Its happening

We are moving into interesting times at bookmemark and that is killerstartups.com - a leading website that identifies the up and coming innovative websites - has reviewed bookmemark.
you can read it at
http://www.killerstartups.com/User-Gen-Content/bookmemark-com-personal-and-social-bookmarking/

We are delighted to have it at this point in time, when things started decelerating a bit.

Killerstartups notes bookmemark to be a "thorough bookmarking experience....has a catchy design". This is what we broadly wanted to achieve and it is quite delightful to have an unbiased review that is appreciative of our efforts.

We can proudly say that we got users from all over the world - maybe not in terms of numbers, YET. We are hunting for an effective way to reach scale and build traffic.

Keep checking for our updates and more happening events!.

First Post- It ought to be personal!!

It is going to be a month since we officially yet unofficially launched bookmemark.com and I guess shankar must be pretty pissed about me not having posted in our blog yet. ;) . I just thought it was high time to talk business. Well, I think we got a whole eon to talk about business. But, maybe only the first few posts to talk about some things more than just business......and those are relationships, kinship, emotions and the like.

Myself and shankar are two-of-a-kind in word and spirit, having known him for over 3 years. I have always wondered, will this guy get serious at all?. I concluded, "nah!". One fine day, after several months in oblivion, he called to talk about a 'business proposition'.

What happens when most businesses need a push, they call the consultants. Probably, he thought I was good one or what not, I dont know ;).We talked about a new concept and it sounded exciting. That was when i starting questioning my firmly-concieved notions about this guy. It might just be that he managed to 'talk business'. Actually, Bookmemark is just one of his several business ideas that has taken form and others are soon to follow.

Here I am, now, giving more than just pitch for the 'killer product' that we have developed.

Yeah, We probably have something in common at last and that's the passion or even an obsession to create something ourselves and to leave a legacy behind. That's exactly why we are here and I guess that obsession will constantly reverberate, changing into a beat from the depths of our hearts.

Hoping to share a lot more.

Get Hooked. Have fun!

Karthi

Allowance: Huh?! What Shop do you get it?

Firstly, this post has nothing to do with Bookmemark. It is about an experience last week at a new food stall in my office cafeteria.

There was a new food stall at my office and being the first day, these guys were still trying to finding their feet in an alien environment. They were doing their level best to manage the show. I mean, the efforts were really seen as they ran everywhere trying to appease everyone and give the best service possible. As with any selling, first impressions go a long way in winning customers –these guys were serious and meant business.

What I had a problem with was the attitude shown by some colleagues. They just didn't give any allowance for the slightest delay or mistakes. When you shift houses, even if it is your own house, you wouldn't quite understand much for the first few days, right? When you take up a new job- the first week is always used to acclimatize the conditions. I can probably list a few more examples if I want to but I think I made my point.

Getting back, these new guys were treated quite harshly by a few colleagues. Fine, I do agree that service and quality of food are the most important criteria in hospitality industry but what happened to basic humanitarian-allowance.

It is not like I am Mother Theresa living my life understanding others problems. I hate when I don’t get due service for the money that I pay. In the place I live (Chennai); I can list few tier-1 hotels that give plain pathetic service. I have seen people take shit from these big-bullies but on the other hand go really hard on smaller guys who try their heart out to give a good service.

May be, what I saw was an anomaly and sincerely hope that I am wrong. Whatever is the case, do think about it. Why not give a little allowance? The next time you are on road; may be the bike rider made an honest mistake or the auto/taxi guy was really in a hurry. Man is a social animal and a small allowance would make it really easy in smoothening lots of things. I know it is easier said than done but that is some food for your thought.

Since we are trying to sell an experience (Bookmemark) ourselves, my mind could have sub-consciously picked normal user frustrations and I have an exaggerated strong opinion on it. It could very well be the case but my point still makes sense, right?!

Oh between, the food was really awesome at the new place and they have much better co-ordination now. Also, I have made it my default lunch place now.

Lull before the Storm

When I started to Blog, I wanted to write atleast 2-3 posts per week. As I had mentioned in my earlier post, we are working hard to get the Scribblebook (quite similar to Scrapbook) functionality and also tie up a few loose knots in the site. I have been quite busy with this and hence, haven't been able to write much for the last few days.

Now, we are almost done and once it is over- you would see a rain of interesting posts as to how we reach our target of 100,000 users within the next 10 months.

Stay around!

Exciting Times Here!

It is 2.17 A.M in my laptop. I am just back from Rathakrishan’s place after yet another night of designing and brainstorming. My eyes are on fire and I am looking like a completely doped guy. I love my sleep and the lack of it is driving me crazy. Anyways, let me stop cribbing and get on with the post.

