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I have a couple of domains I don’t need anymore. But instead of letting them expire, I’m giving them away to fellow entrepreneurs who might find a good use of them. Just make sure you have a Godaddy account. Here’s the list of domains available –

They’re available for FREE. Apart from the ones in the screenshot, there is ‘learned.to’ which expires in next 2 days & comes with a $50 renewal. Reply here with the domain you want, if at all interested. If multiple people want the same domain make a bid, share this post on facebook and/or tweet the following -

FREE domains giveaway! Please RT. http://goo.gl/0hVIV (via @arunpattnaik) #free #domains

Some domains come with logos (I did these for a personal project which never came to life):

One of them comes with a Facebook cover -

The person with the most impressive effort (could be the highest bid, haha) gets the domains. Just remember to keep it fun. Go crazy. lol.

P.S: I’ll transfer the domains next weekend. Feel free to share this with your friends until then.

Also, I keep giving away Dribbble invites for free. You should signup for future invites -

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Update: I did’t know this giveaway will turn into a fistfight when I started this. Especially for the domain bynt.com. Facebook promoted post messed it up big time. Deleted some comments which resulted in disappointment of many friends (some weren’t on facebook, some weren’t my friends). Some domains went through & some expired. I’m reserving bynt.com for myself instead of fuelling the heated argument. I apologize for the fuckup which happened. It was unintentional. Until next time. Thanks.

Tomáš impressed me on the very first day by submitting this shot -

And Chancema designed this amazing site -

It was a difficult choice but I could only select 2 winners. Congratulations Tomáš & Chancema. See you at Dribbble :)

Update: Looks like @chancema has already been drafted. I’ll give his invite to Zeeshan Macchiwala (ZeeExed) from Digital Poke.

Congrats Zeeshan :)

To give a quick background (while respecting the NDA) Zeebo, Inc. is a very successful company in San Diego run by some of the smartest people I’ve known. And I worked with their Indian spinoff Zeebo India, a joint venture among Zeebo Inc, Qualcomm & Lakshya Digital. We were building a low cost edutainment console which allowed online gaming & it used 3G to download new games/levels from the central server.

We had 3 broad choices –

1. Sell it at a one-time cost, closer to the price of a tablet & let the user worry about the mobile network for 3G.
2. Partner with a cellular network & sell the network-locked device at a lower price. Let the cellular provider bill the users and take a cut from monthly bill.
3. Collaborate with several 3G providers and allow their SIM cards on our devices. Sell the device at a minimal price, charge them a fixed monthly subscription fee and pay the 3G providers based on individual usage.

We rejected the first option immediately because we knew our users won’t pay a higher price for a gaming device while Xbox and PlayStations come so cheap. Although we knew we were into a different market segment, we were sure our users will compare the two. The other two options were vaguely similar and were essentially “give the razors away, charge for the blades” models. But before I could research any further, unfortunately a lot of things went wrong and we had to pull the plug on the project.

Recently I was looking at a friend’s Kindle Fire when this came to my mind. I’ve always known it’s price but had this idea that it’s just an inferior notebook which displays bad graphics and can only be used for viewing black and white text. And that’s how I justified it’s low pricing. But within minutes of using it I realized that I was wrong. Kindle is a great device. Well designed and well suited for it’s purpose. My interest in pricing strategies got rekindled (I suck at making puns).

A friend suggested me to look at how the printer cartridge industry works, which I did. The printers are sold dirt cheap, often at a loss or no profit margins. And they make money by charging for the ink cartridges. It’s a win-win. The printer company makes money and the buyer gets the printer for cheap. 60% of HPs total profits are generated through sales of ink. That’s huge, right?

When I dug deeper, I found more and more variations of the same model. The razor industry is an obvious example. Apple does this for iPhone by tying up with AT&T and Verizone, web hosting companies don’t charge for account setup anymore, Amazon sells storage for dirt cheap prices and charges for support, online gaming companies like Zynga have made their games freely available and make money through in-app purchases, Barbie sells dolls for free & charges for accessories, film manufacturers sell super-cheap cameras & battery manufacturers sell (or rather give away) flashlights.

While it seems obvious, it’s exactly opposite to the traditional recurring revenue model. For instance a Macbook is sold at a higher price but the OS upgrades are cheap.

I’ll continue this in another part. Stay tuned.

