Innovation so they force the entrepreneurs to write business plans and develop prototypes. In others words, they buy time so they can figure out what to do. So number of companies that "make it" vs. "projects initiated" is around 1%. These so called successful companies attract billions in investment and most fail to do anything that will make the world a better place. And the BIG problems - 300Million people unemployed; 600Million people underemployed; 3Billion people trying to make a living on $2.50 a day - continue to confound us.  
 
What we need is a new way to support entrepreneurship. A new peer2peer approach, where Good People can dis-intermediate the bad people and directly working with other Good People; helping each other to solve the big problems irrespective of your age, gender, race, nationality, wealth, qualifications, grades or experience. Where thousands of entrepreneurs can work with millions of students and revolutionaries to start something good. The only thing that should matter is the power of the Idea. That is what we are trying to do with majamba.me