Dare To Dream

While virtually everyone in corporate jobs, and even an increasing number of college students, at least vaguely, dream of becoming entrepreneurs, not many give shape to their thoughts. The desire gets overwritten by the comfort of a salary routine. Only a fraction of such people rises above the resistance, and start planning for their own ventures seriously.
For others, it is a mystery how these entrepreneurs dare to risk it all. The world belongs to those who dare.
This blog will decode the various facets of entrepreneurship.

Monday, September 18, 2017

Decoding Luxe : the story of a reader (entrepreneur)



This story is about a day when some random pieces of events came together and unravelled a serendipitous but dazzling reward.
That day was no different, we (my wife and kids) were excited to hop on the next flight to Goa to celebrate my kids’ birthday.
We boarded the flight and soon I got into my groove of self reflection while leafing through an in-flight magazine kept there. Suddenly, I saw a feature ad of a book with signature black and golden colour combination, suited enough to convey that it had a luxury element or at least it had the element to draw requisite expensive attention.
Now, pieces of puzzle started to fall in place. I, while being a connoisseur of luxury, happen to be the owner of an e-commerce platform that I acquired recently that operates in super premium and luxury retail. Anything that had the potential of tantalising my grey cells to know more about Indian luxury space, where I have betted my capital and passion was due to be tended very meticulously.
Sitting up straight, I delved in the advertisement and quickly realised the scintillating piece of research by Mahul Brahma “Decoding Luxe” was waiting to have my eyes and hands on it.
An entrepreneur spirit can be overwhelming sometime when it gets on the nerves to have things then and there, its sans time and place, its pure passion, but this time, it was mid-air!
Thankfully the spirit settled in logical space and searched for the places to acquire the book once I land than lunging to the spare parachutes that are kept in commercial flights (You didn’t know that! Did you?)
We alighted at Goa airport, I was busy shuffling through the bookstores' phone numbers than my luggage, immediately contacted 4 of them to face the dejection of not having the book on stands. Next call went to my office guys back in Gurgaon, rushed them to the store there, got a book picked and asked them to courier it to me with a priority delivery in next 24 hours.
I planned my stay at Taj Exotica, a beautiful property, outliving its name, and fairly rooted deep to have that extra effort to be made to savour the fruits of luxury and exclusive experience. Luxury and experience is a give and take relationship, its never one sided, it can’t be, this time, the location of Taj took away my chance of having that book delivered from Gurgaon in the timeframe I was looking to.
I use an amazon.com account, now leaving no stone unturned, I installed one more app in my wife’s phone for accessing amazon.in. Imagine the excitement when I saw the listing on Amazon! But, remember, give and take? Finding the book on Kindle, setting up my new laptop that I brought along and then finally acquiring the digital print of the book took four hours of entrepreneurial spirit and time.
Mahul has done an impeccable job in putting lucid perspectives about what, how and why of luxury in India through this piece of art.
Decoding Luxe connected those dots and solved the puzzles that pave way to my vision and readies me to embark on my entrepreneurial journey ahead with luxury in India!

Thanks,

Sunday, October 23, 2016

Top 5 Myths of Entrepreneurship

Don’t become an entrepreneur for the wrong reasons:

Mahul Brahma

1.      Being your own Boss: Everything comes at a cost. So does being your own boss. And it is not a bed of roses. Once you become an entrepreneur you become the jack of all trades for your startup. From HR to Finance to Business Development to Sales to Marketing to Corporate Communications to Administration, every bit of the company is your responsibility. From mending the coffee vending machines to executing the clutter-breaking idea, it is all a part of the day's job for an entrepreneur. And remember, no one will pat on your back or tell you encouraging words when you achieve your initial successes and no one will console or encourage you when you hit the failures. Being your boss means you need to be your own motivator. 