Update: Winners announced – http://boyatastartup.com/and-the-winners-of-the-dribbble-invite-3-are/.

It’s that time of the year again :)

I’m back with two more Dribbble invites for you awesome designers. I have invited Zhanna Schonfeld (Dribbble link) from New York, Missy Titus (Dribbble link) from San Francisco & Marin Soritov (Dribbble link) from Bulgaria in the past and you could be next!

Getting to the point – I have two more invites for Dribbble up for grabs. You should totally subscribe to my RSS feed because I keep sending Dribbble invites once in a while.

From the previous post:
“If you don’t know yet, Dribbble is show and tell for creatives. Designers and creatives share shots (small screenshots) of the designs and applications they are currently working on. In other words, Dribbble is the Twitter for designers. Basically you post 400 x 300px images of whatever you are working on. It’s like sneak peeks on steroids and the quality of feedback you get is second to none. Dribbble happens to be the world’s most popular community for designers. Although Dribbble is invite-only you can sign up as a prospect for a view-only account. This is my account on Dribbble [Follow me if you like :) You need to follow me else I won't be able to invite you].”

I’m going to draft 2 REALLY good people this time. To get qualified write a comment below this post saying why do you deserve to be on Dribbble mentioning your twitter username, follow me on twitter (@arunpattnaik), send me (via twitter) ONLY ONE link to your (best/most impressive) work & then tweet the following to your followers. The more people retweet you, the higher are the chances for you getting drafted (Yes, I’ll keep a watch on retweets). I’d appreciate if you could share this in Facebook & Google+ as well so more people get to see your work (no bonus, just good karma).

So here’s the tweet:

Dribbble invite giveaway #3! Show your most impressive design! Please RT. http://goo.gl/6tMHe (via @arunpattnaik) #dribbble #design

Like I have always said, the Dribbble community is full of amazing talent from all over the world.I know you guys have been designing world class projects but you’re still gonna need some Dribbble love. Don’t just take my word for it, you’ll know when you’re in.

I’ll announce the winners latest by Friday, 10th August. See you at Dribbble.

Good Luck & have fun!

But this time the entries were a little awkward. Very few people followed the rules. Some forgot to tweet their entries, some didn’t comment, some didn’t say (or didn’t give a compelling reason) why would they want to be on Dribbble. And most of the entries weren’t single shots. I mentioned specifically that I want ONLY ONE shot to be submitted instead of a link to their portfolio. That’s why some amazing talents couldn’t get invited (to keep the contest fair and unbiased). But the good part is that two runner ups (I won’t announce their names), who were disqualified because of the above two reasons and whose portfolio were better than the winning shots, would get the next invitations without any contest. Once I have the invites, I will personally reach out to them and get them aboard.

Enough said. The winners of the Dribbble invites are:-

Melissa Titus (@MissyTitus) from MTV networks.

This is why she wants to join Dribbble -

I love Dribbble for inspiration and design curation, especially for UI. I’m currently a UI designer doing mobile games. Because the art team is small, this means I often do UI, UX, concept work, and illustration. While there is a lot of great work already on Dribbble, a lot of it can seem repetitive: “here are my icons on a dark grey background;” “these are the buttons I made; they are green and pink, on charcoal;” etc. Don’t get me wrong, most of this work is incredible. But I do think it would be interesting to have a broader range of work and styles. As a jack-of-all-trades of sorts, I think I can bring another perspective.
Also, working in the games industry (and in tech more generally) I often feel isolated from the design community. When I first moved to SF, I tried being involved with AIGA, but found it lacking. These more established associations haven’t yet caught up to where design and technology are or where they are going. Being part of Silicon valley, you get caught up in the rush of creating, and I would love to share my creations with people other than the programmer geeks (whom I love) I work with.

These are some samples of her work -

Marin Sotirov (@Mar4o) from НОВА ТЕЛЕВИЗИЯ.

This is why he wants to join Dribbble-

I don’t know but this is truly a dream-like web site for designers and I’d be so happy to have the opportunity to share my works with the best guys in the area so that I can improve by getting comments on my work and also to build more connections with fellow designers!

His work samples –

Congratulations to Melissa & Marin for the invites. For those who couldn’t make it, you need to pay a little more attention to the contest details. Like I wrote earlier, some designers whose portfolios were really impressive forgot to send me a link to their ONE SINGLE SHOT and some forgot to give a reason why would they like to join. So these are the unbiased results. I hope I didn’t disappoint.