We were discussing new functionalities and features that are to be added in Bookmemark as we roll out the site. It is a very exciting phase and I wanted to write about the whole thing. We have planned for three functionalities and features in Bookmemark in the coming weeks. In the order of priorities, they are:

• Scribble Book
• Importing from IE and Firefox and Adding Bookmarks from Toolbar
• RSS Feeds

Tonight, we are just done designing a classy scribble book for all users. It is completely unobtrusive and has come out just the way I had imagined in my head. It doesn’t take the shine away from bookmarks and at the same time is placed in the perfect position to compliment it. One of the main things that was lacking in the site earlier was interaction between the users. Now, the site has taken a completely new level with Bookmarking coupled with Social Networking. I dont know any site that offers this at this point apart from the other features that we already provide.

As with anything and like everyone, I am unhappy with a couple of things in the way the scrapbook has come out. One, we don’t have a scroll for the scribble book (you will understand what I mean once it is added in site). Two, the character limit for scribbles would be 200 characters. Though both these are technically feasible, doing this would mean- the symmetrical visual look of the page would take a hit. Trade off between visuals and functionalities is very tough for me and I have never been sure where to draw the line between them. Should it be an “APPLE” or “GOOGLE”? For this case, I am leaving it as it is. Will get your feedbacks and do the changes, if necessary.

As with the other features, it is still in the planning stages. Importing, able to add bookmarks from toolbar and RSS feeds are very important features. Probably, the first version of Bookmemark would be frozen once these functionalities done. We are very clear with the plan and once you are clear with the plan, it is only a question of time, effort and some sleepless nights. Oh, let me not get started on it again. :P

I have always been a supremely confident person and with Bookmemark, I am 200 % confident that it will be a major hit. I know it is not easy and it would take almost double the efforts of what we have been doing to get it to this stage. But you know what, I just know that it will be a HIT.

Pray and wish for our success. It is yours too!

First Marketing Collateral: Mailer that was sent to Friends

I had written a 1-pager and sent it to my close set talking about Bookmemark and announcing the launch of it. I wanted to keep it short n simple. Didn’t end up short, hope it was simple at least!

Here is a copy of the mailer that was sent:

Hi Barry,

Hope all is well.

I have been working on a project with I think would be useful considering our ever increasing dependence on the web.

I am almost done with it and I am planning on a soft launch by requesting the close set of friends to have a look at it for load testing, suggestions, feedbacks and possible errors.

What is Bookmemark (www.bookmemark.com) about?!

Ever been frustrated with the shortcomings of IE/Firefox favourites? Let us be honest here, it is chaotic, not user friendly, PC dependent and above all doesn't allow me to organize, share, or search my ever increasing list of bookmarks.

Isn't THE web an integral part of our personal and social life? Why be stuck with a cassette player when there is THE iPod for free?

Bookmemark lets you store, organize, search and manage your favourite bookmarks (web pages you always wanted to retain/share) online, making it accessible from virtually anywhere.

Apart from saving bookmarks as either private or public, I can also share it within my friend's network. Alas, there is a problem. There are some links I wouldn't want to share to all my friends. What do I do?

Simple. Bookmemark allows you to create as many groups within your friend's network and share bookmarks within that group (in a 2-way process).

Also, you would get to discover really interesting sites (news, video, music, recipes, info, you-name-it) as all the links are someone's favourite. Sounds cool?

Wait; there are loads of other features as well. Have fun. See ya around!

Here we go, proud to present www.bookmemark.com

Kindly become a member, play around and let know your valuable suggestions and ideas.

Thanks & Regards,
Shankar
Bookmemark Team

Official Soft Launch

I am not too sentimental about dates or timings. I just make sure that I follow the protocols and don’t forget anyone who helped me with Bookmemark. Apart from the fact that, Bookmemark had a zillion bugs that needed to be fixed, I was going slowly on the launch as I had to iron out some personal issues with a very close friend (Eniyavan) before I could even think of it. Without some of these guys, I don’t think Bookmemark would be online today.

As the known bugs were under control and I had sorted out the differences, the big day had come. I had mixed feelings and frankly I didn’t even feel any different. I didn’t even know how you go about launching something like this. What did I do? Wrote a 1-pager about Bookmemark and then mailed it to my closest circle.

I still haven’t gone full steam in getting the word out and will do so over this weekend. But for the records, Bookmemark was officially launched on 19-03-2008.

Did I say; I am not sentimental about dates?! Not sure what this post was then about! :p

Thank you, guys!

Here is a list of guys, I am indebted beyond words could possibly explain. Also, get an idea behind the team that worked tirelessly for what Bookmemark is now today.

