Re: [pakgrid] Entrepreneurship for Engineers

 

sorry I was off from work due to an urgent reportoire.

I had a sickness problem, back bone illness, away from friends, away from TV, away from my good old managers. I was searching excessively for work from home, on sites like RentACoder, mind it i didn't even had money for payment at elance, so I was all on my own.

My back bone problem, I told you I don't listen to music, I don't go to gym, for exercises, two main problems for my health loss, which I found now, years later, as I am alone in my home, fixing a little things holding up things, and really tired of my unmusic taste.

My health loss, means my back bone loss. to tell you, I am a big genius in getting into stupid problems, but at the same time i am an open source fan, and working my way into linux since the past 3 to 4 consecutive years, i don't use windows, and have tried 3 major flavours of linux. Ubuntu, Fedora KDE Spin, Fedora Gnome 3.

wait morning prayer time. off from my musical PC, now.

my experience at RentACoder, at RentACoder, which is something else now, as I am working with a permanent manager now from home, the things were not that poor, as you can opt for pre bid money, as there are some projects on which payed members can bid, if they are not able to complete the project the amount goes to rentacoder charity, mind it the client escrows funds at the beginning of the project, and most projects are doable provided you manage them well. the client should deposit funds at the bgining of the project at RentACoder (escrow), which are payable then in phases according to my view and proper approach as well.

Bidding is very phenomenal, I dont' know but I need your feedback, here, ... I used to put an informed bid, I have more than 50 informed bids at RAC. Several projects I lost despite of very good bids, why, either I was late, or the indians were there to take the proejects, I used to bid on of the way projects, as I said earlier, a bit off the way, as there are lesser amount of bidders and you need to do them in Java, which is mostly doable, Java is a very nice and easy language, it's not funny at all, like PHP or Visual C++ or even C++.

Keep your intentions clear that this way or that way, one technology, Web Services, Java Linux, Open Source I have to complete the project, because it's a big big motivation failure once your effort goes in vain, I remember I lost 2 projects even after getting them, because of my poor handling mine and my managers, that's why I say that young enterpreneurs are dangerous, they need to streamline them selves a bit, e.g. in one of our projects we had a Quick Books app, the client was askign in java, I started off brilliantly, but soon lost interest, and opted for another job for a few months, later came later came back to the project, the client was waiting on the same project and then suddenly my manager waisted time, in not letting me researching fully, or it was my mistake at the first place, as you haver to spend a bit of time probably 2 to 3 months with the technologies involved, the whole technology stack was in .net, so a linux version could have been made easily with web services that's why he was asking for a Java thing, with online version of Interoperable Web Services, not only the data would have been saved in online repositories of Quick Books but a MAC, Linux, Windows version of the application was on it's way. So, a bit of initial time spending with the technologies involved goes a long long way. I remember we were heavily involved with Java to Com Bridging, but couldn't come up with Web Services Solution, Mind it, I had worked in Web Services at that time, already. but alas ...

Waistage of money energy time so and so ...

similar is the case with another entertainment project of mine, i had only smoking money and I was heavily involved with the asterisk java app. but one day I said, yet another acheivement on amateur stuff, to the client, and he ran off immediately. I did recieve 50 $, :).

I have already delivered 3 projects, in the past, when I was a permanent employee in two of the companies i had worked in.

So these are my two cents., where are yours.

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:15 PM, ali mansoor <ali_mansoor_kh@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

A common myth is that entrepreneurship is about selling your product/invention once you have built a prototype. So to teach entrepreneurship we just have to teach little bit of marketing, strategy and some basic management to an engineer/programmer. And we can go on our merry way as educators.  Regards. Ali  --- On Fri, 4/19/13, Babar Abbas <abbas.babar@gmail.com> wrote: From: Babar Abbas <abbas.babar@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [pakgrid] Entrepreneurship for Engineers To: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, April 19, 2013, 9:34 PM   I remember Islamabad Software Factory one of the biggest Revenue Getters at Elance, executed a workshop on  Entrepreneurship in Fast a few years later. The practical insight of a company, a revenue getter. On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 5:37 PM, ali mansoor <ali_mansoor_kh@yahoo.com> wrote:   Blessed are the software engineers as they have 3 great advantages 1) Starting cost is very low , compared to electrical or mechanical engineering ventures. 2) They can test idea validation very quickly and pivot early also, using lean launch pad language 3) And in Pakistan this area has seen huge success in recent years.  However, there are other areas of engineering that can benefit a lot from entrepreneurship courses. It would have been nice only to learn from the business models, and success strategies of software companies, but not all of the knowledge can be translated to other fields of engineering. The need to have generalized field of entrepreneurship, seperate from the business school and tailored for the skilled students of CS, EE, ME and other areas is very much here. Especially with the bad job market situation Regards, Ali  --- On Wed, 4/17/13, Babar Abbas <abbas.babar@gmail.com> wrote: From: Babar Abbas <abbas.babar@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [pakgrid] Entrepreneurship for Engineers To: pakgrid@yahoogroups.com Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013, 9:40 AM   Interesting. If anyone can shed some light on the topic. I have experience in applying for Contract Jobs on sites like RentACoder, ODesk. Infact I have more than 50 bids on RentACoder. The turn around was 2 or 3. It is interesting to note that you have to be carefull in your relationship with the employer. If any point of time he notices that you have lost interest or are not working fully he will back fire. with back fire I mean that It's within a reasonable project's approval that some delays e.g a week or so, some sickness is with a person, but delaying that further will have it's repercussions. Note Above: If you lose interest you are out of the game. Secondly: On a standard project on a site, e.g. RentACoder or ODesk, like the standard Java/J2EE Projects the bidding is abnormally high. The number of bidders will be e.g. in acess of 30's or 40's. So either you have a very good profile, or you go for an out of the way project. There are millions of technologies, there are millions of technologies, so chances are a bit high If you have skill in any one of them. But how do you bid. I used to put an informed bid, an informed bid means that you spend a day or 2 or 3 days researching about the technologies involved, and then submit the bid dont' delay it too much cause as the time goes by either he will chose some bidder or the time will end. How do you get paid: As you work you should get paid. Ask the employer to escrow money on site. He will deposit the projects total estimated budget on site. Then as you release phases you should get paid. e.g. after 1.5 months you release first phase you should get paid for the first phase. How do you resolve if something goes wrong. First of all Making a Project takes some effort, not only in terms of man hours but Intellect and research, that these are the options of which we should chose from, One Option or the other, if one doesn't suit you should go for the 2nd Option. e.g. In one of our projects the client was asking to do the project in Java, while the whole technology stack was in .net, what should we have done, There was an online version of the application that was accessible through web services and we could have done it in Java. As Web Services are basically basically meant for InterOperability. So here are my findings, If you have any please share. On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 12:25 PM, ali mansoor <ali_mansoor_kh@yahoo.com> wrote:   Aslaam ale Kum,     I have been educated to become an engineer, however as I got into teaching because of my interest I stumbled upon an intriguing question. Why do students choose certain careers over others, in a quest to answer this question I decided to change my field from engineering to management ( in fact its not purely management it is entrepreneurship).  I found this area to be very engaging as the fundamental aim is to allow us to work on ideas that attract us personally and to try and figure out how we can make those ideas into reality.   Its not a walk in the park to realize an idea. It is gruesome and full of risk, but I am very passionate about teaching this to the future students of Pakistan. And hopefully if they learn something from me and apply it, we could reap the benefits as a country, in terms of job creation and solutions to our local problems. One research topic that I find very engaging is how we can train engineers to become entrepreneurs. It is indeed the case that many our graduates are doing it on their own, without anyone teaching them. However, quality formal education in any area makes us learn from other people experience and our learning curve is reduced significantly. So if our engineering graduates were taught this stuff during studies, the chances of them getting into the startup world will become faster and safer, hopefully :) .  So what will it take for deans of engineering schools to allow entrepreneurship to be taught to their students. I think with the job market suffering this avenue is worth trying. Regards, Ali Khawaja Lecturer, Faculty of Engineering University of Central Punjab

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