Interesting article and even more interesting are the lines

“The IT industry in India still follows the best practices it had introduced earlier. But this does not mean employees will work less. If they are being asked to stick to duty hours, this will increase the productivity,” explained Infosys Technologies HR head TV Mohandas Pai.

“Besides,” he added, “they are also being paid well to work hard. These are difficult times and if they don’t work hard then there will not be any industry left in coming days.”

The big IT companies seem to be affected badly. One of the reasons for the current problems is the huge trade deficit of the US and they can reduce it by limiting the work outsourced. Already the salaries earned by many IT professionals are very high, they may prefer to do the work (and keep the money) in US itself.

The writer correctly points out that until you rule the mind, you will never dominate the world, whatever your financial status.  And unfortunately, the mainstream media in India today mainly promotes copycats and mediocrity.  Venture capital funding (from mainly US firms) = Success . This attitude makes it very difficult for an Indian company to sell a product or service worldwide.

They cringe when we are called a third world country, but are the page 3 parties, filmstars and luxury lifestyles so favored by the English media representative of the country ?

When advertising budgets shrink, the CPM and CPC declines.  If you have spent a lot of time and money getting traffic to your website and have high fixed costs ,  your operations will be affected.   If you have diversified  and have low overheads , you can survive.

Interesting presentation with numbers. I am very frugal and do not like to waste money, so at least the next one year should not be a problem . I only wish there was a reliable marketplace where Indian websites/online businesses on sale would be listed. Most venture capitalists will want their money back soon.

I have always been fascinated by financial systems worldwide, you can never live beyond your means forever. Seems there may be a repeat of Bretton Woods

Having worked in the corporate world for several years, I find that Web 2.0 is very irrelevant to most businesses. Companies spend a lot of time and money collating information which is proprietary in nature and will never share the information freely with their competitors.

I make money online,  but I have spent a lot of time and money experimenting to find out what works and what does not. The knowledge I have is not coding, which is basically a+a = 2a . Why should I share it with others for the sake of friendship or networking?

Other than startups flush with money from Venture Capitalist, most of the major spenders online are small and medium enterprises, and they will never share their trade secrets easily. In fact Web 2.0 makes corporate espionage easier, so no well run non-internet business will promote many aspects of Web 2.0.

Information stolen from Just Dial ( I wonder why I cannot locate the original article on the Times of India website)

One of the most frustrating things about having an online business in India, is that other Indian internet companies judge you by the number of staff ,  the kind of office you have or how slick your website is.  They think that just because I do not have a conventional setup, they can get away with their unethical business practices.  I have a very simple business philosophy, if you treat me fairly, I will do business with you, else I will look elsewhere.

It is very difficult to get a good deal or negotiate prices with these companies even if you are spending a lot of money or make a lot of profits.  Few spend time understanding their customers or website visitors. Most companies outside India are far more objective, it is much more easier to deal with them.

Big companies will always protect their own interests and there is little a small business can do if they are dependent on a single source of revenue / supplier.  So I always look for new vendors for purchases, if  the new vendor is good, I can get a better price and a backup.

By the end of this month, I should get payment from at least 15 different companies for very different products and services and I hope to increase it to at least 30 by the end of the year. For an online business, it is very important to know who you can trust and who you cannot. If the other party is not interested in working with you or is not reliable, it is better to look at other options or you will regret it when it is too late.

I was seriously considering working on affiliate programs, but after reading about the cookie stuffing scam, selling space at a fixed rate seems to be the best option. The worst thing you can  do is not try, there are so many money making options I regret not having experimented with earlier.