New ventures and Smart Phones

In my last class of Entrepreneurship, there were seven different groups presenting their ideas for new firms. All the teams were given four weeks of time to come up with an idea that can be successful in the present economic environment. It was interesting to notice that out of seven presentations five were based on technology. Moreover four out of five technology based ideas were either for smart phones or had a potential to be used as smart phone application. All the teams recognized the growing power of smart phones while doing the brainstorming over the new firm creation ideas. No doubts smart phones are gaining popularity increasingly and playing a huge role in accessing information and providing entertainment. There is a prediction that smart phone downloads from all app stores will reach 6.7 billion per year in 2014. The most sellable point of this kind of business is the low cost to entry. One needs only two-three software professionals, servers and a little space to start the business. Non-capital intensive businesses were center of attraction during dot com period and same is happening now. All these facts can work like a magnet for any entrepreneur to try this new space. However I have some doubts over the long term sustainability of these ideas because technology changes are happening not within few years but few months. Some of the brilliant ideas may sustain the business in long term but majority of ideas will either burn out while matching the pace with rapidly changing technology or will be bought out by bigger players. Entrepreneurs entering this sector with short term goal of selling out their idea to bigger firms within five years will be in better situation because of vulnerable nature of the business. Those who are targeting to remain in this sector for a long term have to strategize their business in such a way that people keep using their applications without getting bored. This will be an interesting phenomenon to watch in next five years.

Hollywood-Bollywood

I just came back after watching Bollywood movie “My Name is Khan” which has broken some box office records by any Bollywood movie in North America. It is interesting to notice how Bollywood movies are moving closer to Hollywood movies in terms of story line up, editing, background score and most amazingly music. In MNIK, all the songs were in background which is not usual in Karan Johar’s (movie director) typical movies. This trend has been followed by many movies in recent past and it seems that Indian audiences are also accepting this format. Even Hollywood movies have accepted Indian actors and you can see many movies either having Indian background story or Indian actors in lead roles. This confluence was strengthened by the major success of “Slumdog Millionaire” last year. This movie was not only popular but also won Oscar awards for best movie and background score. This relation has been strengthened since then and even common people in North America are accepting the power of Bollywood movies. It is interesting to listen to students’ as well as professors’ point of views about this huge industry in my MBA classes. However Bollywood has still to cover a long path to match the technical quality and tight story line of Hollywood movies. I don’t see a day very far when people from both industries will work together to make great movies.
PS – Still MS word is showing red underline for Bollywood word. Strange.