Bharat Entrepreneurship

Comeback

2011-11-12T21:39:00.002+14:00

Bharat Entrepreneurship is now back with articles

Moved to Rural Track

2009-09-07T02:06:00.002+14:00

Dear Readers,

This blog has been moved to a new domain www.ruraltrack.com
All the old posts are available and also with some new and thought provoking articles.

Do leave your comments on the new website www.ruraltrack.com

Nischala

Book Review: Stay Hungry Stay Foolish

2009-08-11T01:51:00.003+14:00

In the Indian entrepreneurial scenario, IIMs always play a strong role in connecting various groups in the entrepreneurial ecosytem. It sometimes builds a platform for entrepreneurs to showcase their b-plans and sometimes organizes events for like minded people to meet, grow and establish as entrepreneurs.

Where is all this going to....it is leading to a book called "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" written by Rashmi Bansal, an IIM-A alumni. She has taken time off and scripted this book with a lot of valuable inputs from different entrepreneurs (commanality is all the entrepreneurs belong to IIM-A alumni). It is a compendium of certainly 25 inspiring stories of entrepreneurs. It is not just their entrepreneurial journey but also what are their learnings out of it and what do they have to give as a lesson of the day for their fellow entrepreneurs. The layout is interesting and leaves a message behind for the reader.

Uh! this must be one of the articles on my blog which has the word "entrepreneur" repeated the maximum number of times. That is because the book is all about ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

I strongly recommend this book for people of all ages but, the most important thing they should have to read this book is "entrepreneurial spirit".

Book Review: A Better India A Better World

2009-05-28T18:22:00.004+14:00

Good foundation, value-based system, good management and entrepreneurship are the elements dealt in this book. This is a must read for all entrepreneurs (be it a well-established entrepreneur or not). I am not saying this because it is written by a successful entrepreneur, Mr.Narayana Murthy but, because it contains the right ingredients for an entrepreneur to build his/her business. The book has chapters arranged in a perfect order and gives content feeling at the end of the book. Following is the order:

Address to Students
Values
Important National Issues
Education
Leadership Challenges
Corporate and Public Governance
Corporate Social Responsibility and Philanthropy
Entrepreneurship
Globalization
Infosys

My favourite topics are: the sub - chapter Compassionate Capitalism, all chapters of Education and Values.

Typically entrepreneurs brag about their company and the road they have taken, it is more about their own story. This book is not about Infosys, it is about building a value based enterprise. Infact you will see only two chapters speaking about Infosys towards the end.

This is a compendium of the speeches delivered by Mr.Narayana Murthy and to me they are more than just facts. The speeches and filled with words of wisdom.

In short the book moves us to the next level of revelation....as an entrepreneur.

Gaming Industry moving to retail mechanism

2009-05-07T18:26:00.003+14:00

Gaming industry is a matured sector in the developed economies but, what India have say about it.

Sector Overview:

The retail gaming industry is segregated into mom and pop outlets and large format outlets. Gaming, is a crucial sector in the entertainment industry sizing upto and $48 billion globally. Of this the console and PC gaming contribute to 50% of its size and this gives us an estimate of how big the retail gaming market will grow into.

What do the players say about it?

Tha major and prominent players in this sector in India are Zapak, 7seas, Games2win, et al.
Zapak, Reliance's big entertainment online gaming arm has a positive feel about the growth of the sector. It has seen outstanding sales numbers in retail gaming through its gaming CDs. The number was about 200,000 units in 6 months. They are moving ahead by launcing 25 more titles.
7seas have also experienced a positive outcome out of the retail gaming sales. They agree with the idea that this industr provides quick returns in 6 to 12 months of time.

The related allies to this industry in India like the distributors of CDs and other publishers believe that this industry has a great growth potential in the coming years. Milestone Interactive which is one such distributor has an offering over 200 console games and about 60 titles in its portfolio. This industry has estimates of 20,000 console owners joining the community every month which would ripple down to lower price bands and more consumers.

Limitations:

With all the optimism this industry has a threat of piracy. Moreover, few players like Games2win have a sense that this is not all that lucrative as it looks as it needs huge capital (~$20 million) to sustain and pull up in this market.