This is going to be quite a long one. Stay with me!

Technical Team: Rathakrishnan, Sivakumar and Thirumurugan.

I just don’t know how to thank these guys. Rathakrishnan is the technical head of the team and to talk of him in one word- Genius, period! I have come up with just so many late changes and corrections and not once has he said a NO. I mean, I know for myself that some of these changes are just plain crazy. I don’t know if this is how it works in the software world but I do know that they have to change the whole fuckin logic and re-do the entire work which would have consumed many nights. Before even thinking of the complexities of the corrections, he would start thinking usability and building more on my suggestion. He is a just a dream-come-true guy to lead your project.

Sivakumar is easily one of the best developers going around. Apart from the fact that he is brilliant, he is a very hard worker and isn’t that a deadly combo to have? I have to mention it here- Siva recently shifted companies and that means, he would work in the new office from 9-6, help his old company from 7-11 in the evening and then work on Bookmemark till 5 in the morning. Need I say more?!

Thirumurugan is relatively a fresher to the project. He is officially the first full time employer in Shanovouz Ventura (that is the name of the company under which Bookmemark now operates). I bug him so much that he is going to give it to me royally sometime very soon. I can be a real pain-in the-ass at times and he has shown tremendous temperament in handling it. I am getting comfortable working with him by the day. He is a very hard worker and an even quick learner.

I also have to mention my web designers- Kartik, Arvind and another designer (I just can’t recall his name, he was in my previous company for a very short while and he was the guy who had come up with that funky personal, social and global font in the home page). I had taken the services of these guys at various times and thank you so much so for all your efforts.

I should wholeheartedly thank Poornima, who apart from being a real support, also made sure that the designs of Bookmemark came out so beautifully. The tassel in Bookmemark logo which makes the logo so classy was her idea and I can probably go on and on, if I have to start listing them.

Corp (Karthikeyan, who henceforth would be addressed as Corp) is a good friend and has been helping me in the marketing aspects of Bookmemark. He is a MBA unlike me and brings in the wealth of management fundas to the table. He is very meticulous, highly reliable and very prompt.

There are my close friends then (Anee, Eddy, Eni, Jai, Jagee, Kale, Tugga, Sangee and others) who have been providing some great feedbacks and pointing out obvious errors.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents who have been marvellous. My dad has been my inspiration and role model. Without him, I don’t think I would have had this entrepreneurial streak within me and without which I wouldn’t have set about a journey called Bookmemark. My mom has been a doll with her constant pampering and being a punch bag whenever I wanted to let my frustrations out.

Thank you guys!

P.S: In case, I had missed out on any others- I sincerely apologize and it is not intentional. You know me!

First Blog

Where do I start? I usually start with the disclaimers. Here I go, I am bad at writing and I am even worse with words. At times, I get convoluted so I request you guys to stay with me if my posts are a little confusing and redundant. I think that should be it for now.

I always wanted to write but just didn’t have enough things to write about (that is a lame excuse, I know) and couldn’t find the time to do even if I found one (that is an even worse excuse, isn’t it?). Of late, the urge within me to write has been burning so much that I started thinking of topics I would want to discuss with my friends as blog posts. . For example, why we are forced to give alms to beggars in traffic signals, why the VC scene in India is bad, why is Sachin immortal, How do we make big bucks in life?, How we live an artificial life?, etc. Yes, completely different and apart from the fact that I have an opinion on them- nothing else is the connection.

And then, I always wanted to pen my experiences working on Bookmemark- a project that I started approximately sometime in September 2006 and something that I have been eating, drinking and sleeping for the last 6-8 months. There are just so many experiences that I want to write about- experiences that would really bring a smile when I look at them many years from now. Also, I always loved behind-the-scene actions, be it the credits scene of a Jackie Chan movie or an Indian cricket team’s victory celebration after winning a cup. So, for inquisitive ones like me- I want to give a glimpse as to how we built and run Bookmemark.

So, what is this blog going to be about? I guess it is going to be a mixture of both with Bookmemark taking the lion’s share. I am too lazy to open another blog and scribble my thoughts on disparate things in life.

Oh, for those who don’t know me yet; I am Shankar and I am just a normal guy who has been plain lucky in life throughout. What else? Hmmm... You will get to know me more as I write more. Sounds good?

Also, I have another friend Karthikeyan (we call him Corp around here) who helps me with Bookmemark. He is going to contribute to the blog as well. May be, you will get to know more about him in his posts.

Now that is not too bad, I have come up with a post.

Please leave a comment if you feel like. As always, have fun. Enjoy the ride.