If doors don't open...

then you break through the window, even if that means taking part of the wall down. This is the rule by which most startups compete. Can't believe it has just been a week into my internship, I learnt more about advanced batteries during this week than would have in a term course. These days when I see an iPhone the first thought is no longer the cool user interface or the marketing genius of Steve Jobs, but why on earth does it have such a lousy battery. Sorry, iPhone fans...

And still the task I have been given doesn't seem any less challenging. The task is essentially to get a product (that i know little about) into a market (that I know something about...I think). And whatever "brilliant" ideas I come up with, better work in 3-4 months, as that is the time frame for implementation. Can't just wax eloquent on some vague ideas and leave the gory details of implementation to some poor soul. However, I’m looking forward to the prospect of seeing how my proposals work in real time. And a small company might be the best platform to measure the impact as the number of variables affecting the outcomes is much less.

It is a totally different environment than a big company there are no well defined silos which generally one doesn't get out of. In the first week itself I have already dabbled in engineering, company strategy, competitive intelligence and operations apart from my assigned project. In fact, I spent almost the same amount of time on all these as my assigned project.

And finally, the absolute stress on intellectual property secrecy gives a new meaning to the word paranoid. However, If you are a small company looking to break through windows into the territory of industry leaders, you better do that with as little noise as possible.
(312 words)

Of smartphones, energy and VC funded startups

Hi, I'm Manu Bharadwaj 1st year MBA (insist on not giving up the 1st year tag until second year truly gets underway :-)) and an international student from India. The title of the post kind of sums up what I expect to be doing this summer. I would be working on strategy for an Ann Arbor based next generation battery startup, Sakti3. It's kind of difficult to write without revealing too much especially when I'm still learning where the boundaries of proprietary information start. I'm pretty psyched up by this opportunity as it touches three domains I'm very passionate about - smartphones, VC funded startups and energy. Also as the company is at a stage of its development where they need to execute quickly there most probably will be very little time lag between planning and execution.

As I see it this internship can be the start of something truly amazing or...let's not even go there. And may be, that's what is most exciting about this internship. We will see how the story plays out ultimately. However, one thing is sure, will do all I can to make the story as exciting as the headline grabbing stuff Sakti3 has been coming up with in the short span of its existence.
(210 words)