Observation:

Retail gaming industry is going through a phase resembling the DVD rental market in India, though it has some more alarming factors to watch out for in the India economy like lack of computer education, low internet penetration and having crazy consumers as it is case for movies (DVD Rental).

First online microfinance platform

2009-05-07T17:29:00.002+14:00

I stumbled over an interesting student start up called KIVA.
This is a person-to-person micro lending online platform.
It has created great transperancy for the lenders to choose whom they wish to lend money. The website provides list of entrepreneurs all over the world, description of their business and loan amount they need.
Once the loan is made the lender can track the progress of the entrepreneur. He will receive his money back over time and can re-lend to the entrepreneurs on the website.

This starts from a small amount of $25 (~Rs.1000). Each $25 goes to a larger loan which helps the entrepreneurs in the developing economies to grow and establish their businesses. All the money crunch a developing economy experiences will be wiped out with this concept. It is very exciting for the entrepreneurs as well as the lenders.

Environment Conscious: Paper waste

2009-03-26T20:02:00.004+14:00

Global Warming, acidification, waste lands, are the hot words being discussed now a days. Clean tech is the next big bubble most VCs and investors are watching out for....

People see a saucy opportunity in this field, especially in India. Here is a random overview about the recycling paper industry and activities happening around it.

For 80% of the 630 paper mills in India waste paper is a a key raw material. Ragpicking is a great occupation supporting this. Around 4.6 million tonne of waste paper gets imported from Europe every year.
India Opportunity: 8.5 million tonne of paper consumed every year in the country, only 1.4 million gets recycled back to the industry..ITC launched WOW in April 2007 which aims to inculcate a habit of segregating waste and increasing the level of recycling garbage.
Interesting startup: Daily Dump

More info on the following blogs
http://greentechindia.blogspot.com/
http://www.cleantechblog.com/2006/04/indias-growing-renewable-energy-market.html

OUTLIERS

2009-03-26T00:25:00.002+14:00

Dear Friends,

I am reading the book OUTLIERS written by Malcolm Gladwell. Here is an excerpt from the book that turned like a driller into my head. The head is filled with strong ideas which make us feel that we are great or that we are not so great.
Especially as successful entrepreneurs we need to be always alert to help the budding entrepreneurs. You will know why when you read this excerpt.

Malcolm Gladwell says "I want to convince you that these kinds of personal explanations of success don't work. People don't rise from nothing. We do owe to something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine. It's not enough to ask what successful people are like, in other words. It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't.

Biologists often talk about the "ecology" of an organism: the tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warned them, the soil in which they put down the roots and the rabbits and lunberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid?"

Hope the positive side of every entrepreneur is kindled.

Business Plan Template: Idea Stage

2009-03-13T23:41:00.001+14:00

Business Plan Template Blog

View more presentations from Nischala.

Business Plan Template

2009-03-13T15:57:00.002+14:00

This is another stop where I felt knowledge sharing is required.
As entrepreneurs we all have to prepare a business plan at some point of time.
I am also at this juncture. I will be soon updating a business plan template for all my blog readers which is specific for idea stage firms, looking for funding and with a market focus being India.

This would be helpful to technical and non-technical folks.

Recession Time: Opportunity Time

2009-02-14T07:32:00.002+14:00

Courtesy: The Economic Times

The message was loud and clear — the time has come. The ongoing recession is the best time to start out and the nation should let go of its hang-ups about business and government, business, media and civil society should come together to ensure that a billion ideas bloom. An elite panel at the The Power of Ideas discussion in Delhi (topic: Ecosystem for Innovativeness in India and Is Jugaad a Means of Disruptive Innovation?) threw up diverse ideas to create the right ecosystem for entrepreneurs. If a former bureaucrat-turned-head of India’s biggest car maker-turned entrepreneur wanted government policies to promote small companies instead of protecting them, a serial entrepreneur who is now seeding enterprises wanted a radical socio-economic shift, wherein the next-door aunt wouldn’t disapprove if one were to give up his job and start a venture. In an ecosystem, which is skewed towards the regular 9-to-5 office routine, an individual leaving his cushy MNC job to venture into something innovative is considered foolish. “And that is why the condemnation of a new idea needs to be done away with and success stories need to be blown out of proportion; failures need to be looked at as stepping-stones if India has to create entrepreneurs,” said Raman Roy, managing director of BPO firm Quatrro, and one of the pioneers of India’s BPO industry. And indeed, it was evident from the Indian’s inclination for jugaad that he/she had an entrepreneurial streak.

