My First Podcast on Indicast

I had a great time last Sunday recording my first podcast with Aditya Mhatre, Aditya Mishra, VeerChand Bothra (tweet) on why startups need workaholics and why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India (tweet).

All three of them have extremely rich backgrounds, resulting in an extremely vibrant discussion —

- Aditya Mhatre is India’s leading podcaster at Indicast (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- VeerChand Bothra is at the center of India’s mobile boom, as MobilePundit, as organizer of Mumbai Mobile Mondays and as VP at NetCore Solutions (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

- Aditya Mishra is deeply involved in the startup ecosystem in India through his work (he has the fancy title of Entrepreneur-in-Residence at TCS) and his role as the organizer of BarCamp and Kickstart (Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter).

It was really good fun, like Leo Laporte’s TWiT for India, and Aditya (Mhatre) had a tough time keeping Aditya (Mishra), Veer and me within time (tweet). Aditya has done some brilliant editing on the podcast and it’s now out in a crisp avatar on Indicast —

Part 1: Why Startups Need Workaholics

We first discussed how the Jason Calacanis startups need workaholics controversy plays out in the Indian context. Since both Aditya (Mishra) (his post on the topic) and Veer are deeply involved in the startup ecosystem in India, I got some interesting insights on the topic. In the end, we agreed that startups do need people who are totally passionate about the business and people who work for large organizations are indeed in for a culture shock if they move over to a startup. The big insight has that entrepreneurs should set an example for their teams by being passionate about the business and practicing frugality themselves.

Background links: Jason Calacanis, Duncan Riley, Micheal Arrington, Robert Scoble, Michael Ryan, Techmeme, Aditya Mishra, Ashish Sinha, Pranav Dharma, Venturewoods.

Part 2: Why Mobile Will Drive Web 2.0 Usage in India

We then moved on to why mobile will drive web 2.0 usage in India and why mobile advertising will become really big in India. We agreed that mobile — along with local content, vernacular languages and local social dynamics — will drive web 2.0 usage in India. We also discussed why an Indian web 2.0 model will have the entire cycle — registration, friending, content creation and content consumption — on SMS. Finally, we discussed that new mobile advertising formats based on permission marketing will evolve to tap into this opportunity.

Background Links: Gaurav Mishra, Hindustan Times, Wall Street Journal, Agencyfaqs.

Watch Out For Our Next Podcast

In the next podcast, we will cover how the ‘economics of free’ is hitting the music industry and how the web is getting widgetized (tweet). So, share any interesting links on either topic on del.icio.us using the tag TKM2 and, if we use them, we’ll credit you with a hat-tip (tweet).

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