Imperial College, London


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Other Posts in this area:
'Why Not?' (35 miles) London and Zurich, of Thailand, India and several ideas (35 miles) Packing (36 miles) What is Startup Weekend? (36 miles)
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'Why Not?'

Anthony - Thu 10 January 17.00
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Startup: A Marathi Adventure is inspired by Jerry Kaplan's book about his Silicon Valley Adventure in the early 19's. In one way or another, it can be regarded as something very close to the start of our Mahrati Adventure.

So how did it all start one might ask. Well, the story would start sometime during out senior years at Imperial.

On a normal day, I casually dropped by Nick's 'office' on Level 10 in the EE department to catch up and see his project in action. Back then, i was on my year abroad at ETH Zurich, and visited London for a bit. So i asked Nick what his plans were for his time 'after Imperial', and he actually had quite good plans - to go to Silicon Valley and work for one of those Big ones - Google, Apple, etc. Would have been great, i'm sure, but i was able to propose something irresistable.

So, both of us aren't really into those big multinational high flying and over paying companies from the financial industry, in fact, we enjoy life and all its weird and wonderful facets too much to spend it in some office working for someone else. Yes, you need money to enjoy life (although Nick would probably disagree), but at the same time, you need life to enjoy your money (and that's quite difficult one to challenge). Either way, working for someone else, motivated by money and glamour, is not exactly an ideal we'd like to follow.

Also, both of us see similar potential and impact of webapplications or Software as a Service, and also passionately follow what's going on on the internet, sillicon valley and elsewhere. The glamourous stories of Internet Startups did not pass us unnoticed, of course.

Finally, we've actually been working together quite successfully (i would say) when we produced the yearbook for our year at Imperial together with Tony 'Anand' 'Shit - i just slept for 26hours' Wu.

These were are the three key ingredients (similar goals for life, similar passion about technology, good past experience) that made me, more spontaneous than not, proposition to Nick to 'do something'. I can't remember my exact words, but i think they were along the lines of 'why don't we just go to some country where it's cheaper to live, and spend some time there working on ideas and webapplications. U know, all we'll need are our laptops and we can have coconuts on the beach in Thailand'. 'Garage is so last Millenium! Startups should be started from a Beach!'. Or something like that. The theme is clear, low cost country to be able to life off the little money we've saved, exciting life away from Britain or Europe and free roaming spirits meeting webapplications.

Conveniently, we both (think we) are trying to be doers, rather than talkers. I've spend 4 years at uni (and before actually) talking about what we or one should or could do, been talking to my father, uncles, friends their parents, etc, but never actually did anything worth writing a newspaper article about, and that's annoying. We're old enough now, and i guess it's our turn to come up with ideas and turn them into innovations, as generations of entrepreneurs have done before us (just where is this spirit going, in the face of glamourous high paying jobs that are effectively not too much different to what FW Taylor did to his employees at his plant - where was that again...

Of course, this idea resonated well with Nick, whos actually just had a great first experience of south east asia, Thailand, with the IC Cricket team. I think his words were 'Yeah... Why Not... Hmm, yeah... I like this!' (*whispering initially, gradually sounding more ascertive* - as he always does)

And that's it, i think, that's the beginning of our Mahrati Adventure, according to Anthony. Did i forget anything important...
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London and Zurich, of Thailand, India and several ideas

Anthony - Thu 10 January 23.00
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So Nick and me decided to 'do something', go to some beach in Thailand and develop webapplications to make million$ of whichever currency. While nothing was quite clear or decided, the direction was set.

While back in Zurich, one of my best friends there, Sid, on one of our uncountable late night walks and discussions, implanted the idea of going to India instead of Thailand in my head. There are obvious reasons, first of all the booming IT industry in India, the presumed lower costs of living and actually being in one of the world's next superpowers (a long way to go still, India!) being just a few. Nick also liked the idea, 'initial thoughts: positive'.

At the same time, Nick and I spent hours and hours on skype, talking about what we could to, where the internet is going, etc. It was a long period of thinking inside and outside boxes, going back and forth, and generally very constructive.

While the list of different ideas we came up is too long to replicate here, i must say that the absolute highlight must be my random idea of creating a site called 'YouJoke' to sprad happiness and prolong the lives of its users....

Lesson learned: At the end of the day, it doesn't matter that much what the idea is, it is the execution of it as well as keeping agile to change the idea and adapt to its 'environment' is what is more important.
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'You Are Crazy!'

Anthony - Mon 25 February 14.00
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I thought i'd just add a few lines about the responses i got from people who i told what i was going to do after uni.

So while some thought the idea of starting up a company is great, many of those are themselves too hesitant to do it. Granted, i would not have a clue where to start if i wanted to get into Oil (or Ethanol, baby!) or Manufacturing, not to mention the heavy investments required, but the beauty of internet companies are that they are relatively low in initial capital required. All we need is a laptop, internet, a server and some brains as well as time to think (which we are buying by outsourcing ourselves to a low cost country). So low(ish) risk here!

Other people loved the idea of us going to India, primarily, i think, because they liked the idea of going to that exciting country, NOT because it's a cunning move to cut costs as well as experiencing life in a different country, thereby broadening horizons. Either way, thanks to all those encouraging positive responses.

Enough people said that it was quite risky, and that one 'has to have a few years of work experience inside a company' before trying to set up his/her own company. Well, my response to that is, we're 23/24years old and spoilt by our lifestyle in rich and relatively perfect europe, what do we have to lose if we try out our 'luck' in an area that interests us a lot? Best case is that we'll be heading a great profitable company in a few years time, worst case is we;ll have had an awsome time and learned a lot, because we had to try to run a company (rather than just 'doing a job' of a cogwheel inside one ginormous apparatus) AND we'll have broadened our horizons so much more than most of our peers ;-)

The best response must have been from my Tutor at Imperial, Dr. Gurcan, who just said 'You are Crazy!' But he said that with a big smile on his head, whishing his tutee a great time, i hope!

To anybody out there who might be easily (positively) influenced, i have to say 'It's better to regret something you have done, than to regret not having done something' - i think anyways...
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