Sunday, September 14, 2008

in case you were wondering where musharraf's son is...

sep 14th, 2008

i got this rather entertaining mail from one of the stanford business school aliases.

i am sorry to report that musharraf's son is a stanford b-school alumnus. although i suspect that he didn't need to fudge his entry there, unlike raoul-baba's faux harvard degree and pedigree.

well, i don't know for a fact that this fellow is general musharraf's son, but i had heard that pervez's son bilal does live in the US.

actually, compared to mr. 10% zardari, musharraf probably wasn't that bad. i am feeling positively nostalgic. mr. 10% probably becomes mr. 100% generous when it comes to funding SIMI to attack indian civilians.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BILAL MUSHARRAF <bilal@eplanetventures.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 12:52 PM
Subject: [gsb-pvteqty] "Sussing Out" Market Size
To:



Dear All,

I was wondering if I could ask for guidance on how better to.. "suss out" the target market size of a business venture.  The stage/niches that I normally look at, do not have a lot of public financial data.

The strategy class at the GSB had us focus on logic, scope, and competitive advantage to determine the possibilities of a product/company's future success.  In my work setting, I have distilled a quick look at any new deal along the following dimensions:

1. <Product>
2. <Market Size >
3. <Competitive Advantage>
[Product Offering] vs [Current Standard]
4. <Overall Recommendation & Concerns>

However, I always struggle to get an objective sense of #2, particularly as it relates to trying to identify category dominant players at a global level.  Ofcourse, China and India can get away with having multi-Billion dollar companies that are focused solely on the domestic market, but other emerging economies can not afford the same.  So the question I struggle with is what the target size of the market is and how many players are already equipped to target that particular market niche.

At the risk of possibly asking the obvious challenge when it comes to making sound investments, I was wondering whether anyone might have any condensed thoughts related to flushing out the market size.  Any personally distilled insights would be very helpful.. also any readings that you found useful would also be extremely valuable.

Thank you very much!!

Regards,
Bilal
San Jose, CA

*******************************





3 comments:

Prateek said...

May be he got in through donation quota too like Roul vinci (misnomer: rahul ghandi) but may be stayed on through the competition unlike roul. But there can be many Bilal musharaffs dude, don't be flattered by one mail. I wouldn't trust it may be its a misnomer too. Take it easy.

Tranquil said...

I have seen Musharraf's son on tv once. Certainly kingini kuttan & zardari's son (and daughter) look more sinister and lethal.

Arvind said...

Question for bilal - what market are you looking for? Belt bombs? Or if you are looking at the space sector, you might make progress by pointing the rockets upwards instead of parallel to the ground.