Paul Graham's essay Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule is one of my all time favourites. It put into words something I had always felt but never fully articulated - to myself or my colleagues. I am a Maker.
I have always been ambitious. While I never craved titles, I did crave ...
I almost dismissed one of the best teachers I've ever met - before she even said a word.
My wife and I are on the lookout for schools for our boys. Our oldest, who is four...
One bite at a time, it seems. Or at least that's how I remember the joke I liked telling in second grade.
I am using a similar logic t...
My verdict - If you are someone who is even remotely interested in inclusive business models, please do read this book.
"The session by Prof. Sourav Mukherji on inclusive business models was my highlight," shared Vishnu, my co-founder at CoolCoach Academy. He was attending an incubati...
I had a 229-day streak on Duolingo, yet my Spanish barely improved. That's when I realized - streaks alone just don't work for me.
I am your average person when it comes to failed resolutions, habits that failed to stick, and projects that were started with great fanfare but stopped nowhere nea...
Am I?
I am always baffled when successful founders tell me that fundraising is the main job of a social sector founder/CEO. It is definitely part of the job, but the main one, seriously?
When asked to elaborate in public, I get a polished response: "Founders are the custodia...
"You should do this in a Rural area! Even better if you can do it in one of the most backward districts of the country."
My heart sank when I heard the very first sentence of feedback. By the time the second sentence was spoken, I wanted to retort, "Do you think we would have Google an...
I want to write regularly, but I struggle with it.
James Clear is clear about the key to building lasting habits. It has to start with the identity. Stephen King says identity is not sufficient; you need to show up and write daily. Seth Godin encourages you to publish (blog) daily. And if you ever f...
I had just finished talking about CoolCoach to a prospective funder. I was high on adrenaline because I had finally met someone who understood the importance of fitness and activity to reduce the risk of NCDs, who understood social enterprises, and who had read Acumen's Blueprint to Scale report. In...
Though it had been a couple of days, I was unable to get this nagging question out of my head, "Why don't I use linux anymore?" I don't remember how the conversation got there but for some reason I started talking about love for linux and how I spent my university days as an anti-Microsoft...
I don't know how I missed Kevin Starr's warning and set up CoolCoach as for-profit venture. Naively, I bought into the mirage of robust funding ecosystems for social enterprises. In place of risk capital, all I found is a lot of contradicting and confusing advice. Just like Kevin predicted...
Over the years, I have built a voracious appetite to consume books, articles, blogs, videos, and off late, podcasts & audio books. Consuming has always been easy for me but creation (writing in my case) has not. My father has been trying to persuade me to write for a while bu...
I left my job as a software engineer in late 2005 to join the development sector. Almost a decade later, I made another big change in my life, I decided to start my own (social) entrepreneurial journey. One of the reasons to make this change was I felt that I was increasingly becoming part of The De...
I live in New Delhi, India
You can email me surajsudhakar [AT] gmail [DOT] com