2.      20-something Billionaires: Don’t let Facebook, Whatsapp, Apple tales take you to a fairyland. The story lies in what is untold. They never started the companies with the target of becoming billionaires. The started these companies because they believed in an idea, an idea that they thought was strong enough to dedicate their life to. Leaving institutes like Harvard or Cal Tech and starting something in the garage takes a lot of guts, and it is that guts that makes an entrepreneur. being an entrepreneur is not a back up option -- in case you do not end up with the plump offer, you start your own company. These people took a leap pf faith and kept pushing themselves, even today, after they have become billionaires. They still are equally motivated as they were on the first day. The failure stories in start ups are in thousands, some take the easy way and take up a job, the others try harder and correct their mistakes.   

3.      Ideas are bulletproof: Even a million-dollar idea can crash-land if it is not backed by a proper business model. Have faith in your idea but be open to address the faults. At the end of the day, remember it is a business and not a work of art. There has to be a great idea to begin with. You need a clutter breaker. But the real challenge comes after that. How do you make your idea viable, how do you think your idea can make money, be sustainable and create value in the same time. This is where you need to understand the crucial role played by a business model. This model is a result of market research -- understanding the need of the market/customers, and pricing. This is a blueprint of to how your idea can become a business.   

4.      Start-up is the quick route to success: Starting your business is nor a short cut to success. It needs more patience and diligence. The labour pains of failures can make you abandon your plan. Neither can becoming an entrepreneur be treated as a back-up. You are bound to fail if this is the case. The road of an entrepreneur is much more challenging than that of a professional. The problems that a professional faces is more of a uni-dimensional nature, pertaining to his line of work. For an entrepreneur the attack can be from any direction, HR/Finance/Administration/Sales/Clients/Media/what have you. It is easy for a professional to quit a job than for an entrepreneur to quit his own company. An entrepreneur can't be a quitter. And at the end it has more dividends, always.  


5.      It is a one-man show: You are only as good as your team. A leader has to understand the needs of co-workers and walk with them. Be inclusive. Every entrepreneur knows that he/she needs a set of like-minded people with a trust in his/her idea. Otherwise, why will someone take such a huge risk, risking his/her career to jump with you for your idea? You need to sell it well. You will have to make them your partners, and lead them towards a better future. It is your responsibility to align the future of the company with theirs', every individual needs to feel like a worthy stakeholder. Although you see just one face, but if you delve deep, you will always see a core team and a set of dedicated professionals who bring in the best of what the company can get.  

So, once you have clarity in why you want to become an entrepreneur, you will know if you have it in you or not. 

  

5 Myths of Entrepreneurship

Don’t become an entrepreneur for the wrong reasons:

Mahul Brahma

1.      Being your own Boss: Everything comes at a cost. So does being your own boss. And it is not a bed of roses. Once you become an entrepreneur you become the jack of all trades for your startup. From HR to Finance to Business Development to Sales to Marketing to Corporate Communications to Administration, every bit of the company is your responsibility. From mending the coffee vending machines to executing the clutter-breaking idea, it is all a part of the day's job for an entrepreneur. And remember, no one will pat on your back or tell you encouraging words when you achieve your initial successes and no one will console or encourage you when you hit the failures. Being your boss means you need to be your own motivator. 

2.      20-something Billionaires: Don’t let Facebook, Whatsapp, Apple tales take you to a fairyland. The story lies in what is untold. They never started the companies with the target of becoming billionaires. The started these companies because they believed in an idea, an idea that they thought was strong enough to dedicate their life to. Leaving institutes like Harvard or Cal Tech and starting something in the garage takes a lot of guts, and it is that guts that makes an entrepreneur. being an entrepreneur is not a back up option -- in case you do not end up with the plump offer, you start your own company. These people took a leap pf faith and kept pushing themselves, even today, after they have become billionaires. They still are equally motivated as they were on the first day. The failure stories in start ups are in thousands, some take the easy way and take up a job, the others try harder and correct their mistakes.   

3.      Ideas are bulletproof: Even a million-dollar idea can crash-land if it is not backed by a proper business model. Have faith in your idea but be open to address the faults. At the end of the day, remember it is a business and not a work of art. There has to be a great idea to begin with. You need a clutter breaker. But the real challenge comes after that. How do you make your idea viable, how do you think your idea can make money, be sustainable and create value in the same time. This is where you need to understand the crucial role played by a business model. This model is a result of market research -- understanding the need of the market/customers, and pricing. This is a blueprint of to how your idea can become a business.   

