IdeaBahn

My thoughts on The Business of Innovation: Innovate or Die (CNBC)

rachit — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:38:05 +0000

Karmazin CEO of Sirius talking about innovating or dying - he has a great answer “I’m not innovating from 9AM to 12PM” it’s something you do all the time. I completely agree with this because many corporations and executives have a tendency of lip servicing innovation because it’s some how sounds like they are actually doing something.

Kodak has had to overhaul it’s business and move away from film after 120 years. Perez CEO of Kodak basically said we are not eating our own dog food - employees when asked, themselves were not using film. In this case, culture needed to be changed by establishing a team that would move products to the digital level.

LG’s Yong Nam talking about innovating in an economic downturn - your best ideas come during distress. Speaking a common language in their case English is important to debate and discuss ideas.

Innovation in my viewpoint from the context of idea generation is part culture and part process. The culture needs to accept ideas from wherever they arise and then through community effort define areas of value. The process needs to be flexible, work in non-linear ways and filter ideas down to a concentrated value proposition.

KnockKnock*

rachit — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 00:42:32 +0000

I have good and bad news.

So the bad news is I haven’t updated the blog in over a month and I apologize for the lack of content. The good news is that we have been working harder than ever on the platform and the overall business.

Some updates:

Platform is near SaaS ready levels - instances are automated and Daniel is currently working on putting in the final features like metrics and customizable hierarchy.
Have had the opportunity to talk to some very cool people across the business spectrum - these past weeks we have really drilled into understanding the features needed to aid in the decision making abilities of both groups and manager.
The core team officially crossed a year on May 29th - marking the day we first got together to discuss a crazy concept of democratizing ideas on the level that Wikipedia has achieved for encyclopedias.

What to look out for in the near future:

Our SaaS platform available for public consumption - We are aiming to finalize it end of June and launching it early July.
Rehaul of the IdeaBahn site - the landing page is great and we have receieved plenty of complements but it’s time we start mentioning the details of the platform and display a deeper view of idea management in relation to the crowdsourced context.
Posts recapping our lessons from the past year - It has been truly the greatest learning experience cutting my teeth in the entrepreneurial world and I would certainly like to reflect on it for future growth.

Picking up steam

rachit — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:28:00 +0000

In the last two weeks we have singularly focused on getting the platform in front of innovative companies and individuals. The result has been positive and helped us quite a bit in defining the packaging of the platform.

Couple key takeaways:

The psychological barrier to use a new platform is really quite great because it adds another layer of action. Therefore, our focus is on making the platform simple and easy to use.
Traditional tools like word documents and powerpoints are key ways that information is transmitted and consumed (hopefully) within large organizations.
The current offerings are not meeting these needs because lack of transparency, number of steps involved and cultural mindset.

Moving forward, IdeaBahn will be at the Web 2.0 Expo next week, along with stops in Palo Alto and perhaps even San Jose.

Prepping for a busy week.

rachit — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:11:31 +0000

Things are beginning to kick on full cylinders for our small team. Couple memorable recaps from this past week.

Hung out with guys and gals at Shoeboxed.com - It was really quite energizing to see another startup at work and an inspiration for us to aspire towards.
Went to my first Refresh the Triangle meetup at Ogilvy - Talked to some very cool RoR guys.
Met up with a friend from Penn and had dinner with about 30 students who were in town for the Entreprelliance conference - I’m glad that more of these programs are starting up in colleges around the country and really giving students an opportunity to broaden their business perspectives.

Lots of ideas buzzing about and I’ll do a better job of putting them on here!

New User Interface

rachit — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:30:00 +0000

After receiving good feedback from our friends at Square 1 and McKinney. We are incorporating some of the key responses we’ve been hearing over the last couple weeks.

Quick Entry for ideas
Optimized colors - projectors, different screen warmths tend to affect this
Redesign UI for quick access

All of these things are being packaged in the UI and we are excited to unveil the slick desgin. So thanks to the early testers for the great feedback!

Saw this on Tom Peter’s Blog. I cannot think of a simpler…

rachit — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:31:00 +0000

Saw this on Tom Peter’s Blog. I cannot think of a simpler way of showing how IdeaBahn looks at solving problems by disassembling larger problems into smaller ideas.

A blast from the past. Our direction may have changed since this…

rachit — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:27:24 +0000

A blast from the past. Our direction may have changed since this was made last summer but the concept is still the same.

Using SQLite3 for Rails on MediaTemple (dv)

rachit — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:19:51 +0000

Using SQLite3 for Rails on MediaTemple (dv): Daniel our Tech Ninja shares his knowledge of Rails. It’s a bit technical, but these are the creative things you need to deploy to get all the different technologies working together harmoniously.

Nice retreat this weekend for the team. Back and energized for…

rachit — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:00:47 +0000

Nice retreat this weekend for the team. Back and energized for another week!

Social Entrepreneur Meetup

rachit — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 08:54:00 +0000

Daniel and I attended our first meetup last night here in Chapel Hill. I’m glad to report the the young entrepreneurial community in the Triangle is definitely growing. It was a good chance to meet up with old friends and reminisce about years past.

Certainly a pleasure to hear and see what other people are working. I am definitely going to be pushing on this front in the coming months, because as a young start-up we’re in a position to share our experience and learn from others. That’s essentially why start-up life kicks butt!

On a side note, happy to know a lot people are excited by ideation.