Friday, October 29, 2010

Business plans

http://www.bestbusinessplans.net

Do You Have It In You?

Do You Have It In You?

There is no single sure-shot recipe that makes an entrepreneur, but if you answer a confident 'yes' to most of these questions, then you have high chances of making it

1. Can you bear great financial risk?

Willingness to take risk is one thing, being able to bear it is another. Do you have enough savings stacked up to pay your bills in case the business does not take off? Does your spouse have an income you can fall back on?

2. Do you have a unique service or product?

What you offer need not be 'new', but it should have a value proposition in terms of time, money, or quality over existing products. In other words, even an improvement over previous products can be successful.

3. Are you passionate enough?

If you don't believe in what you are doing, chances are you will never make it. Self-belief and faith in your idea are among the key factors that make a difference to a business. Many real-world case studies confirm the power of passion.

4. Do you have adequate resources?

Can you sustain yourself till profits start rolling in? Make an estimate of probable costs and worst-case scenarios and see whether you can handle them. If you do not have the money, can you borrow it? 

5. Do you have the necessary experience?

You should start your business in an area where you have experience. This isn't mandatory, but crucial if you are starting on a small budget and cannot hire external help. Else, get someone with the required experience.

6. Are you willing to sacrifice your lifestyle?

Any business usually takes a while to succeed. You must be prepared to lead an extremely frugal life for at least a few years. This might mean few vacations, little eating out and even spending less time with the family.

7. Do you like all aspects of running a business?

Running a business means doing all the unglamorous work—from paying utility bills to running around and negotiating with people who might not be particularly excited about your idea. Are you ready to go?\

8. Are you comfortable making decisions on the spot?

With a new business, you call all the shots—and there are a lot of decisions to be made without any guidance. This instant decision-making ability is vital for success.

9. What's your track record of executing your ideas?

Examine your past objectively to see whether you have assumed leadership roles or initiated solo projects. This will give you a clear idea of where you stand when it comes to taking initiative.

***

How Much Money Do I Need?

Start-up capital means money needed till your business starts earning revenues. Assume expenses would be incurred under these heads for between six months to a year. Add 15-20 per cent for unplanned expenses.

1. Preliminary expenses Expenses incurred on initial surveys or for setting up a website

2. Professional expenses To hire professionals like chartered accountants

3. Cost of goods sold To develop a product or service or total income earned minus the profit

4. Selling and distribution expenses Expenses during the sales process

5. Marketing expenses Mainly advertisements or promotions

6. Cost of technology On mobile phones, computer hardware and software, Internet

7. Administration expenses Postage, stationery, rent, telephone and insurance

8. Salary and bonus Founders usually go without salaries for the first few years

9. One-time expenditure Permits, licenses, starting inventory, housing, among others

10. Monthly expenses Telephone bills, rent, wages and salaries and cost of advertisements

Source: www.smartentrepreneur.net

***

The Tight Fist

When you have a small budget, you have to make each penny count. Here is how

Running Your Office

  • Work out of home, use existing infrastructure like laptops and phones—don't buy new ones.
  • Buy cheap PCs and try for good deals on laptops. Don't fall for expensive warranties.
  • Look for cheaper hosting and domain plans.
  • Use Skype to save on phone bills.
  • Take your time while selecting cell phone and Internet plans, review them on a monthly basis.
  • Watch your utility bills—switch off the lights, AC, fans and other appliances when you leave.
  • Print double-sided and in economy mode with lower tones to save toner; use cheaper paper.
  • Rent your non-critical office equipment like ACs, photocopiers, coffee machine.
  • Instal an electric hand dryer in your toilet to save on more expensive paper towels.
  • Watch stationery costs—take free stationery from conferences or vendor (but don't steal!).
  • Recycle scrap—keep pins, rubber bands and clips that you get in the mail.
  • Instal open-source operating systems or use free cloud computing software.

Business Travel

  • Stay with friends or relatives. If you must stay in a hotel, look for cheap options close to meeting locations. Share rooms with colleagues.
  • Use air-miles if you have any.
  • Take afternoon flights: they are cheaper.
  • If you can, get a hotel industry association discount card. You can then get discounts.
  • Plan travel in advance: look for deals. Try to club meetings in a particular city or part of a city.