4.      Start-up is the quick route to success: Starting your business is nor a short cut to success. It needs more patience and diligence. The labour pains of failures can make you abandon your plan. Neither can becoming an entrepreneur be treated as a back-up. You are bound to fail if this is the case. The road of an entrepreneur is much more challenging than that of a professional. The problems that a professional faces is more of a uni-dimensional nature, pertaining to his line of work. For an entrepreneur the attack can be from any direction, HR/Finance/Administration/Sales/Clients/Media/what have you. It is easy for a professional to quit a job than for an entrepreneur to quit his own company. An entrepreneur can't be a quitter. And at the end it has more dividends, always.  


5.      It is a one-man show: You are only as good as your team. A leader has to understand the needs of co-workers and walk with them. Be inclusive. Every entrepreneur knows that he/she needs a set of like-minded people with a trust in his/her idea. Otherwise, why will someone take such a huge risk, risking his/her career to jump with you for your idea? You need to sell it well. You will have to make them your partners, and lead them towards a better future. It is your responsibility to align the future of the company with theirs', every individual needs to feel like a worthy stakeholder. Although you see just one face, but if you delve deep, you will always see a core team and a set of dedicated professionals who bring in the best of what the company can get.  

So, once you have clarity in why you want to become an entrepreneur, you will know if you have it in you or not. 

  

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Why the farmer will never get rich

Imagine there's no countries. Unwittingly, John Lennon captured the essence of globalisation in this song. It's an engine to integrate markets so a farmer in a remote district of Maharashtra is almost as well off as his counterpart in US. However, the key word is imagine. Why? You'll know soon. Let's ask the farmer whether he understands globalisation or if he has heard of Joseph Stiglitz or Jagdish Bhagwati. No? But, isn't he the one the noted economists are fighting for?
Hardliner Stiglitz takes a softer path — converts his discontents (as evident from his book Globalisation and its Discontents) to a solution in Making Globalisation Work. The solution is easy to implement, but only theoretically. It's actually like the song. To start with, we need to imagine all the countries are at par — there's no first, second or third world. They discuss agreements on agriculture. Let's restrict globalisation to trade and not stretch it to terrorism. As they say, with attacks in foreign countries having no direct relation with the attackers' own country, terrorism has also globalised.
At a WTO meet, unlike the Uruguay round in Marrakesh, they agree to share their markets for agricultural good. They make trade laws, clauses, discuss the little boxes of subsidies and the intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, the green, amber and blue little boxes aren't all the same (as in the song). Because in the real world, they are used by the first world as an instrument to manipulate the quantum of subsidies.
Anyway, for our farmer, the market will no more be his village, it may now be somewhere in Europe. They pay him in euros and give the best deal available globally. Wow! That means our villages will eventually not remain poor. Therefore, being an agro-based country, India can become rich — the so-called first world. Hold on, do I smell a circular logic? Of course, our assumption was there's only one world, that is, we are already rich (or poor) — as rich (or poor) as the US.
But, what if we don't imagine? We realise the world isn't integrated and the first world nations are dictating terms to the third world. Globalisation is used to penetrate the untapped markets of the developing nations. The terms are tailor-made to suit the needs of the haves at the cost of the have-nots. So our farmer remains poor, exploited now by some European agent. India can walk out, deny, but perhaps, can never dictate terms to the developed world. What the hell, it's just a song. We may be the third world, but we can imagine.
You may say that I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the world will be as one.
Mahul Brahma

Monday, November 30, 2015

Critical mass may come with labour pangs

Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, the workers union affiliated to the Shiv Sena, was in the news recently after its members at Big Bazar went on a flash strike to protest the termination of 120 employees. The strike not only succeeded in ensuring the reinstatement of the sacked staffers, but also brought to fore the issue of working conditions in malls and BPOs. 

In another incident, the management of Hindalco Industries declared its canteen staff, who had been with the company for over a decade, temporary workers. The union, Association of Engineering Workers, moved court. Finally in March 2008, the Supreme Court passed a judgement in their favour and asked the company to grant them permanent workers status. These are only some examples that highlight how empowered labour unions are in India. 