It was necessary that people with ideas be given the right ecosystem to turn their jugaad into appropriate technology and then, into business propositions. Said the former head of auto-maker Maruti and now MD of Carnation Auto, Jagdish Khattar: “It is difficult for start-ups to thrive in an environment where it had no governmental support in terms of policy and with little or poor infrastructure. Although some sectors, particularly information technology, have spawned entrepreneurship without any help from the government that model cannot be replicated in manufacturing. “Manufacturing has to depend on the government for facilities whereas IT does well because the government has no role to play in it,” Mr Khattar said. “Infrastructure will vary from industry to industry and for some sectors, it can be critical.” In the US, entrepreneurship is the real driver of the economy. Angels invested $29.4 billion in over 57,000 early stage startups, which comes to an average of $0.51 million per deal. VCs, on the other hand, invested $26.1 billion in 3,912 startups in the same year at an average of $6.7 million per deal.

In India, on the other hand, of the $19.5 billion that was invested by VCs and PEs combined (excluding angels), less than 6% went into startups. But interestingly, though the volume of deals might be significantly lower, the average VC deal size is much larger in India. $1.3 billion was invested by VCs in 2007 across 75 deals, at an average of $17.3 million per deal, which is almost three times that in the US, in the same year. “There are no figures available for angels in India but we at the Indian Angel Network have invested close to Rs 20 crore in about 15-16 early-stage startups,” said Saurabh Srivastava, founder IAN. The discussion revolved around the concept of jugaad (a unique approach to innovation in India) and how it can lead to a disruptive change in businesses. Fortis Healthcare chairman and MD Shivinder Singh said, “We are at a stage where pieces of innovations are coming up.

We are in the process of putting the pieces together. There has to be trigger point where people can go out and say ‘I want to do it’.” Indians are genetically known to be ntrepreneurial. “In fact, every second guy is a jugaadu,” he said. The biggest difficulty Mr Singh faces in his standardised hospitals is the fact that everyone wants to do things differently.

That’s not entrepreneurial. But the inclination for doing things the jugaad way is a prerequisite to being entrepreneurial. “One major way of strengthening the ecosystem is to engage industries with universities like they do it in the US. Even the idea of sponsors coming to universities is not entertained in India,” Mr Singh said. Mr Srivastava insisted that industry should come in full support of entrepreneurs. “You need a scenario where entrepreneurs can get funding, encouragement and mentoring. We have to make it easier for startups to operate. Today, it is easier for a large company to operate than a small startup,” he said. Mr Khattar had a suggestion for the government to pitch in with support. “Like the education cess, why doesn’t the government create a similar fund for entrepreneurship?” he asked.

Startup Identity: Logo Creation

2009-02-11T22:58:00.002+14:00

Branding is a marketing concept used to create a position for the product or service in the consumer's mind. Logo is something that brings an identity to a firm helps to create a strong brand for the organisation. Here are few things we have to keep in mind while creating a logo and especially when you are talking to a logo designer about it- It is all about branding:

Create a company description - describing in which sector your firm operates
Create a logo theme - include specific colours, font type; if any on your mind
Ensure that you create them in both RGB and CMYK colour codes.
Get editable and printable files from your designer
Create logo that would be right for web and print resolution.

Please add if there are any more inputs.
Following are a few links where you can create your logos:
http://www.freeflashlogos.com/
http://www.simwebsol.com/ImageTool/
http://googlefont.com/
http://www.logoease.com/

Critics Everywhere: Hurdle 1

2009-01-05T07:45:00.000+14:00

This is going to be a series that will pop up as and when I face a hurdle as an entrepreneur. Today I faced my first hurdle of "critic views".
Critics are of two types, who I have faced in my journey;
1. Someone who adds value to the situation
2. Someone who actually doesn't like you or your idea or who is arrogant and prejudiced about their own ideas

Well I faced both of them. It is really nice to have critics of the first category but second ones are dangerous. They are like slow poison. Their words keep beeing in your heads and someday you will believe that they were right and you are wrong. Well don't worry, it is just hypnosis.

We face so many such people who have prejudiced ideas about a person and experiences. They are not ready to look at a better picture which they always would have faced the other way.

I find critics everywhere, whenever I take my business plan and put it on their table grrrrrrrrrr, uh enough.
I want some value inputs not what you think about me.

So entrepreneurs.......... who are feeling dejected and disoriented about yourselves, fasten your seat belts and stick to the throne..........you have a long way to go, to achieve your dream and to walk on this path.
Shake these criticisms and walk on.

Businesses to start during recession and still be profitable

2009-01-03T03:41:00.003+14:00

Consumers look for value add and security oriented solutions. So here are the problems one can address at the time of downturn and make money out of it:

Job seeking
Car Insurance
Funeral Homes
Health Care
Loyalty programmes where customers can save money
Second hand goods

Hope this gives rise many more interesting verticals.

Another event round the corner- Headstart 2009

2008-12-26T04:01:00.002+14:00

Posted by Headstart

HeadStart is an event for entrepreneurs which marks the culmination of monthly Startup Saturdays across the country. You can get more information about it HeadStart here, and about Startup Saturdays here.
If you are an entrepreneur looking for Funding, we have arranged exclusive 1 to 1 "Meet a VC" slots over the 2 days of the event. Please refer to this blog post to view the names of the VCs along with the times at which they would be available.Please send an email to Vinayak Hegde on vinayak@headstart.in to help him arrange for a 1 to 1 meeting between you and the VC you want to contact. Ideally you should be a startup with a working prototype of your product being demoed at the demo pit as described in the following paragraph.
Besides,If you have built an innovative product/service and would like to demo it (and get feedback, meet prospective customers etc), then we invite you to nominate your startup's offering by filling up this nomination form. I am sorry about informing you so late, but the last date for nominations is tomorrow, so please send it at the earliest! This is absolutely free of charge.
Lastly, If you want to register for the event, you can do so here. The event fee is about 45$ if you avail the early bird discount. We have tried to keep it as low as possible to enable unfunded entrepreneurs to attend it.
We also have a rich collaboration with Corporates who want to either work with Startups or want to learn how to bring forth innovation/intrapreneurship in their organization. Feel free to connect me [amit@headstart.in] to your company's decision makers if you feel they would be interested. (We are a not for profit btw)
We are very passionate about building an ecosystem in India where entrepreneurship can thrive. Please help us spread the word by blogging about it or posting the information on relevant mailing lists. Please do drop me a line informing me about the same so that I can thank you personally!

-- For Entrepreneurs: www.headstart.in www.startupsaturday.in

Apple Story

2008-12-22T16:47:00.000+14:00

On the birth of the iPhone"We all had cellphones. We just hated them, they were so awful to use. The software was terrible. The hardware wasn't very good. We talked to our friends, and they all hated their cellphones too. Everybody seemed to hate their phones. And we saw that these things really could become much more powerful and interesting to license. It's a huge market. I mean a billion phones get shipped every year, and that's almost an order of magnitude greater than the number of music players. It's four times the number of PCs that ship every year."It was a great challenge. Let's make a great phone that we fall in love with. And we've got the technology. We've got the miniaturization from the iPod. We've got the sophisticated operating system from Mac. Nobody had ever thought about putting operating systems as sophisticated as OS X inside a phone, so that was a real question. We had a big debate inside the company whether we could do that or not. And that was one where I had to adjudicate it and just say, 'We're going to do it. Let's try.' The smartest software guys were saying they can do it, so let's give them a shot. And they did."On Apple's connection with the consumer"We did iTunes because we all love music. We made what we thought was the best jukebox in iTunes. Then we all wanted to carry our whole music libraries around with us. The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us."It's not about pop culture, and it's not about fooling people, and it's not about convincing people that they want something they don't. We figure out what we want. And I think we're pretty good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other people are going to want it, too. That's what we get paid to do."So you can't go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There's a great quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, 'If I'd have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have told me "A faster horse." ' "On choosing strategy"We do no market research. We don't hire consultants. The only consultants I've ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway's retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products."When we created the iTunes Music Store, we did that because we thought it would be great to be able to buy music electronically, not because we had plans to redefine the music industry. I mean, it just seemed like writing on the wall, that eventually all music would be distributed electronically. That seemed obvious because why have the cost? The music industry has huge returns. Why have all this [overhead] when you can just send electrons around easily?"On what drives Apple employees"We don't get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we've chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we've all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is."On why people want to work at Apple:"The reason is, is because you can't do what you can do at Apple anywhere else. The engineering is long gone in most PC companies. In the consumer electronics companies, they don't understand the software parts of it. And so you really can't make the products that you can make at Apple anywhere else right now. Apple's the only company that has everything under one roof."There's no other company that could make a MacBook Air and the reason is that not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system. And it is the intimate interaction between the operating system and the hardware that allows us to do that. There is no intimate interaction between Windows and a Dell notebook."Our DNA is as a consumer company -- for that individual customer who's voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That's who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it's not up to par, it's our fault, plain and simply."On whether Apple could live without him"We've got really capable people at Apple. I made Tim [Cook] COO and gave him the Mac division and he's done brilliantly. I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. And the board would have some good choices about who to pick as CEO. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do."On his demanding reputation:"My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be."On Apple's focus"Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we've got less than 30 major products. I don't know if that's ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully."I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don't put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market's going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won't really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn't have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn't have seen it coming."On his management style"We've got 25,000 people at Apple. About 10,000 of them are in the stores. And my job is to work with sort of the top 100 people, that's what I do. That doesn't mean they're all vice presidents. Some of them are just key individual contributors. So when a good idea comes, you know, part of my job is to move it around, just see what different people think, get people talking about it, argue with people about it, get ideas moving among that group of 100 people, get different people together to explore different aspects of it quietly, and, you know - just explore things."On finding talent:"When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, Are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself. They'll want to do what's best for Apple, not what's best for them, what's best for Steve, or anybody else."Recruiting is hard. It's just finding the needles in the haystack. We do it ourselves and we spend a lot of time at it. I've participated in the hiring of maybe 5,000-plus people in my life. So I take it very seriously. You can't know enough in a one-hour interview. So, in the end, it's ultimately based on your gut. How do I feel about this person? What are they like when they're challenged? Why are they here? I ask everybody that: 'Why are you here?' The answers themselves are not what you're looking for. It's the meta-data."On the benefits of owning an operating system"That allows us to innovate at a much faster rate than if we had to wait for Microsoft, like Dell and HP and everybody else does. Because Microsoft has their own timetable, for probably good reasons. I mean Vista took what -- seven or eight years? It's hard to get your new feature that you need for your new hardware if it has to wait eight years. So we can set our own priorities and look at things in a more holistic way from the point of view of the customer. It also means that we can take it and we can make a version of it to fit in the iPhone and the iPod. And, you know, we certainly couldn't do that if we didn't own it."On his marathon Monday meetings"When you hire really good people you have to give them a piece of the business and let them run with it. That doesn't mean I don't get to kibitz a lot. But the reason you're hiring them is because you're going to give them the reins. I want [them] making as good or better decisions than I would. So the way to do that is to have them know everything, not just in their part of the business, but in every part of the business."So what we do every Monday is we review the whole business. We look at what we sold the week before. We look at every single product under development, products we're having trouble with, products where the demand is larger than we can make. All the stuff in development, we review. And we do it every single week. I put out an agenda -- 80% is the same as it was the last week, and we just walk down it every single week."We don't have a lot of process at Apple, but that's one of the few things we do just to all stay on the same page."On dealing with roadblocks"At Pixar when we were making Toy Story, there came a time when we were forced to admit that the story wasn't great. It just wasn't great. We stopped production for five months.... We paid them all to twiddle their thumbs while the team perfected the story into what became Toy Story. And if they hadn't had the courage to stop, there would have never been a Toy Story the way it is, and there probably would have never been a Pixar."We called that the 'story crisis,' and we never expected to have another one. But you know what? There's been one on every film. We don't stop production for five months. We've gotten a little smarter about it. But there always seems to come a moment where it's just not working, and it's so easy to fool yourself - to convince yourself that it is when you know in your heart that it isn't."Well, you know what? It's been that way with [almost] every major project at Apple, too.... Take the iPhone. We had a different enclosure design for this iPhone until way too close to the introduction to ever change it. And I came in one Monday morning, I said, 'I just don't love this. I can't convince myself to fall in love with this. And this is the most important product we've ever done.'"And we pushed the reset button. We went through all of the zillions of models we'd made and ideas we'd had. And we ended up creating what you see here as the iPhone, which is dramatically better. It was hell because we had to go to the team and say, 'All this work you've [done] for the last year, we're going to have to throw it away and start over, and we're going to have to work twice as hard now because we don't have enough time.' And you know what everybody said? 'Sign us up.'"That happens more than you think, because this is not just engineering and science. There is art, too. Sometimes when you're in the middle of one of these crises, you're not sure you're going to make it to the other end. But we've always made it, and so we have a certain degree of confidence, although sometimes you wonder. I think the key thing is that we're not all terrified at the same time. I mean, we do put our heart and soul into these things."On the iPod tipping point"It was difficult for a while because for various reasons the Mac had not been accepted by a lot of people, who went with Windows. And we were just working really hard, and our market share wasn't going up. It makes you wonder sometimes whether you're wrong. Maybe our stuff isn't better, although we thought it was. Or maybe people don't care, which is even more depressing."It turns out with the iPod we kind of got out from that operating-system glass ceiling and it was great because [it showed that] Apple innovation, Apple engineering, Apple design did matter. The iPod captured 70% market share. I cannot tell you how important that was after so many years of laboring and seeing a 4% to 5% market share on the Mac. To see something like that happen with the iPod was a great shot in the arm for everybody."On what they did next:"We made more. We worked harder. We said: 'This is great. Let's do more.' I mean, the Mac market share is going up every single quarter. We're growing four times faster than the industry. People are starting to pay a little more attention. We've helped it along. We put Intel processors in and we can run PC apps alongside Mac apps. We helped it along. But I think a lot of it is people have finally started to realize that they don't have to put up with Windows - that there is an alternative. I think nobody really thought about it that way before."On launching the Apple store"It was very simple. The Mac faithful will drive to a destination, right? They'll drive somewhere special just to do that. But people who own Windows - we want to convert them to Mac. They will not drive somewhere special. They don't think they want a Mac. They will not take the risk of a 20-minute drive in case they don't like it."But if we put our store in a mall or on a street that they're walking by, and we reduce that risk from a 20-minute drive to 20 footsteps, then they're more likely to go in because there's really no risk. So we decided to put our stores in high-traffic locations. And it works."On catching tech's next wave"Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years."One of our biggest insights [years ago] was that we didn't want to get into any business where we didn't own or control the primary technology because you'll get your head handed to you."We realized that almost all - maybe all - of future consumer electronics, the primary technology was going to be software. And we were pretty good at software. We could do the operating system software. We could write applications on the Mac or even PC, like iTunes. We could write the software in the device, like you might put in an iPod or an iPhone or something. And we could write the back-end software that runs on a cloud, like iTunes."So we could write all these different kinds of software and make it work seamlessly. And you ask yourself, What other companies can do that? It's a pretty short list. The reason that we were very excited about the phone, beyond that fact that we all hated our phones, was that we didn't see anyone else who could make that kind of contribution. None of the handset manufacturers really are strong in software."On failing, so far, with Apple TV"Here's how I look at it. Everybody's tried to make a great product for the living room. Microsoft's tried, we've tried -- everybody's tried. And everybody's failed. We failed, so far."So there's a whole bunch of people that have tried, and every single one of them's failed, including us. And that's why I call it a hobby. It's not a business yet, it's a hobby."We've come out with our second try -- 'Apple TV, Take 2' is what we call it internally. We realized that the first product we did was about helping you view the content of whatever you had in iTunes on your Mac or PC, and wirelessly sending it to your widescreen TV."Well, it turns out that's not what people really wanted to do. I mean, yeah, it's nice to see your photos up on the big screen. That's frosting on the cake, but it's not the cake. What everybody really wanted, it turned out, was movies."So we began the process of talking to Hollywood studios and were able to get all the major studios to license their movies for rental. And we only have about 600 movies so far ingested on iTunes, but we'll have thousands later this year. We lowered the price to $229. And we'll see how it does. Will this resonate and be something that you just can't live without and love? We'll see. I think it's got a shot."On managing through the economic downturn"We've had one of these before, when the dot-com bubble burst. What I told our company was that we were just going to invest our way through the downturn, that we weren't going to lay off people, that we'd taken a tremendous amount of effort to get them into Apple in the first place -- the last thing we were going to do is lay them off. And we were going to keep funding. In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that's exactly what we did. And it worked. And that's exactly what we'll do this time."