Hiring People

  • Hire people at less than market rates. Hire only if work can't be done by existing employees.
  • Hire interns, freshers and train them.
  • Find contacts to assist you with legal work, finances etc., instead of outsourcing such work.
  • Don't outsource. Founders should have the core skill-sets to build and sell products. If not, get a person with the skill-set on board.

Managing Expenses

  • Don't invest too much for future needs: think up to one year ahead.
  • Change lifestyle to match cash flows.
  • Create monthly budgets for expenses. Document all expenses.
  • Analyse expenses on a 1-2 week basis and see what can be reduced further.
  • Negotiate deals with vendors or customers to give you discounts for later benefit.
  • Use the Internet extensively for advertising.

Business plan


Aruna Kappagantula Co-founded Bamboo House India, a social enterprise that promotes the use of bamboo products to provide sustainable livelihoods to rural and tribal people. The market is estimated to grow to Rs 26,000 crore by 2015.
Cover Story
30 Small Business Ideas
We thought things were slowing down in this country. Then we found these 30 companies set up by young entrepreneurs for under Rs 5 lakh each. We caught up with them to find out how they did it and how you can too


The businesses we looked at, what they started with, their perceived strengths, how they spread the word and, most vitally, why they think their idea would work today

Part 1

Part 2

***

Talent Equity: A year ago, Indrojit D. Chaudhuri and Manish Raghuvanshi started talent equity solutions in Noida, a forum for employees to voice their opinions about their workplace and salaries. users can log on and read and write anonymously

  

Mogo's Food: Sid Khullar and friends launched it two months ago, to deliver fusion food at economical prices in noida. their reasoning: good food is recession-proof. their usp: easy to order and healthy food

Evam Entertainment: Karthik Kumar teamed with Sunil Vishnu K. to create live entertainment and workshops in Chennai. revenue comes from ticket sales, corporate clientele and brand partnerships. they ride on their creativity and the scope of what they consider an unrecognised field

Bamboo house india: Aruna Kappagantula and Prashant Lingam of Hyderabad try to use bamboo to provide livelihood to rural and tribal people. bamboo, they say, is a viable alternative to wood and plastic

Thunk in india: Suren Vikash U. is a 'best out of waste' type of ideator. his brainchild provides waste management solutions to companies in Bangalore, creates products from waste raw materials and sells them. a viable opportunity, he says, if the final product is of good quality

***

ABCs Matter>>

The questions that shape a business plan


Sec 1.0 an introduction When was the company formed and by whom? Where is it based? What does the company uniquely offer?

Sec 2.0 Market opportunity What is the opportunity, need or problems in the market? Who is experiencing the need? How big is the opportunity? How fast is the opportunity growing?

Sec 3.0 Offering What is being offered to address the need? What are the different components of the offer?

Sec 4.0 The competition Why and how is the offering unique? How will it successfully compete?

Sec 5.0 Market Who are the customers? How will they use it? How is the market segmented? What does this offer mean to them?

Sec 6.0 Business model How will the offering be delivered to customers? What does the delivery chain look like? How will the support process work? How will revenue and costs flow across the chain?

Sec 7.0 Sales and marketing plan How will customers be acquired? What are the different modules or components to be sold? What are the price points?

Sec 8.0 Development plan What are the timelines and technologies? What is the strategy for product development?

Sec 9.0 Roadmap Over the next 24 months, what will be the sales and marketing objectives? What will be the company's objectives? What are the product development objectives? What is the exit strategy?

Sec 10.0 Current situation What is the present status of the offer? Are any customers testing or using it? How much money has been invested? How many employees are there?

Sec 11.0 Financials How much money do you need? When, how and at what levels will you break even? What is the monthly outlook for the next 12-18 months?

Tips: Keep the business plan about 20-25 pages in length. Number the pages, check spellings, and make sure the document is logically consistent.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

மகிழும்

அவளின் பூவிழிச் சிரிப்பினில் பூலோகம் மகிழும்

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

bind() function failure

Issue description:  bind() function is failed with error code -1.

