<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="0.92">
<channel>
	<title>Vivek Ravisankar&#039;s web</title>
	<link>http://rvivek.com</link>
	<description>web, startups and life.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 26 Mar 2012 06:45:53 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<docs>http://backend.userland.com/rss092</docs>
	<language>en</language>
	<!-- generator="WordPress/3.0.4" -->

	<item>
		<title>Bootstrapping</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Bootstrapping in early days has indirect advantages that are hard to spot during the time. Ironically the learnings help a lot after funding or during the growth phase. We started Interviewstreet with our own money in 2009 and for over two years ran it without any external funding (our first funding was from YC in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2012/03/bootstrapping/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Six ideas</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There are many unsolved problems in the web. Here are six ideas that I&#8217;d love to see in action for which I&#8217;ll definitely be a paying customer. Some of them might exist and would love to know if they do, but most of them seem frighteningly ambitious. [1] Smarter e-mail E-mail is hell and it sucks [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2012/03/six-ideas/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>[Mistake] Everyone is right</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The feeling of insecurity crops up quite a number of times when starting up, especially in the early days. It&#8217;s both exciting and scary, like how an 8-year old kid feels when left home alone the first time, for a couple of hours. This fear sometimes affects the self-confidence which makes everyone around you appear [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2012/01/everyone/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Mistakes</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve made (still continue to) a lot of mistakes while building Interviewstreet &#8211; bad product decisions, terrible demos, wrong hires, screwed up relationships and many more. Morale of founders is probably the biggest determinant of how long a startup will sail. Every failure dents the morale a little bit and when it hits zero, the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2012/01/mistakes/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>What&#8217;s this valley all about?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyone talks about this magical place called &#8216;valley&#8217; to start a company, so what does this magical place contain? #1 Focus Startups are lonely, tough and very hard to build. It&#8217;s also highly unlikely that you might hit off with your very first product/idea. I&#8217;ve seen a lot of YC companies that have pivoted 2-3 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/12/valley/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Deprivation and pain</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The title might sound sober but ironically these two are strongly tied to happiness and achieving goals at a later stage. I&#8217;m reading an amazing book on psychology of humans, love, etc. which also somewhat states the above. Here&#8217;s an interesting snippet from the book &#8220;A 30-year old financial analyst complained she&#8217;s procrastinating a lot despite [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/11/deprivation-and-pain/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>What drives founders?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A vast majority of web entrepreneurs want to be millionnaires. It would be a lie and even economically bad if it wasn&#8217;t so. But, is money the driving force for the founders? I don&#8217;t think so. Early stage &#8211; when you start building the product. Making money from the startup is either a secondary motive [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/07/what-drives-founders/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Building faster horses</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses&#8221; &#8211; Henry Ford This is a famous quote that is often misinterpreted. So, does that mean, you should never ask people what they want? as opposed to the general startup advice that says &#8216;Ask people what they want&#8216;. I think the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/07/building-faster-horses/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Why the 37signals style of work doesn&#8217;t apply to startups?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Heads up: I&#8217;m a big fan of David &#038; Jason and this post deals with the beginning stage of startups I&#8217;ve been following their blog posts, talks, books for quite sometime and without any doubt they&#8217;re doing amazing work. I agree with most of the things they say except for their stress on work-life balance [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/06/why-the-37signals-style-of-work-dont-apply-to-startups/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Psychology of web</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was at Starbucks waiting for a demo when I bumped onto a random magazine that was lying on the table. I was flipping through it when a page that said &#8216;Psychological behavior of humans&#8216; caught my attention. I started reading and subsequently had a meeting with Garry on UX designing. The resulting discussions &#038; [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://rvivek.com/2011/06/the-psychology-of-web/</link>
			</item>
</channel>
</rss>