Entrepreneurs in the IT/ITeS segment are yet to come face-to-face with the union issue. But recently, WNS had to deal with union interference at its Nashik centre. Some IT/ITeS entrepreneurs have reservations about setting up centres in states like Kerala and West Bengal due to the strong trade union movements there, says K Ganesh, an entrepreneur who has started an e-learning company. 

In India, a trade or labour union is the primary instrument for championing the cause of the working class. Article 19c of the Constitution confers on all Indian citizens the right to form a union, as a fundamental right. A strength of seven is all that is required to form a labour union 

Mafoi Management Consultants CEO E Balaji feels that the formation of a labour union can happen on the first year of a business's operation, or it may not happen even after 40 years. "It all depends on the view of the employer towards the labourers. If he looks at his staff as partners and adheres to good HR practices, labour relationship may remain good forever." 

Usually, an entrepreneur starts his business with 10-15 close aides, and then comes the expansion. For example, he may set up a manufacturing unit and hire 200-500 people. Suddenly, he finds that he has to master the delicate art of labour management, without much help or guidance to fall back upon. If he is not careful, he might just spend his entire time dealing with them, or even risk seeing his well-laid growth plans go awry. 

For labour unions, the main grouse is with the contracts system. They feel companies enter into contracts to avoid paying workers their rightful dues. Hiring on a contract-basis is an escape route companies are taking, feel labour leaders. It is a sham and is an arrangement to avoid making workers permanent and giving wages and benefits as are applicable to permanent workmen, they feel. 
Most entrepreneurs, on the other hand, feel that the main problem lies in multiple unions, unrealistic demands from unions, or from unions affiliated to political parties. But they also agree that unions can help organisations grow better if they are internal to the company. And also if both management and unions can approach each other professionally. 


Companies need to be fair with the staff, pay well and pay on time, provide safe working conditions to minimise the possibility of formation of unions, say HR experts. "A union does not hinder the growth of a company. However, the cordial relation between the employer and the union is always helpful to achieve expected growth of the company," says LawQuest founder Poorvi Chothani. 


T Muralidharan, chairman and managing director of talent management company TMI Group, says: "Union problems are primarily a thing of the past. Today, due to abundant job opportunities, companies are doing their best to retain employees. Even unions are not being negative in the private sector. However, union issues can arise if salary levels are extremely low or when companies are employing at minimum wage levels." 

TMI has an empowered employees' committee with authority to recognise, reward and even take disciplinary action against errant employees. It has also initiated the process of inviting employee groups to take a more active role in the company's management. 

Phani N Raj, founder of eYantra, an online branding company, had a lot of doubts when he planned to set up his manufacturing unit. "I was not sure about managing and arranging the labour, the laws are draconian, and there is not much clarity on the labour laws. Each time we wanted to do some changes, there was always a doubt whether the labour will touch base with unions and will they obstruct the reforms." 

So, eYantra asked itself what is that an union provides which the company cannot and why do labours need unions after all? The company hired an expert to look into labour relations. Some of the problems it faced were absenteeism, low productivity, irregular behaviour pattern. These problems, the study found, were regular in nature. So, the expert designed a programme by isolating each problem and employee. The company then realised that only 0.5% of the entire labo .. 

eYantra also started conducting yoga classes and distributing free medicines to the workers' families, which also improved morale. As LawQuest's Ms Chothani says, "The success of any industry and the protection of workers go hand-in-hand with each other." 




