Having worked at/with multiple web/software startups there are a certain set of tools I’ve gotten used to leveraging to save time and $. Some of these tools didn’t exist even 2-3 years back, so this list might / will get stale pretty fast!

The list that follows assumes these things:

• Time is money (duh!).
• Speed is everything (at least in a startup).
• Humans are expensive, machines are cheap.
• The “cloud” is safe, and everything is going to move there. If you’re a “cloud” startup and don’t buy into it, then go live in a cave.
• Your “startup” can afford $100-200/month of costs using these online services that make your team productive.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the day, should we jump right in?

1. Google Apps – Please don’t waste time using MSFT outlook, or dreamhost, or Godaddy for your email needs. Setup a Google Apps account, it takes less than an hour (at max). You get 50 users for free, can’t beat that.Its safe, fast, Gmail rocks, Google docs works, wiki is barely usable.
2. Servers – Use Amazon EC2, Slicehost or Linode. If you’re new to server administration then stick with Slicehost or Linode.
3. Github – Source control is important. Its so important that Subversion doesn’t cut it. There I said it. Bitbucket (mercurial) would be the only other thing thats even remotely good. Trac/Assembla/running your own git/svn server etc. are all bad solutions!Notice I am not saying “git”. I am saying Github. It gives you permissions, ssh key based access, easy branching, commenting on code, reviewing merges, integration with 25 external services etc. Its a no-brainer.
4. Ticketing / issue tracking – There are many options here. On one extreme is Pivotal Tracker (a steep learning curve). In the middle are the likes of Fogbugz. On the linear/boring side are Assembla or Lighthouse app or even Basecamp todo’s!I really like Pivotal Tracker, but only if you’re a truly agile startup with realistic deadlines and goals. I find it useful even when working on a project alone (instead of in a team).
5. External Monitors etc. –  Every developer should have a dual monitor setup (minimum of 21″, ideally 24-27″), a fast machine and a chair to sit in that costs around 4-5 hours of their salary/pay-rate. Anything less than any of this doesn’t cut it and you’re pinching dollars where it matters least. Really.
6. Payment Gateways –  There are lot of (shitty) options out there. On one extreme you can go with Paypal. Thats a reasonable solution from a setup perspective. Sadly their API’s (still) suck … a lot!If you’re ok with getting your own merchant account setup etc. I highly recommend using Braintree Payment Solutions. They have amazing customer service, a well written/thought out API and an API wrapper written in most popular languages (Ruby, Java, Python, PHP etc.).
7. Online contracts/NDA’s – If you’re hiring employees, contractors and vendors you’re probably going to be signing a ton of paperwork! Do your brain a favor and use Echosign. It makes getting contracts, NDA’s, I-9 forms signed a breeze.

I’ll limit myself to these 7 things. There are other problems like invoicing (solved by Freshbooks), CRM (solved by 37Signals Highrise or Salesforce), wiki (solved by pbworks.com), sharing files (solved by Dropbox) etc. that need solving too.

But I’ll leave that an exercise for the reader. Just refer to the bullet points I mention above, and if the solution/tool you choose meets/exceeds the goals specified there then you’re good to go!

So lots of friends have been messaging and emailing me about my bizarre Fanning behavior on Facebook. Weirdly none complain when I fan someone/some brand on Twitter. I guess cause that affects my feed, not theirs (Facebook apparently informs them about my fanning?).

In any case, I thought I’ll fire up a blog post about it, and guess where a few of these things are headed, and why its important that people fan brands, things/people they like etc.

Firstly irrespective of how many friends you have (I have around 250) on Facebook, there is no way your stream has new things to show every time. It simply doesn’t happen. For most people who check their Facebook 1-2 times a day its fine, but mostly people probably are spending north of 1 hour on Facebook (site/mobile etc.).

For the latter, fresh content is important, otherwise they are simply wasting time. Many people are getting their news, thoughtful articles etc. simply based on this feed. I can imagine 15-18 year olds not caring much of Yahoo! news, Google news etc.

