I consider myself to be an accidental entrepreneur!

bizoriginYou can read my current views and musings about the business scene at Art and Science of Startups: Bizorigin.com.

Other forays that I have had in to the business world include:

(i) Sr. VP and General Counsel, Dreamtime Holdings. Rewind to 1999; Dreamtime had a great plan - work with NASA and monetize all the traffic going to NASA websites and other multimedia content. The plan was that Dreamtime was to donate about $100M worth of equipment to NASA in return for semi-exclusive rights to use NASA’s multimedia content. I led the negotiations with NASA carve out the IP rights of Dreamtime. The idea was to provide HD equipment to NASA and then all HD content will become the exclusive property of Dreamtime for 5-10 years, however low resolution feed will be provided free to general public. The agreement with NASA was unprecedented because it envisioned offering equity in Dreamtime to NASA - something that required congressional approval.

(ii) Partner, Invisible Studios, LLP. Invisible studio was an incubator fund. Image There were about six companies at different level of gestation. The portfolio included ready2build.com ( a portal for construction industry) GoYogi.com (a portal for India - Excite/Chello was interested in acquiring this portal), Protozoa ( a 3D animator suite, which had seen some success in Doonsbury and a cursing Nurse 3D characters) and several others.

(iii) President, Zenncomm. A satellite company. A communication satellite, Orion 3, was launched by Boeing, and the rocket misfired. the satellite our satellite company got stuck in the low earth orbit. The insurance company paid off $280M for the satellite. We purchased the salvage rights to the satellite from the insurance company and our plan was to slap a booster on the satellite and send it to its intended geosynchronous orbit. We even considered using Columbia shuttle to do a dedicated mission to rescue this satellite. The project was moving forward nicely and then 9/11 happened and the NASA was in no mood of taking any extra risks. In December of 2001 we abandoned the project. The satellite is still making its rounds at 1000 miles by 700 miles orbit and with the right equipment, one can actually see it at 4.00 AM over Los Angeles.

I joke that I have been on all six side of the table in a business/investment negations, as an entrepreneur, as an investor, as a counsel, as an officer of a company receiving the investment, as a counsel representing interests of previous investors, and as a buyer and seller of a company.