Thursday, October 23, 2008

Green avenue: Business sense meets clean energy

Visitors these days to St Paul’s school in Hyderabad or Basaveswara College in Bangalore, or any of the growing number of educational institutions across southern India, notice bright rows of solar-powered lamps that have switched off hundreds of energy-guzzling tube lights that the campuses previously employed. Helping them in this transformation to cleaner and greener lighting is Shuchi Energy Ad Promotions, a Hyderabad-based start-up that has shrewdly combined the lure of solar lighting with the business opportunity in ad signages. The company puts up the lights and gets signage rights in return. Hundreds of kilometres away, just outside Pune city, Span Pumps has begun a mission. While big companies are busy bottling mineral water for the urban elite, this company has set out to provide villagers the means to get clean water. It makes deep well pumps and water purification systems. Shuchi and Span are just two examples of hundreds of innovative companies, driven by entrepreneurs who have the pulse of the nation and building businesses that usher in a cleaner environment. They have broken out of the mould of the traditional businessman who thinks of environment protection as something of a Gandhian struggle unfit for commerce and an added expenditure to be delayed as much as possible. They have seen a business opportunity in embracing cleaner technologies and helping companies harmonise their businesses with nature. Happily for India, they are also earning carbon credits, popular business assets representing the amount of carbon emissions that one has helped save. Start-up activity to exploit the potential of carbon credits and clean technology is set to explode in India, says Green Ventures India director Vinay Bharathwaj. Green Ventures India is a subsidiary of New York-based asset management firm Green Ventures International. The latter recently announced a $300 million India-focused fund aimed at renewable energy projects and supporting trading in carbon credits. Founder and CEO of Emergent Ventures India (EVI) Vinod Kala, says he realised in 2004 that there is huge business potential in environment. So, he turned the focus of his company, which used to serve software companies with financial and management incubation services, to carbon credit advisory services. It also helps implement the globally backed clean development mechanism (CDM) programme, ranging from project origination to assistance with project implementation and the monitoring and delivery of certified emission receipts (CERs) and voluntary emission receipts (VERs) in the domestic and international carbon market. It also helps companies achieve carbon neutrality, which represents the net zero emission status. In perhaps a reaffirmation of the commercial credentials of this shift, Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation invested Rs 40 crore in EVI recently. This is a rare feat, as sufficient VC support or angel investing and capital pump-ins for greener ideas, clean technologies and sustainable development concepts in India are still a far cry. Mr Kala says financial investors are increasingly looking at green technology as profit opportunity than only a morally right thing to do, but there are dozens of entrepreneurs who have found the capital expenditure involved in such projects overwhelming and funds too hesitant to invest in them.
Many investors worry not just about the capital intensive nature of the project but also what they see as the fragmentation of the market and the long spans it could take to see return on their investments. ”India is a relatively nascent market for clean technology and the entire carbon credit market,” says managing director of Canaan Partners Alok Mittal. “Though there are a lot of project deployment happening in the space, innovation on technologies by entrepreneurs is still lacking. Plus, countries like Germany are offering heavy subsidies as compared to their Indian counterparts. Therefore, we do not see a lot many VCs investing in projects, but investments are definitely feasible in product and technology companies behind clean energy and carbon credits.” His fund is yet to invest in clean technology deployment projects, but is searching for opportunities, he says. But Mr Mittal’s view on entrepreneurship in this market will increasingly become less true, if stories of innovation sprouting from across the country are any indication. So, some venture capitalists such as Green Ventures have moved ahead with investments in the sector, despite the usual regulatory apathy that a sunrise industry goes through. “There are enough opportunities for entrepreneurs within this space, but its the policy framework for the industry that is not conducive for fostering such start-ups ventures in the country,” says country director of New Ventures India Suneel Parasnis. The firm focuses on clean technology and renewable energy projects. He also complains about the lack of income tax exemption for such projects. New Ventures so far has managed to secure $13 million funding for start-ups in clean technology space. “The market drivers have just started to churn in the country and it would take at least another 3-5 years for more entrepreneurs to enter this space,” Mr Parasnis says. As a sign that clean technology-related ventures is poised to take off in the country, UTI Ventures, in 2007, invested nearly $8 million in Pesco Beam Environmental Solutions, a firm involved in waste-oil recycling and alternate energy systems, while IDFC PE invested Rs 35 crore in Ahmedabad-based Doshion, a water management company. US-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, the VC that funded Amazon.com and Google, too, has shown its interest to actively invest in clean-technology companies in India. Among others who have shown interest in investment in this segment in India are big names like Draper Fisher Jurvetson India, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nexus India Capital Advisors and NEA-IndoUS Venture. Like any asset, carbon credits are also traded globally. And like any asset, they have attracted traders, dealmakers and intermediaries. “We have to look beyond CDM advising to unleash the huge potential of carbon credit services,” says Ernst & Young partner Sudipta Das. This, by itself, is an entrepeneurial opportunity. The Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) was among the first to sense the trading potential of carbon credits in India. Now, about 6,500 tonne of carbon credits are being traded on MCX each day. “It is for sure many carbon credit generators are showing lot of interest to participate on the exchange platform,” says managing director and CEO of MCX Joseph Massey. “The US and the EU have asked both India and China to reduce their baseline emissions, which should get implemented by 2020,” Mr Bharathwaj says. “Once that happens and the government adopts more stringent policies for curbing carbon emissions, clean technology ventures would assume greater importance in the country and as a result there would be more investment interest within the sector.”
(With Ritwik Donde)
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-2980829,prtpage-1.cms