Now back to the fanning behavior, the more things you fan, the more realtime your feed can be. Now if a brand spams my feed, I simply remove them. But most brands are being creative, they don’t talk about themselves all the time. In fact they provide thoughtful notes, links and commentary on things that have absolutely nothing to do with their brand.

Facebook Pages is going to evolve, and my money is on the fact that its going to really make Social (e)Commerce skyrocket. With the pending launch of Facebook Payments, its going to make for one heady mix! Imagine Brand X launches a product Y. They inform all their followers (say10k+). These followers with a few clicks can buy product Y off Brand X’s facebook page, without leaving Facebook, without entering their address/credit card # etc. cause Facebook already knows those details. Whats more these people get to share their purchase with their friends etc.

Now all this can be done on www.brandX.com also, and they can possibly (and most probably will) use Facebook Connect on their site, and make it social. But the idea of going to one place (Facebook) and being able to get all your news, catch up on friends, order product Y (maybe some flowers for your Mom) etc. etc. is pretty nice!

So there you go, I don’t really love each of the brands I fan on Facebook, but thats a cost I am willing to pay for a realtime stream, interesting links/discussions and getting to know more than I will from just my friends (who are awesome too!)

As many of you know I recently started working at Tivix. Working to solve problems faced by social entrepreneurs and Non-Profits is a good feeling. I came up with an idea similar to igive (there are others out there too), but wanted to make it simpler and easier to use (without forcing people to login for example)

I came up with a rhyming name for this concept, Givix: Giving while shopping! Thanks to Amazon Associates, commission junction and linkshare it was made possible!

Also thanks to the simplicity and free scale of Google App Engine I am able to write the code, test and launch Givix (on another note I think the Django model interfaces are easier to use, or maybe I’ve simply become used to them. I do like App Engine’s online dashboard, ease with which I can edit model instances, see logs/performance etc.)

I enjoyed writing this simple app, I hope to enhance it more next year. Hopefully Givix will be able to raise some (however small) money for a few causes this year. Given the looming recession I don’t have high hopes, but if you’re reading this and are going to be shopping at Amazon.com, buy.com, sketchers, macys.com, cafepress.com or others, then do consider clicking through Givix before making the purchase. Every cent counts!

Its been talked about for a long time, but its happening now more than ever before. More American and European nationals are taking up full-time positions in India, even if its for a few months. This article in the Voice of America gives a few examples.

Is having worked in India / China becoming a pre-requisitive to grow in your jobs in western countries?

A quote from the article:

“If you work in India for a couple of years, it helps your career, whether you are in Wall Street or technology companies,”

I saw more employees of US and Japanese based companies at this golf course (designed by Greg Norman) in Greater NOIDA (a suburb of New Delhi) than Indians!!

Have the battle lines been drawn? Is it time to take sides? Am referring to the recent announcement that Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google will be joining Apple Computers board. As a keen follower of the companies and a avid user of their services, software and computers I find the move extremely interesting and exciting. So what are the areas they can cooperate on?

• I can imagine a world without the need for the $99 .mac service that Apple provides. I’ve heard the service is not great (I did use it through the 60 day trial and wasn’t impressed).
• Google and Apple could work out a better solution for the end customer where in Mac Mail, Calendar, Address-book etc. just work with the corresponding Google services, keeping all user data in sync.
• Why limit ourselves to mundane things only? How about being able to access (and play) all my iTunes music and video through Google Video (and Audio one day)? How about backing my entire mac and making it searchable online?
• Spotlight search on Mac’s could offer algorithmic web search results from Google.

Now there are areas where Google and Apple may not see eye to eye:

• Apple would like to keep iPhoto as the tool for managing photos, instead of Google’s Picasa (which someday may have a Mac version…for now it has a basic picasa web albums uploader).
• Apple would probably like to make sure that they retain their brand and mac doesn’t become synonymous with Google (far fetched …. but possible).

A quote from the very well written NY Times article:

“The old social networks in Silicon Valley run very deep,” noted AnnaLee Saxenian, a leading scholar of the industry and dean of the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. “And this reminds us that Silicon Valley has a common enemy to the north.”

Now we all know who the common enemy is! But the real question is what options does all this leave it and Yahoo! (the company I work for) with?