KACHARAGADLA

In 2016  Alexandr Wang, 20 , took time off from his graduate computer science studies at MIT. He headed to Silicon Valley to join his friend and fellow developer  Lucy Guo, 23 . Two years  earlier, Guo - a 2014 Thiel Fellow - had left her senior year at Carnegie Mellon to pursue her own tech career.  Now, little more than a year after Wang left Cambridge, the two are leading a $4.7-million startup.  Scale , “The API of Human Intelligence,” serves such giants as Alphabet, P&G, GM Cruise and more. From high school dropouts to Stanford Ph.D’s, most of the  Forbes 2018 30 Under 30 Class in Enterprise Tech  are augmenting Artificial Intelligence with indispensable human skills.  Both Wang and Guo have substantial experience in tech, including stints at Snap and Quora. So they know that despite the considerable hype AI is, as they describe it, “not ready for prime time.” And, like much of this year’s class, they took risks to create something new. Scale offers immediate access t

Now that you understand why you need a business plan and you've spent some time doing your homework gathering the information you need to create one, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get everything down on paper. The following pages will describe in detail the seven essential sections of a business plan: what you should include, what you shouldn't include, how to work the numbers and additional resources you can turn to for help. With that in mind, jump right in. Executive Summary Within the overall outline of the business plan, the executive summary will follow the title page. The summary should tell the reader what you want. This is very important. All too often, what the business owner desires is buried on page eight. Clearly state what you're asking for in the summary. Business Description The business description usually begins with a short description of the industry. When describing the industry, discuss the present outlook as well as future po

The Efforts Taken By The States Before March 2018 Will Be Considered And Final Ranking Will be Announced In June 2018   The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, DIPP is now inviting feedback from startup ecosystem stakeholders to rank the states and union territories on the basis of the success achieved in implementing their startup policies. A feedback mechanism has been opened on the  official website of Startup India . As mentioned on the Startup India website, the said stakeholders include startups, mentors, investors, accelerators, incubators and the government bodies. “For this exercise, all actions and initiatives undertaken by states on or before March 2018 will be considered. Some of the parameters, which was essential for states to have a well-defined startup policy running, include having a startup cell or helpline and a mobile or web portal to act as a one-stop-shop for all queries on starting up, the size of the mentor network created by the state g

Asking yourself the right questions early on can lead to greater profits and productivity down the line. Congratulations! You’ve decided to start a business and  become an entrepreneur . You’ve made your mind up, which is good. But, now you’ve probably got a million questions. That’s a good thing. At this stage in the game, it’s all about asking yourself the right questions. Asking yourself which color your business card should be is not a good question. Instead, you want to ask yourself questions that will provide clarity of purpose on a day-to-day basis, because a day of uncertainty is a day wasted. Another major benefit of asking yourself the right questions is that the answers will lead you to greater productivity and quicker cash flow. These are the same questions I asked myself back in late 2013 when I first started selling grillz,  men's gold chains  and other hip-hop jewelry. And remember, without cash flow, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby. The

The History of Domesticated Animals   was a course my really good friend took while attending Columbia University. Her tuition was $40,000 per year. She’s been out of college for almost 10 years, and still paying off the debt. She works at an accounting firm. Needless to say, that aforementioned course surprisingly hasn’t added any value to her current position, or any position she’s ever had in her professional career. Our education system is broken. There are countless entrepreneurs attempting to refine, disrupt and improve the broken model with online education, skill-based bootcamps and skill-based courses (including one of my projects,  Intangibly ). I recently spoke to two very impressive young entrepreneurs who are in my  Facebook group . Mind you, they’re also brother and sister, and on their second business. Brendan and Ashley Eapen are the founders of  In/Spree . After speaking to them, I told them that I was writing this column, and asked them to give their insights