OCC Meeting with Sharad Sharma

It's been a while since I've been to an OCC meet, but I'm glad I attended this mornings meet. It was held at Jaaga, a strange community built building, in itself an experience. Sharad's talk was nothing short of excellently delivered. He touched on a few points which I found valuable:

1. Look at all the life changing technology around you, cloud computing, social media, renewable energy, mobile computing - which one fascinates you? What expertise or specialist knowledge do you have in it? Be aware of what's going on, stay on-top of something.
2. Steve Jobs was a hobbyist, some of the best businesses have evolved from hobbies.
3. If you have a niche, stay narrowly focused. Whilst you don't know if it's Plan B thats the real winner, most of today's successful businesses have grown in concentric circles from their original niche.
   
4. Who are your buyers? Are your buyers early adopters or pragmatic buyers? In todays economic climate are there any early adopters left? Go with Guy Kawasaki's theory of focusing on paying customers immediately.
5. Low cost does not mean low quality. Better to go the way Indigo Airlines has gone than that of Deccan.

Kam