Sanchit's Blog

Everybody loves to achieve challenging goals, right? I love it! Gives me a kick. I have been evolving on how I approach my goals. Back in my school, I was more of a doer (without much planning); in my college, I learned how to set goals and solve problems by breaking it into smaller steps. During my corporate stint, I learned number driven problem solving where each part of the solution has its own objective metrics and targets. Being number driven not only helped me in removing my bias in creating a better solution, but it also helped me in aligning my peers and team members to my solution. I do enjoy having these tools in my arsenal to solve problems better and achieve challenging goals. But what’s next? What's next to achieve challenging goals? As I interact with many fellow entrepreneurs, I have seen them vent their frustrations with the unexpected negative consequence of relying on numbers to solve problems. I have seen two major issues - Limited numbers ...

I really like the quote from Ben Horowitz “Hire for strength, not lack of weaknesses”. Here is an instance on how I used this quote to choose between candidates for a senior position. A few days back I was in a dilemma in deciding between 4 good candidates for a senior position. Before we start interviewing for a position, we have a fair idea about the skill sets we are going to evaluate candidates on, so that we have a basis for objective comparison among candidates. Here is what we rated our candidates at the end of the interviewing process - Candidate A Candidate B Candidate C Candidate D Skill Set 1 9.5 8 6 5 Skill Set 2 6 8 9.5 9 Skill Set 3 7 8 7 7 Culture Fit 9 9 9 5 Sum Total 31.5 33 31.5 26 Some notes - We provide above table (score against skill sets) to the candidate whenever he/...

I am fond of writing algorigthms and workflows for the problems I solve. Going macro, I have tried to write an algo for problem solving itself. Problem solving is the exercise you do when you create a strategy or figuring out a good solution for any wild problem in the world. My intent was not to make it near perfect, but to just put my current thoughts in one place. Feel free to add in this and use this in problem solving Clarify what (your goal) . Make it detailed and aim for the best case Make it measurable and define the measures. Spend time here Build existing learning How are other companies doing Someone in team would have done it earlier Who at ground level does it and can give you real insights Create a solution Identify stakeholders and what each of them would want. Your solution in their perception should be rocking Break solution into flow and quantify each step and build solution accordingly (horizontal segmentation of funnel) Break s...

Why is a mobile app more powerful than a website? At first it sounded un-intuitive to me. My reasons were that mobile has limitations due to a smaller screen, low computation power than a laptop and not having a keyboard further slows down typing on a mobile. Me and my company's co-founder knew that ecommerce companies are going to mobile apps, as apps constitute majority of their revenue curves. I was struggling to map this trend with my intuition. What makes a mobile app more preferred over website to an end user. We jotted down following reasons in next 15 mins: Mobile App Website User Attributes Geolocation is more readily available. User is by default logged in Cookies from other websites are availabile but their use may be limited. User logged-in is not necessary Ease of giving inputs to device Unless app requires you to type, it is very easy to just tap-tap and proceed to the next action Moving mouse pointer and clicking is not so intuitive. However, i...

A few days back I was sharing a ride with CEO / founder of a well reputed firm and once the atmosphere was informal I asked him 'How does it feel to be at your position - well up in the ladder?' I wasn't asking out of the blue, very precisely I wanted to know - How would I feel when I will reach there - contempt, even more hunger for success, proud, stressed out, rewarded, nothing unusual, etc. What are the unknowns - anything unexpected that I can not visualize at my current state What will be my "Have I made it large" moment, it at all there would be any He is one of the smartest guy I have ever known and I was expecting to get my answers. He told that he wonders if has made it large already? There are companies that grew faster than his while his company grew faster than most of the other companies. He answered my question with the carrot and stick approach . He explained how does the carrot keeps getting bigger as one grows. He wouldn't be satisf...

Booking your international flight is a big deal, especially if you are doing it for the first time. Booking process is still simple and straight: go to any of the booking engine, my favorite being expedia.com . Give in your search criterion for flights, choose the best option and book it there itself. However you need to optimize your bookings for various factors such as: Duration of Flight /  Number of hops  - You can sort out your flight choices on expedia.com and other booking engines. Needless to say flights are boring and it is best to keep your duration short. Your flight duration goes up as the number of hops. Expect each hop to delay you by at least 2 hours. Ideally you reach any remote location in at max 3 hops. International flights connect major cities only and expect more hops as your final destination go to tier 2 and tier 3 cities. Expedia gives you all the possible combinations and all you have to do is to choose the ones which are the shortest and satisfy o...