RCA:[Root Cause Analysis]

  For this issue, I checked why bind () fn is failed.
Usually all the socket functions will return -1 for failure cases.
To know more about why it is failed, We can use WSAGetLastError() fn in case of windows.
But in case of unix/linux, There is no such function.
Instead the error value will be set to "errno" variable. We have to check this errno to know the failure.

Solution:
  I got the the file does not exit error.
Some junk  IP address value is passed to bind() function's input arguments. That is the reason, we observed this error.
I set the IP address as zero before bind() fn [which is working fine for successful cases, for failure cases,we are getting

junk IP addresses]

  I set the IP address to zero to resolve this issue.

 

Sunday, October 17, 2010

How to find the crash point in mipsandroid platform/C/C++ program

How to find the crash point in mipsandroid platform:


ps  - to list down all the processes


ps id : 568 for /system/bin/mediaserver.

 

It is best to put the following command while the application is executing/try to play streaming.

Issues I observed:
         librtsp.so is not loaded without try streaming. rtsp.so is loaded at runtime, so it has to be

 

cat /proc/568/maps


00080000-00082000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64767      /system/bin/mediaserver
00082000-000a0000 rwxp 00082000 00:00 0          [heap]
10000000-10100000 rw-p 10000000 00:00 0
2aaa8000-2aab0000 r--s 00000000 00:07 160        /system_properties (deleted)
2aab0000-2abae000 r--p 00000000 08:05 56876      /dev/binder
5060d000-50611000 rwxp 5060d000 00:00 0
50700000-50778000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64939      /system/lib/librtsp.so
50800000-50880000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64873      /system/lib/libhttp.so

69f00000-69f39000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64875      /system/lib/libbinder.so
6d800000-6d80f000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64892      /system/lib/libdrm1.so
6d80f000-6d810000 rwxp 6d80f000 00:00 0
76180000-762e6000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64905      /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
78400000-7859b000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64933      /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
78700000-78706000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64919      /system/lib/libopencore_mp4localreg.so

