My Trip to the Valley!

I had a very short but interesting trip to the valley! This time it was not about the vacation or the holiday, it was about business!

As soon as I landed, I rented out a car and drove to Los Gatos, where I had my first meeting. After the meeting, I drove to Cupertino and you know what that means - Yes, I went to the APPLE HQ. Sadly, didnt have a meeting there but was just visiting a friend who works there. Later that evening, a couple of my friends and I went to dinner at Mountain View. This place was full of Googlers everywhere!

The next day, I started my day brainstorming with my team on a new content-based product idea where we conceptualized what we intended to build. Later in the afternoon, I felt the taste of a hungry, smart and business focussed person from the valley. Meeting him was great experience not because he was influential in the valley but also because the picture he painted through his conversations was just astounding. I adapted myself to the situation and as an entrepreneur started talking (or at least tried talking) in the same tone and language as what I assumed is the type of tone used in the valley. Post that meeting, I went to meet an Entrepreneur from Mumbai. After knowing about our startup, he immediately connected us to another startup where he thought synergies could be discussed. This I think is the best part about Entreprenership - there is always a lot of sharingof either connections, knowledge orlearnings. He & I spoke more from a grassroot level which made me want to think about a lot of other things in the process. I think the thing that stuck the most with me is the conversation about surviving. He asked me to think about a situation where we would have a ZERO bank balance, and asked me to further think of what we would do to ensure that we dont have a ZERO bank balance. He hinted SALES! Excellent discussion! There is always a lot to learn from other Entrepreneurs.

The final day in the valley, my friends took me to Santa Cruz - a beach area where we chilled out a bit before we headed back. Before I went to the airport, I had this one last meeting. This meeting, I was able to demo one of our products in MVP stage and the good news was they really liked it and wanted to talk further!

Well, the perfect way to end the trip in the valley. Like I said, it was a short trip but a great learning experience and also progress from a business perspective too.

I didn’t take pics but I have the memories in my mind. I now wish I had Google Glass! :-)

- Rajeev Chhajer
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Working from 'The Center for Agile Thinking' HQ!

The new year started with a big bang at both the Last-Bench! office in Mumbai and The Center for Agile Thinking office in US. The boys in Mumbai have been on a roll and continuously producing learning content. I'd like to share my experience working out of The Center for Agile Thinking HQ in Princeton, New Jersey.

Work as usual started from the 1st day of January. That I'd like to call #LifeOfAnEntrepreneur. Prof. Anne, Charlie and I started work with getting an agenda down first of what we wanted to accomplish over the next 4 days. We came up with a list of 9 items and we achieved 8 out of them, which was very exciting!

The day started out with coffee, went into discussions, ideations and brainstorming. We also got down to some real work which included content and technology. I got to meet a very interesting management consultant while I was there with whom we validated our product, idea and value proposition.

Charlie and I got our hands wet with some server issues, discussed wireframes, design and user-interface. Prof. Anne and I reviewed content for some of our offerings. We had our first virtual team meeting with Sajid and Venkat in India and I was here in the US. It felt a bit different but the feeling was good.

Our days started at around 8am and went on until 8-10pm but it never felt tiring or stressful. Intermittently, our conversations ranged from culture to experiences, which maintained the balance and equilibrium in our minds!:-) I learned Charlie is an awesome musician who also learnt from Pt. Ravi Shankar back during his college days. He played the Piano on one of the evenings as we all were relaxing and it was perfect! The music was relaxing and it got us energized. He played Jazz to Classic Rock. I didn't know a whole lot of Jazz but he played Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Billy Joel. What an experience to see him play the Piano!

Even on the last day, usually one would feel relaxed but we were on a roll and got a lot of work done on the final day too. With al the work, I was balancing calls and work back in India and tried in whatever little way I could to support the team in every possible manner which included communicating all our discussions here with Sajid and Venkat too.

Prof. Anne and Charlie were great hosts. For me, it felt like home and working from the office was the best start to the New Year!

Here are some pics:

Last-Bench!: The journey so far and what lies ahead...