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Serial entrepreneurs are always on to the next big idea. What keeps them ticking ?

SERIAL entrepreneurship is looking at companies like the way one would look at a product. Just the way one launches a product, builds attractive features and attributes in the product, invests in creating value, makes it appealing, prices it correctly and manages it through the product life cycle stages, one needs to follow a similar strategy with ventures. So, a serial entrepreneur while being passionate about the business and being deeply committed to the idea, does not lose sight of the fact that this needs to be nurtured and managed to create value. Else, most businesses will eventually become irrelevant or will only be moderate successes. “This scientific and clinical approach to value creation and monetisation is what you will pass on to the next generation,” says K Ganesh, founder of TutorVista, an elearning company. A serial entrepreneur has the pleasure of being able to enjoy the joys and thrills of creating something. This is like an adventurer discovering new land or climbing new peaks. Each venture brings in a new excitement and fresh success, feels a serial entrepreneur. It is like conquering new peaks and moving on to the next adventure. No matter how good the last success has been, it is done and over with. “How are you going to satisfy a curious and adventurous mind with past glories?” A serial entrepreneur is usually more adventurous from an entrepreneur who sticks with his project. Once a serial entrepreneur tastes success in one venture, the urge to try his hand at another one is very strong. “The regular entrepreneur is probably the kind of guy who is happy with his achievements from his project and gets into a comfort zone, thereby reducing his urge to experiment with something new,” says Sushil Wadhwa, founder, Platinum Incentives & Events. The biggest advantage of being a serial entrepreneur is the knowledge that he gains from the various ventures, not to mention the financial benefits that come out it. He is also more ‘hands on’ than a regular entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is all about passion—you cannot be having two businesses where you are committed to. You can be an investor, board member or a mentor, but where you are going to be spending your total passion, entrepreneurial bandwidth, most of waking-up time as well as dreaming time has to be in just one venture, adds Ganesh. So, if you can get to do that in your current venture, then you need not sell. But, if you dream about something else all day, you should move on, say experts. Whether you sell your current business or maintain it depends on a lot of factors — what is your need for capital, whether the current business will do equally well without you spending time, what is the value you are getting if you were to sell, what do you see the future value of the business likely to be and what are the risks in continuing the current business. Sometimes, you sell because you get a deal that is hard to refuse. At other times, you sell because you don’t see a much better option giving challenges of the business and environment. When Ganesh started off his first venture in 1990 with four friends pooling in Rs 93,000 for a computer maintenance services business, he never thought he would become a serial entrepreneur. He ran it for eight years, but also realised that like product-based businesses have life cycles and one need to plan the business objectives, stages and exits right from the start. So from second venture onwards, he paid close attention to these aspects. Creating something new, being among the first few companies in a new, emerging space, proving to critics that it’s indeed a viable idea and can be profitable too, are all fundamental to the ongoing entrepreneurial drive, says Ganesh: “This drives me to keep starting new ventures.” Manish Sabharwal, founder of TeamLease, a staffing solutions provider, feels the same way. “I’m not sure I can call entrepreneurship a drug, but the addiction effects are pretty similar. I have never met an unhappy successful entrepreneur, but met many unhappy successful employees of other companies. My first venture India Life was much more pre-mediated; I think we were very lucky with TeamLease by being in the right place at the right time. So, we had planned to do another venture, but it also just happened.” Sabharwal also believes doing a second venture is much easier if we consider credibility, brand, network and access to capital. But, the most difficult and important part is getting a good team. “A key element of entrepreneurship is putting a team together and you have to kiss many frogs before your find your