How to start an E-Commerce company and get acquired by Amazon.com for half-a-billion-dollars

Unfortunately, in this fun From Scratch interview, Vinnie Bharara and Marc Lore, Co-Founders of Diapers.com refuse to reveal exactly how the deal with Amazon - which acquired Diapers.com's parent company, Quidsi, for $540 Million in 2010 - came about. But they still share in detail how they went about thinking through and building out the business - something that Indian E-Commerce entrepreneurs, who are treading down the "build scale, the profits will follow" path, will appreciate.

The funny parts include Vinnie's imitation of his dad's reaction - when he saw the $80,000 charge for bulk purchase of diapers from a wholesaler - in his (Dad's) Indian accent; Diapers.com's tagline "We deliver everything but the baby" & a T-Shirt they made with "We're both No. 1 and No. 2" (Don't Ask).

Quick Links: How SolarCity is delivering cheaper power (than grid power) to consumers

Engaging "From Scratch" interview with Lyndon Rive, CEO of US-based, publicly listed SolarCity, in which he comes across as as a very passionate advocate of solar energy. (The positive way in which he's handled his Dyslexia is inspiring.) His claim that SolarCity is already delivering power to consumers at rates cheaper than that from grid is validated in this NPR Planet Money episode titled "How Solar Got Cheaper".

For a long time, solar power has seemed like a thing of the future. A few environmentalists with a lot of money could afford it, but it wasn't really available for everyone.

That's changed. Suddenly, solar power isn't this weird fringe technology anymore. People get it not to save the planet, but because it's a good deal.

The Vital Importance of Playing!

NPR has aggregated some great TED Talks on the Importance of Playing!

Does something serious happen when we play? In this episode, TED speakers describe how all forms of amusement — from tossing a ball to video games — can make us smarter, saner and more collaborative.

Seth Godin's Startup School Series

This Series (a recoridng of a talk by Seth to a group of entrepreneurs about to embark on their startup journeys)  is a great listen with a lot of takeaways for both newbie and established entrepreneurs.

How Freshdesk's is Aceing PR, Funding, HR

Chennai, India-based SaaS CRM firm Freshdesk's Founder & CEO Girish Mathrubootham has an engaging interview on Mixergy.

I especially liked the aspects relating to how the company leveraged the HackerNews community to attract and get early customer traction; how it attracted the attention of its first VC investor, Accel Partners (Girish got Angellist founder Naval Ravikant's attention - by saying soemthing nice about him on a HackerNews article, which got them on to AngelList, where Accel noticed them and reached out) and how Freshdesk practices "strengths finder" principles to fit its employees to the right roles.