Every couple months I ask myself questions like - "How have we been doing as a startup? What is our progress? Are we focussing on the same vision or have we deviated? What should we be doing as we power into the future?". This is when I call for the "SPECIAL" meeting outside work with my partners in crime - Sajid and Venkat, just to discuss these things and ideate with them.

Very recently, instead of me asking this time, someone from the VC community asked me this question and I confidently replied:

"We've been executing projects in the skill development and educational content design areas which has helped us get in revenue and also allowed us to do research towards our larger goal of delivering personalized skill development online."

Having said that, I'm very proud to announce that we've come into an exclusive joint venture with Cognetics Corporation. Both Congetics and Last-Bench! share a common vision and launched The Center for Agile Thinking in India too. The mission is to help businesses achieve their goals by raising the level and quality of decision-making within their organizations. As a team, we hold great experience, subject matter expertise, technology expertise and a network to tap into. We've taken a first stab at our online platform and have began our development activities.

I do believe we're going in the right direction and with the help of my super team and great advisors we are getting closer to our larger goal!

Will keep ya'll updated! 

-Rajeev (@rajeevchhajer)

Last-Bench featured on CNBC Awaaz

In late september, when we signed up for an online 30 minute personal mentoring session with Gozoop's Ahmed Naqvi to help us align our Social Media strategy, little did we imagine we'd end up getting a WHOLE lot more. In fact we were geared up to just listen to what Ahmed had to say and try  and get as many of our questions answered within the duration of the hangout. Hence when we got a call from Ankita Gaba (of Social Samosa, who organized this amazing event) asking if we were willing to have our mentoring session covered by CNBC Awaaz, our response (quite understandably) was a resounding YES! It's not everyday that you (a) get picked by CNBC Awaaz as the startup they want to cover for a entrepreneurial feature (b) welcome the immensely knowledgable Ms. Gaba to your office (c) get your strategy fixed by Mr. Naqvi. A one-of-a-kind triple whammy! :D 

Of course our joy soon translated into a massive bout of nervousness by D-Day morning and it was a rush against time to ensure we got our message perfected for the viewing audience. But more than the TV feature, it was important that we didn't lose focus from the objective of this exercise - to learn, get ideas and tips from Ahmed himself and understand how we can leverage the massive opportunity that Social Media provides small companies like ours. A few cups of coffee, lots of notes and brainstorming were enough for us to feel confident about getting past this exciting yet important day.

In retrospect, the could not have gone any better. We really accomplished all the we had intended to. Ms. Gaba too was kind enough to build on Ahmed's invaluable, precise and thought-provoking advice and help us get some expert tips to start doing the right things to gain momentum on Social Media. The interview with CNBC, as expected, gave us much needed mileage and the opportunity to be discovered not just from a local, but from a national perspective as well. We've heard some great feedback and inputs from friends and family who saw us on TV (one even refusing to believe he was seeing us on TV and had to change the channel and go back to ensure it wasn't a 'lack-of-sleep induced hallucination' :D) and also happened to generate a lot of interest from students, professors and educational institutions curious as to how we can help them achieve their goals. 

We'd like to end by saying a big than you to Ankita Gaba for providing us with all the help, support and the opportunity, Ahmed Naqvi for his great insights, advice and incredible patience and CNBC Awaaz for choosing us amongst the many other startups to be featured on their show. Needless to say, we're over the moon :)

Here is the CNBC awaaz video and pics from the event:

Click here for pictures of the mentoring session & CNBC Awaaz

For all of our friends outside of India:
If you wish to view the CNBC video, kindly send us an email on chalktalk@last-bench.com with the subject as "CNBC VIDEO LINK" and we'll be glad to share with you the link for the video (with english subtitles).

Corporate Training Video (demo): 'Giving Effective Feedback'

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Last-Bench! turns ONE...

Message from Rajeev:

I am truly excited as our startup turns one. I’d like to use this opportunity to quickly let you know what has transpired over the last one year and what you can expect from us in the future...