princess.” Platinum’s Wadhwa started honing his entrepreneurial skills for running his family business of restaurants, and being a hotel management graduate was of help. But, the family business was not a very exiting venture for him and so he decided to start something on his own, albeit on a smaller scale. After that, it was a ride of ups and downs. “But I was determined to carry on,” he says. His stint in a friend’s company exposed him to the MICE segment. Raman Roy, founder of Quatrro, refuses to differentiate between entrepreneurs and serial entrepreneurs. Though a serial entrepreneur himself, he feels that every entrepreneur is a serial entrepreneur. The biggest mistake is that people define entrepreneurs as those who own their businesses. “Entrepreneurship is all about the risk taking ability and the ability to look into the unknown. Some call it self confidence and some sheer stupidity,” says Mr Roy. To him, Bill Gates is also a serial entrepreneur. “Can you possibly say that he only started Microsoft? The launching and executing of various ideas, products, versions are all like starting new ventures.” Says Sridhar Iyengar of Bessemer Venture Partners, “In essence, all entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs. Some start multiple things, which succeed or fail.” Unfortunately, most serial entrepreneurs don’t think that the trend to become a serial entrepreneur is catching on as it takes up a lot of time, and needs a lot of conviction every time you start a new venture. That quality is not very commonly found, they agree. There are many instances where people try to become serial entrepreneurs, but fail, and prefer to go back to a professional career to earn their bread and butter. Entrepreneur mentors like Iyengar think in India where “failure is worse than death” people only want to deal with successful entrepreneurship, somehow belittling those entrepreneurs who tried but failed. He believes that in India we also put a premium on the “he/she stuck with it” entrepreneur, effectively thinking of those who leave for whatever reason as quitters. Every venture need to be started keeping in mind the general space and opportunities, looking at what will be needed to make a success in the field, analysing whether one can gather the critical resources required to succeed in the space and then going for it. Most serial entrepreneurs after their first venture, start off the next only after analysing at least four or five different opportunities before honing on specific one to launch. Once you keep your antennas up and ready to listen, ideas will start cropping up. The opportunities are limitless. What is the key is to quickly filter on the few that you can focus on for detailed evaluation, say experts.Ganesh looks at entrepreneurship like playing poker. You have certain cards in your hand. You can either pack (fold) or remain in play. Entrepreneurship is about deciding whether you have a strong enough hand, that is, high value cards for you to take a call and remain in play. You will never know till end of the round whether your cards were really good enough, whether somebody had even better cards but you take all probabilities into account and take a decision, he says. However, there is a downside to being a serial entrepreneur. As Ganesh puts it, “You lose hair faster, age prematurely, are seen as a crazy maverick by most people who cannot fathom why do these people subject themselves to all this again and again — that too voluntarily.” Sabharwal of TeamLease feels the biggest challenge of doing it the second time is the expectations. The first time you have nothing to lose and everything to gain so have much less baggage. The second time you have conceptions of who you are and what you have done and others have expectations of what you will do. This opening balance can be a gift and a curse, he says. But, everyone need not be a serial entrepreneur. There are people who are good at maintaining and growing businesses to greater heights day after day which can be equally challenging and even tougher. But, the key is the mindset and what makes a person tick. Future serial entrepreneurs need to do their homework first, and then start something new. It’s easy to get carried away by your own success, and other peoples, but it not necessary that each time you will find success. “So have an appetite for failures too, as they are the true stepping stones towards success,” says Wadhwa. So, with the clear road map to value creation, monetisation and exit, one can plan, grow and nurture the business and navigate the company on desired path.
http://10.101.20.24/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RVRNLzIwMDgvMDcvMDcjQXIwMDYwMA==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom