New Zealand 2015: Trip of a Lifetime

I've been traveling a lot for the past few years - often times for fun and sometimes for work. It's been a blast. 

As a photographer, I've been itching to go to New Zealand for a few years. Looking at my frequent flyer balances, I finally decided to pull the trigger and just do it. 

Here are some highlights of the planning thus far:

• Flying Etihad's First Apartment 
• Flying Thai Airways First Class
• Flying Emirates Business Class

Follow the journey here. I'll be posting photos + planning missteps along the way. 

Book Review: Uncommon Stock

I've been slacking on my reading lately. With work and travel, I haven't had much time to catch-up on new books in a while. Over the past year, I only had a chance to read under two-dozen books. This year, I hope to at-least increase that number to around 35 books. 

One of the best new book series from last year has been Uncommon Stock by Eliot Peper. I'm not going to go through the story in this post, but if you're a startup founder, you need to read the 3 book series (the third one will be released this year).  

It's term-sheets mixed in with murder. It's start-up stress blended in with relationships. And it's a thrilling combination of survival skills - personal and professional. 

What also makes this book unique is that it is backed by FG Press - a new publishing arm from Foundry Group. Overall, their selection of books and authors is truly unique and I'm looking forward to more publishers following suit of good books without the bureaucracies. 

Travel Startup Need: Visa and Immigration

I just booked a ticket to Bermuda for our executive retreat. Being the traveler in the group, it was my idea to get away from New York for a few days to plan for what the year has ahead of us. 

Unfortunately, as an Indian passport holder, I have to often apply for visas. Not ideal and definitely expensive over time, but I deal with it. 

However, finding the information for Bermuda immigration has been challenging to say the least. It is nearly impossible to find the right information. I asked my assistant, travel agency, the Consulate, the Bermuda Government, American Airlines, United Airlines and even American Express. 

Each time, I got a different answer. And each time I tried to call the agencies (commercial and government), it was nearly impossible to get to a person, let alone the right person.  

As someone who likes to travel a lot internationally, this is something I have gotten used to. But, it is also something that I strongly despise. Why isn't there one reliable database that is frequently updated and provides customer service and a built-in community for this information? I would pay an annual fee for such a service. 

And, if you're curious who provided the best information? It was the Bermuda Government and American Express. AMEX provided the exact same document that was provided by the immigration team at Bermuda, which is very impressive. 

Review: Prime Now

Yesterday, as I was getting ready for a dinner meeting, I realized that I had run out of body wash. 

As someone who lives in New York, running to the store around the corner is usually not an issue. However, being a lazy Sunday, I decided to not leave my apartment and give Prime Now a chance. 

My first impression: prices are reasonable, but how much would I end up paying for shipping?

Turns out, if you want your order delivered within one hour, you pay a flat rate of $7.99 for a $15.00 minimum order. If you want it anytime after 61 minutes, it is free. Yep, free!

Not only can you get bodywash delivered, Amazon boasts "over 25,000 items" via their app. And it seems to have just about everything that you would need within an hour:

• Household supplies
• Batteries
• Memory cards
• Hard drives
• Kindles
• Water

The variety is good, the prices are great and unlike Amazon Prime, you don't have to meet an order minimum on cheaper items. 

I think I've found my new lazy solution! 

On 2015

As another year rolls around, I look at the calendar, pack up my laptop, iPad and various accessories that have scattered around my apartment over the past 2 weeks. It feels like the end of a school vacation. 

The end of the year is always interesting. While a lot of people take time off, startup life doesn’t really stop. It keeps plugging away. Day after day, week after week and then suddenly, 3 years later, you look back to see what you’ve accomplished. 

Running PaLaCart has been my biggest privilege. We’ve gone through so many ups and downs and if I was in any other job - I would have quit to work at another company. 

PaLaCart has also been the longest job of my career. It has been greatly rewarding, extremely challenging and truly humbling. I couldn’t have done it without the support of friends and family. 

Over the past year, I’ve also joined Genome. It is a start-up incubator and service provider. While my involvement on the service side is just starting to ramp up, looking at startups from a critical eye and then from a compassionate heart is really interesting.

2015 is going to be the year of a lot of big decisions. No resolutions at this point, but time to get things moving. 

Onwards and upwards.