Date archives "December 2012"

Looking Back at 2012

As I sit down to write this post I really can’t believe that 2012 is over. These last couple of years, time seems to be accelerating at a quantum pace where it is becoming difficult to keep track of all the things which again seem to be taking place almost all at once! I remember quite vividly this year starting off with us closing one of our biggest deals with British American Tobacco, we have been fortunate to have just built our pace from there. For this review I am going to take a different approach and document all that went well and the areas which need improvement in the coming year.

The Things That Worked out Well:

 

1. From a business perspective we were able to close some key marquee accounts with the likes of Novartis, British American Tobacco, Telenor and Crescent Steel . Our software is now deployed and running in over 10 countries in Asia Pacific in 4 languages. I am really hoping we can build on this base and have a quantum jump in 2013 in terms of the size of the business.

2. We launched a new product under the name of DiscoverMatch to service the small to mid size segment in September and it has had some great adoption over the last couple of months, we are looking forward to see it become a key driver of growth in the new year.

3. We got offers for IDENTIFI to get acquired this year which led to very interesting discussions and I am happy we took the chance to choose to go for a big win.

4. I greatly improved both my visual and user experience design skills, gave my first talk on interaction design and have laid the foundation to start building my online portfolio on my blog to start talking about the stuff we are building in greater detail.

5. I started to exercise with greater frequency this year and finally fixed my diet, which has had an enormous impact on the amount of increased daily energy .

6. I got to work with some truly great people and I am really thankful to all my business partners and clients. Wishing all of you all the very best in 2012.

7. My family continues to be a great source of strength and support on this journey and I don’t think I could have gotten as far as I have without them. Thank you!

The Things That Didn’t work out as Planned:

1. We need to apply a far more metric driven approach to our business growth. Looking forward to reworking some of the key metrics that we track and really focusing only on those that push the necessary needles forward.

2. I need to delegate a lot more in 2013. I take on too much which slows things down and is a major impediment in gathering the sort of speed of growth we are looking for. We are looking to add more new people to our team in 2013 and I am looking forward to using my time more judiciously.

3. I didn’t read as much this year as I would have liked too. I usually read at-least 2 – 3 books per month at a minimum. I probably read a total of 10 books in 2012 which was not very good. I hope to get back to normal pace in 2013.

4. I have neglected this blog for far too long and being busy is no excuse since some of the people who I look up to like Fred Wilson continue to bang out great posts on a daily basis. Looking forward to writing at-least 2 – 3 times a week.

5. I didn’t travel for leisure at all in 2012. This is something I really want to reverse in 2013. Given my new interest in photography I hope to schedule quarterly short breaks, to reflect and take a break.

All in all 2012 was a very memorable year. I turned 30 this year in great health surrounded by friends and am deeply involved in work that I truly enjoy doing on a daily basis. Wishing all of you the very best in the coming year.