Check back soon for more invites to Dribbble. Keep sketching :)

Getting to the point – I have two invites for Dribbble up for grabs. You should totally subscribe to my RSS feed because I keep sending Dribbble invites once in a while.

From the previous post:
“If you don’t know yet, it is show and tell for creatives. Designers, developers, and other creatives share shots—small screenshots of the designs and applications they are working on. In other words, Dribbble is the Twitter for designers. Basically you post 400 x 300px images of whatever you are working on. It’s like sneak peaks on steroids and the quality of work and inspiration is honestly second to none. Dribbble happens to be the most popular community for designers. This is my account on Dribbble [Follow me if you like :) You need to follow me else I won't be able to invite you].”

Like last time, to get drafted just write a comment below this post saying why do you deserve to be on Dribbble mentioning your twitter username, follow me on twitter (@arunpattnaik), send me (via twitter) ONLY ONE link to your (best/most impressive) work & then tweet the following to your followers. The more people retweet you, the higher are the chances for you getting drafted. I’d appreciate if you could share this in Facebook & Google+ as well (no bonus, just good karma).

Dribbble invite giveaway! Show your most impressive design! Please RT. http://goo.gl/nXsj9 (via @arunpattnaik) #dribbble #design

Added to this, you will have to promise me (I’m pretty darn serious) that once you’re drafted you’re going to put your dribbble account to good use. You will have to post shots regularly and learn. Trust me, the Dribbble community is full of amazing talent from all over the world. I invited Zhanna Schonfeld last time & I’m a teeny-weeny bit disappointed. She has posted only 2 shots in last 6 months. I really hope she is busy working on some kick-ass project.

I’m gonna announce the winners on Wednesday, 18th January & the deadline will NOT be extended. To avoid embarrassment later, I’ll be really picky on choosing the winner amongst you.

Good Luck & have fun!

And if you still missed the banner above, the winner is Zhanna Schonfeld ;)

Congratulations Zhanna for winning the invitation. Keep up the good work. The other entries were pretty close, but you made it! I hope the Dribbble community helps you refine your skills further.

Zhanna is a brilliant web designer who is currently looking for a job in NYC. She is the co-founder of Obsesh & is busy launching an interesting project called Surprise Bag. I wish you all the best.

Those who didn’t win need not be disappointed. They are all wonderful designers & I still have the list of submissions. These submissions are already considered for the next Dribbble invite giveaway, even if they don’t participate next time. If they do, that will be a bonus for them. I will choose from the ones those are still waiting to be drafted. Apart from that, I’ll see if any of my fellow Dribbble mates are looking for interesting designers to draft. I’ll pitch them right away.

Plus, there is a lot more coming in this blog. Feel free to browse around & have fun. If there is anything you want to talk about, just hit me on twitter @arunpattnaik. If you’re passionate about design, I assure you we’re gonna have a great conversation. Looking forward to hearing from you :)

Thank you for the amazing response. Keep designing wonderful things. Keep making the world a beautiful place, pixel by pixel. :)

If you don’t know yet, it is show and tell for creatives. Designers, developers, and other creatives share shots—small screenshots of the designs and applications they are working on. In other words, Dribbble is the Twitter for designers. Basically you post 400 x 300px images of whatever you are working on. It’s like sneak peaks on steroids and the quality of work and inspiration is honestly second to none. Dribbble happens to be the most popular community for designers. This is my account on Dribbble [Follow me if you like :) ].

To get a chance to be drafted, all you have to do is comment on this article stating why you deserve to be in Dribbble mentioning your twitter username, follow me on twitter (@arunpattnaik), send me (via twitter) ONLY ONE link to your (best/most impressive) work & then tweet the following to your followers.

Dribbble invite giveaway! Show your most impressive design! Please RT. http://goo.gl/TXMjH (via @arunpattnaik) #dribbble #design

Once I choose the winner, I’ll ask you for your dribbble spectator account (Sign up here if you still haven’t) & draft you into Dribbble.

I’ll announce the winner of the invite on Sunday, 31st July. Dribbble shows who drafted whom forever, so to avoid embarrassment later, I’ll have to be picky on choosing the winner among you :)

Good Luck & have fun!

Update: The urls in the comments got fucked up for some reason. I couldn’t view most of the submissions. So I HAD TO update the terms & extend the deadline for a week. Apologies for the same. Waiting to see some amazing designs!

Now this fire fast strategy might sound good for your first fire (as a last option), if you are finding yourself in a position to fire a second employee, it’s time you looked into the mirror. There is a very high probability your hiring process is flawed. No enthusiastic employee would join a startup which doesn’t fit his/her profile. And if you got them, either you lied to them while hiring or you didn’t make your expectations clear. You failed them right at the moment you hired them. Had you put your expectations straight, communicated well, and knew how to evaluate interviewees, you could have easily avoided this day.

On the other hand if you believe that your hiring process is perfect and you hired the right person and they got worse after joining, then you have reasons to blame your work culture. You hired rockstars and converted them into the people you’re planning to firing today. Think about how did it happen. While it’s natural to get tired of a job or outgrow it, that takes at least a few years.

If you’re hiring rockstars, treat them like rockstars!

If you’re an employer and still argue that the fast firing strategy is acceptable, then just flip this over and think about it from the employees perspective: find a job fast and quit fast if necessary? Finding a job fast does sound like a plan, but quitting fast (often) as an employee exposes you to the risk of being seen as a “quitter” by recruiters. This is not what you want. If you’re firing your 2nd-3rd employee in a year, would you hire a guy who has switched 3 companies in the last year? He might cite the same reasons. What if his last jobs sucked? If you don’t hire him and don’t find him loyal enough, your startup sucks too! BIG TIME.

Success maybe like swinging a baseball bat, the more you swing, the better chance you have in hitting a home run. But if you think you can “swing” employees (the best ones you hired, remember?) you aren’t getting very far. Soon enough, the people around you will know what you’ve been doing. You have no idea how quickly your lame office policies reach across the city. In a couple of months, you won’t find any good employees for your startup anymore. Joining a startup is risky, and they took the risk of joining you. And most of them must have checked social networks (from your ex-employees) about the office culture. Now ask this question to yourself – do you think your ex-employees have a good story to tell about your company? All this because you didn’t take time to hire the right person in the first place. Pat yourself on the back and jump of a cliff, seriously.

Image credits: @stuartpilbrow, @mandy_pantz & @aloshbennett

A start-up shouldn’t just hire someone based on their experience, but their PASSION for what they work on. If you hire someone who works on your company as if it were THEIRs, you have found the right fit, and I don’t see the reason to fire them. It would be like firing yourself. If you think they have changed, look at your policies and see if it’s you who has changed instead. Do your other employees look happy (other than the “yes-men” who find all your actions AWESOME & the leeches you love hanging around with, for a while)? Look at the employees you don’t usually talk to or you’ve stopped paying attention to. Are they happy?

I agree Fire Fast if firing is merited. But for the first X employees, you should also target zero attrition. It’s your failure as CEO-recruiter if you fire any material number of employees. It’s easy to see who won’t work out before they even start. If you have to fire one of your first X employees, that’s because you failed as a recruiter, and lowered your standards or hired someone who wasn’t a good enough fit. If the people you hired were “best” in your scale and suddenly turned unusable, either step down as a CEO or give the hiring responsibility to someone else in the company. Your people instincts are letting you down and probably aren’t as good as you think they are.

I have been working for some very successful startups that hired very slowly and filred slowly as well. We worked well as a team, we knew each other, we knew we could express our opinions without worrying about getting fired for saying the wrong thing or admitting a mistake. I’d still recommend my best of friends to join them.

If you want to build a company which the employees respect, make sure to take time in hiring. Spend several weeks on every person you hire and if things don’t go so well, go talk to them. Try to find out what went wrong and why aren’t they motivated anymore. You might be surprised by listening to what they have to say. Your employees are the best people to tell you if your work culture is flawed or if the office atmosphere is depressing. Let them be honest, let them trust you. Don’t impose weird restrictions, set them free. If you hired them by yourself after making sure they are good enough, then they know what they’re doing. Don’t micromanage and turn your own company into a jail.

All this boils down to a simple question – What is the culture you want to build in your startup? Do you really want to spread a scare of job insecurity and get the work done or do you want them to take resposibility, ownership and work honestly? If you think you can push them to work that way, you’ll find the best ones quitting your startup as soon as they get better jobs. Yes, I said better jobs because yours sucks! And the ones you’ll end up working with will be the ones who were never hired by anyone else. And trust me, they aren’t the ones who’ll take you towards an IPO.

Think.