Prateek Dayal

In a few days, another year will be over. This has been one hell of a year. So much learning, so many changes in life and so many new people I have met and interacted with. I wanted to write down a few things here just to record them somewhere and look back at them later. I also never wrote some of the events (of 2008) in my blog due to lack of time or motivation and I figured this should be a good place to note them all down. Lets see

Muziboo

First half of 2008 mostly went in figuring out what won’t work for Muziboo. Ofcourse it did not look that way when we started trying some of the things but then there is no better way to learn. We realized that sometimes what most people say may not be entirely correct. However a few good things happened. We launched a new design and some useful features like online recording and stats that helped us serve a lot of people in ways some other sites were not serving. We also launched Pro Account, our main revenue stream till date. We presented in Proto, worked with an awesome intern and got some good press coverage. There are some things I wish we did better. For example better music recommendations and some more features for listeners (multiple playlists etc) which can help make muziboo a better indie music destination. Nevertheless, this has been the year where we finally found some direction (towards the end of the year though). How that will turn out in the long run, only time will tell but atleast for now, we do have a plan for growing Muziboo.

Other Professional Stuff

As I wrote before, this happens to be the first full year with no job. I did some consulting gigs, mostly working with Elina Network and Circle Souce for the first few months of 2008. After that I decided to focus fulltime on Muziboo. I realized that keeping a balance between consulting and your startup is not easy. Consulting is not a substitute for the income from a job. The only substitute is to cut down costs and focus on building your startup.

Personal Stuff

We moved into a new house at the starting of the year and took some time to settle down. If you have lived in Indiranagar, Bangalore for few years and move to South Bangalore, things feel very different. The traffic is lesser, localities more residential and fewer places to eat out (which actually is better when you are bootstrapping as I later found out). On the personal front, this year we had to cut down on a lot of stuff like trips and travel, shopping, photography etc. Some due to lack of time and some due to lack of disposable income. However, we did make one trip to The Valley of Flowers after Proto which turned out to be more tiring than we had expected. I also attended PAN IIT 2008 in chennai towards the end of the year which was a good break from work.  One good development was joining the gym and trying to get back in shape. Nithya made sure that I was disciplined enough with it and its been quite good to hit the gym to burn out calories and stress :)

Overall 2008 has been a very different year. I realized for the first time what it is to be on your own and what it is to try and grow a business. I also blogged more this year, met with more people than I have ever met in my life before and formed some real long lasting friendships. I will also remember 2008 as the year I lost my best friend. There have been some real highs this year and some real lows and I expect 2009 to be not much different. Goodbye 2008!

PS: We listened to one song a lot this year and there is a version of it on Muziboo that I really like.

Sound of Silence at Muziboo

Popularity: 16% [?]

I must accept that working out of home is an art and I have been trying to master it ever since I quit my job last year. When you work out of home, you end up saving a lot of travel time and traffic stress but there are a lot more opportunities to waste time or even worse, feel bored and demotivated.

There are some things that have helped me avoid the traps and stay productive. Most of these techniques start having some effect only after a couple of weeks so like everything else, patience helps here too :)

Be Accountable and track your progress

Even though you are your own boss, you need to stay accountable to yourself and your startup. That means setting up milestones and then reviewing the progress weekly (or bi-weekly if you prefer).
Since I responsible for the development work in Muziboo, I use Trac + SVN (at assembla) to keep a track of my tasks and then review the progress every now and then. Your work may be never ending but having measurable tasks helps you get a sense of accomplishment amongst other things.

Don’t let the boring work bring you down

This one took me a little while to get used to. Every entrepreneur has to do a lot of not so exciting stuff too and we generally keep avoiding it for as long as we can. This results in a lot of baggage that can cause you to worry about it every now and then. Keep a track of this work too and finish one off for every one or two exciting things that you do. Boring work could be anything from sending a courier to replying to a few emails or getting your car insured :)

Have an office in home

This one is often talked about in the bootstrapping circle. Don’t work out of your bedroom. Have a separate room that is just for work. Try to get out of it even while you have a tea break. Be there just to code.

Don’t try to be over productive

You can be the most productive if you don’t work 24×7. Its good to compulsorily take a day off every week. Initially this make seem like a crime but over a few weeks this would actually help you stay more productive. A break on a sunday helps you look forward to Monday mornings and also gives your head a well deserved break. Also remember that ideas rarely hit you while you are slogging so a break can actually be more useful than you think.

In the end I feel working out of home is like working out of office. Nothing more nothing less. You need to give yourself breaks just like you did when you had a corporate job and you need to review your progress just like you did back then. Setting up some processes help a lot. Working out of home, you have the luxury of setting up processes that are best for you. Use it :)

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