I/DEBUG   (  484): *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
I/DEBUG   (  484): Build fingerprint: 'generic/generic/generic/:2.1-update1/ECLAIR/eng.root.20100819.121118:eng/test-keys'
I/DEBUG   (  484): pid: 568, tid: 842  >>> /system/bin/mediaserver <<<
I/DEBUG   (  484): signal 11 (SIGSEGV), fault addr 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):  zr 00000000  at 00091d65  v0 00000000  v1 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):  a0 00000000  a1 00091d65  a2 00000025  a3 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):  t0 00000000  t1 00000000  t2 00000000  t3 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):  t4 203e3e20  t5 00000001  t6 00000000  t7 79616c50
I/DEBUG   (  484):  s0 785a1ab0  s1 7859a248  s2 7855f060  s3 00093f24
I/DEBUG   (  484):  s4 00000000  s5 761b4e78  s6 762e5594  s7 762e5590
I/DEBUG   (  484):  t8 00000008  t9 7ef0fca0  k0 00091d65  k1 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):  gp 7ef6fd60  sp 2b0aecc8  s8 2b0aee28  ra 78552da4
I/DEBUG   (  484):  hi 30bb3c31  lo 718c07e0 bva 00000000 epc 78552da8
I/DEBUG   (  484):          #00  pc 78552da8  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):          #01  ra 78552da4  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):
I/DEBUG   (  484): code around pc:
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552d98 8f999dc8 0320f809 8e048788 8e24000c
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552da8 8c8b0000 8d790024 0320f809 00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552db8 8fbc0010 144000fd ae620000 240d0008
I/DEBUG   (  484):
I/DEBUG   (  484): code around lr:
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552d94 8fbc0010 8f999dc8 0320f809 8e048788
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552da4 8e24000c 8c8b0000 8d790024 0320f809
I/DEBUG   (  484): 78552db4 00000000 8fbc0010 144000fd ae620000
I/DEBUG   (  484):
I/DEBUG   (  484): stack:
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec88  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec8c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec90  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec94  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec98  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aec9c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeca0  2b0aec98
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeca4  00000001
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeca8  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecac  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecb0  00000025
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecb4  761b4e78  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecb8  785a1ab0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecbc  7859a248  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecc0  7855f060  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecc4  78552da4  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecc8  0009ba70  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeccc  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecd0  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecd4  00000001
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecd8  7859f4b0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecdc  761b62d8  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aece0  785a1ab0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aece4  0009ba70  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aece8  00095bb8  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecec  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecf0  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecf4  7853e094  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecf8  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aecfc  7853c9e8  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed00  00093d90  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed04  00000006
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed08  00093f24  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed0c  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed10  7859f4b0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed14  761b4e78  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed18  00094038  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed1c  00000006
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed20  00093d90  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed24  785454e4  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed28  00093d90  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed2c  0009ba70  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed30  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed34  00095c64  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed38  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed3c  00095c68  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed40  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed44  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed48  761b4e78  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed4c  762e5594  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed50  762e5590  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed54  7ef52a7c  /system/lib/libc.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed58  2b0aedd0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed5c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed60  00095bc4  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed64  761a441c  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed68  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed6c  00000001
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed70  fffffffb
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed74  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed78  7859f4b0
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed7c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed80  00000001
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed84  7ef52b4c  /system/lib/libc.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed88  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed8c  2b0aed90
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed90  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed94  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed98  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aed9c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeda0  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeda4  00095bb8  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeda8  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedac  00095c60  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedb0  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedb4  7ef118ac  /system/lib/libc.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedb8  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedbc  761b8e04  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedc0  762eac70
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedc4  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedc8  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedcc  00093d94  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedd0  00095c7c  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedd4  761b4f3c  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedd8  00093d94  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aeddc  00095c54  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aede0  00095c14  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aede4  761b7e9c  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aede8  00093f98  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedec  761a441c  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedf0  762eac70
W/ActivityManager(  661): Activity pause timeout for HistoryRecord{2e933808 com.player.mp/.MediaPlayer}
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedf4  761a4974  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedf8  00094038  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aedfc  762e5494  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee00  00093d94  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee04  00095c7c  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee08  00095bb8  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee0c  761b5104  /system/lib/libopencore_common.so
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee10  00095bb8  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee14  00093d94  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee18  7ef6fd60
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee1c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee20  762eac70
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee24  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee28  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee2c  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee30  00000000
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee34  00093f80  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee38  2b0aee2c
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee3c  00095c00  [heap]
I/DEBUG   (  484):     2b0aee40  00093f80  [heap]

 


Crash library address range:

78400000-7859b000 rwxp 00000000 08:05 64933      /system/lib/libopencore_player.so


PC :
-------
#00  pc 78552da8  /system/lib/libopencore_player.so


Diff/Lookup Address: (78552da8-78400000) =  0x152DA8

How to calculate lookup address:

Lookup Address = (Crash address  - loadingAddress of a library)

Find crash point address Using addr2line along with Lookup address:

root@laptop:/opt/mips-4.3/bin# ./mips-linux-gnu-addr2line -e

/home/Streaming/mipsandroid/out/target/product/generic/symbols/system/lib/libopencore_player.so 0x152da8
/home/Streaming/mipsandroid/external/opencore/android/MediaControl.cpp:415
root@laptop:/opt/mips-4.3/bin#

The crash is at 415 th line in /home/Streaming/mipsandroid/external/opencore/android/MediaControl.cpp file.

Reason: Null pointer in mStack that is the reason for the crash.
The code is as below without NULL check
aResult = mStack->stackStop();

To resolve this issue, I added the below code:

 if(!mStack)
 {
  return; 
 }
 aResult = mStack->stackStop();

Friday, October 15, 2010

Buddha quotes 2

Do not believe what you have heard.
Do not believe in tradition because it is handed down many generations.
Do not believe in anything that has been spoken of many times.
Do not believe because the written statements come from some old sage.
Do not believe in conjecture.
Do not believe in authority or teachers or elders.
But after careful observation and analysis, when it agrees with reason and it will benefit one and all, then accept it and live by it.

- Gautama Buddha

buddha quotes

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly – Buddha