Dear Google, Please Don’t Shut Down Aardvark

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Gangadhar

You might seen this post from Google announcing their intention to close out a few of their experimental products. One of the products that will be closed is Aardvark. Aardvark is a social question and answer tool where you can ask a question and it will find someone to answer your question for you.

You might wonder why Aardvark is so important considering that there are so many Q&A sites like Quora, Yahoo answers etc. The reason is this – Aardvark is the only one that could find someone who knew the answer to the question (however esoteric) that you throw at it. It also pings the people to answer your questions so it has a dynamic and personal nature to the answers. If you have further questions based on the answer, Aardvark will get those answered too (by the person who originally answered your question).

Since people like me got so much value from Aardvark, we always chose to answer random questions that Aardvark brought for us. Even if I did not know the answer to a certain question, I would research it so that it could help the person who asked that question. I wanted to make sure that I had a positive karma balance with Aardvark (more questions answered than asked). I am sure there were many others like me since the quality of answers that I got was so high.

In our move to France, Aardvark was a very critical tool for our integration into the country. It was like having a close friend who knew all the answers to your questions about living in France except that this friend was available 24X7.

Here are some of the ways in which it has helped us:

1. Once we had to send a very urgent letter on a weekend and everyone told us that we have to wait until Monday. I asked Aardvark, and voila! I came to know that a La Poste was available near the Louvre in Paris. We were able to mail our letter on a Sunday!

2. We consume a lot of Tofu since we are vegetarian. When we came to France, we could not find fresh tofu in the grocery stores. We did find the dry variety which isn’t as good. Many people told us that we should go all the way to Bio stores in Paris to get fresh tofu. I turned to Aardvark, and found that there were three stores within 5 kms of where we live that carried fresh Tofu!

3. We wanted to find an alternative to the local French banks that charge a bomb just to give you a current account. I got referred to Fortuneo, ING Direct etc thanks to my anonymous friends on Aardvark.

4. We are learning French using Rosetta Stone. Since there are no explanations in Rosetta, I always turned to Aardvark with my questions about French. At any time of the day or night, I got answers from my trusty Aardvark that helped speed up our learning.

With Google sunsetting Aardvark, I feel like I am losing a close friend. I think Aardvark addressed a gap in the market and the gap still exists. So please dear Google, please do not shut down Aardvark. Heck, give it to me and I will keep it going!

My Experience at Founder Institute

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Gangadhar

I graduated from the Founder Institute’s Paris Spring 2011 program. I want to write this post so that anyone interested in joining the program can get an idea of what the program is like. If you have any questions, please feel to reach me at gangadhar at sulkunte dot net.

Founder Institute is a Silicon Valley based startup incubator which has branches in many cities/countries in the world – Paris, Singapore, Chile, Indonesia, Brussels, Berlin etc. These branches then recruit many of the local entrepreneurs to serve as mentors to the founders. The local directors of the institute will themselves be entrepreneurs. The goal of the program is to take founders with ideas to start a viable business at the end of the program.

The application process involves a intelligence test which is a standard IQ test. Once you get through the entrance tests, you will pay the fee for the program before joining the program. The program is a series of sessions where the mentors (local and visiting) will talk about different aspects of starting your company – how to validate your idea, how to write your business plan, writing and executing marketing plans, fund raising etc. You will take this and apply to your company as part of the work for that week.

At every session, the founders get to pitch and hone their pitch about their company. The sessions are one evening a week and take place over a period of 3-4 months. They are very rigorous involving meetings with your teams and assignments.

This is probably the only incubator program that accepts solo founders. They will try to help you find co-founders in the program. They will also point you to the many startup related programs taking place in the local community. I know of a couple of founders who found their co-founders in the program.

The advantages of the program as I see it are:

Getting a cohort of founders with whom you can bounce your ideas and get great feedback. Personally, this was the best part for me since it instantly got me a community of founders which I would have difficulty getting to since I moved here recently.
Connecting to the local startup community and the investors community
Great feedback that you will receive about all aspects of your idea or startup as part of the program.

You should be aware of the following:

You should be serious about working for your company at the end of the program.
The program is very rigorous. If you are a solo founder, you will be working on all the assignments by yourself apart from your day job. This can be over whelming and you might drop out of the program.
Have funds to spend on your company since you are building your company as part of the program.
Have some technical expertise since you will be doing many technical things like setting up your domain, email, blogs etc as part of the program.
Check out the local mentors to see who will be a good fit for your type of business.
The program is mainly for technology startups. If you starting a different type of company, your experience will be very different and you might want to check the local mentors list to see if anyone will fit your company’s profile.

I hope this post helped you. Please let me know in the comments or by email.

Definition of Patient Centered Outcomes Research

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Gangadhar

The PCORI (Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute) is looking for input on their definition of Patient Centered Outcomes Research.

If you are wondering what it might be, the current working definition is this (copied from their site):

Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (Working Definition)

Patient-Centered Outcomes Research (PCOR) helps people make informed health care decisions and allows their voice to be heard in assessing the value of health care options. This research answers patient-focused questions:

“Given my personal characteristics, conditions and preferences, what should I expect will happen to me?”
“What are my options and what are the benefits and harms of those options?”
“What can I do to improve the outcomes that are most important to me?”
“How can the health care system improve my chances of achieving the outcomes I prefer?”

To answer these questions, PCOR:

Assesses the benefits and harms of preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic, or health delivery system interventions to inform decision making, highlighting comparisons and outcomes that matter to people;
Is inclusive of an individual’s preferences, autonomy and needs, focusing on outcomes that people notice and care about such as survival, function, symptoms, and health-related quality of life;
Incorporates a wide variety of settings and diversity of participants to address individual differences and barriers to implementation and dissemination; and
Investigates (or may investigate) optimizing outcomes while addressing burden to individuals, resources, and other stakeholder perspectives.

As you can see from the definition, medical research done withe emphasis on patient’s quality of life and impact on their life and family is Patient Centered Outcomes Research. If you want to weigh in on the definition, head over to the “call for inputs” page on PCORI’s website.

Glut of Positive Reviews Online

Posted on August 20, 2011 by Gangadhar

Today, I came across this article in NYTimes about how Tripadvisor, Yelp and such sites are having too many positive reviews of restaurants and Hotels. The problem is that many of these positive reviews are commissioned by the business owners to give their business a very positive online image. Cornell researchers are studying how to identify the fake reviews from the real ones.

For an average consumer looking for a real review, there are a couple of options. One – look for the reviews which are the most critical of the establishment. These tend to be real. Also look for pictures posted by the users along with the negative review. If you can live with these type of problems, then the restaurant or hotel is for you. If not, look for a different one.

The other strategy is to look for the most recent reviews. If the most recent review is within the last month or week, you can believe it. This might also be a commissioned review but you are looking for consistency in the reviews. So if the negative reviews and the most recent reviews match in what they like and what they do not like, you have a good idea of what to expect in that establishment. I think this is enough information to decide if you want to do business with that establishment or not.

If you have any other strategies, please post them below.