Passion

2008-12-22T16:33:00.005+14:00

Just inspired by the first mail I read today that was written by my cousin Tara Kola, the following in being written.

I was just wondering what is the glamour that is hidden in "Entrepreneurship". Why is it so close to every person I meet, why do they say irrespective of practicalities "Hey I wish I could be an entrepreneur".

I realise that entrepreneurship is not just state of mind or an art a person pursues but a latent element existing is every person. It takes shape when the favourable circumstances trigger the person to take it up.

For many of us it is difficult to leave a cozy job and go behind our passions (entrepreneurship), well I decided today that it takes a lot of courage to do that. I congratulate all those people up there who have managed to take up this adventure and also to all those who soon are going to...[me being one of them] :-)

The Age of Ambition

2008-12-15T19:14:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: The NewYork Times

With the American presidential campaign in full swing, the obvious way to change the world might seem to be through politics.
But growing numbers of young people are leaping into the fray and doing the job themselves. These are the social entrepreneurs, the 21st-century answer to the student protesters of the 1960s, and they are some of the most interesting people here at the World Economic Forum (not only because they’re half the age of everyone else).
Andrew Klaber, a 26-year-old playing hooky from Harvard Business School to come here (don’t tell his professors!), is an example of the social entrepreneur. He spent the summer after his sophomore year in college in Thailand and was aghast to see teenage girls being forced into prostitution after their parents had died of AIDS.
So he started Orphans Against AIDS (www.orphansagainstaids.org), which pays school-related expenses for hundreds of children who have been orphaned or otherwise affected by AIDS in poor countries. He and his friends volunteer their time and pay administrative costs out of their own pockets so that every penny goes to the children.
Mr. Klaber was able to expand the nonprofit organization in Africa through introductions made by Jennifer Staple, who was a year ahead of him when they were in college. When she was a sophomore, Ms. Staple founded an organization in her dorm room to collect old reading glasses in the United States and ship them to poor countries. That group, Unite for Sight, has ballooned, and last year it provided eye care to 200,000 people (www.uniteforsight.org).
In the ’60s, perhaps the most remarkable Americans were the civil rights workers and antiwar protesters who started movements that transformed the country. In the 1980s, the most fascinating people were entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who started companies and ended up revolutionizing the way we use technology.
Today the most remarkable young people are the social entrepreneurs, those who see a problem in society and roll up their sleeves to address it in new ways. Bill Drayton, the chief executive of an organization called Ashoka that supports social entrepreneurs, likes to say that such people neither hand out fish nor teach people to fish; their aim is to revolutionize the fishing industry. If that sounds insanely ambitious, it is. John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan title their new book on social entrepreneurs “The Power of Unreasonable People.”
Universities are now offering classes in social entrepreneurship, and there are a growing number of role models. Wendy Kopp turned her thesis at Princeton into Teach for America and has had far more impact on schools than the average secretary of education.
One of the social entrepreneurs here is Soraya Salti, a 37-year-old Jordanian woman who is trying to transform the Arab world by teaching entrepreneurship in schools. Her organization, Injaz, is now training 100,000 Arab students each year to find a market niche, construct a business plan and then launch and nurture a business.
The program (www.injaz.org.jo) has spread to 12 Arab countries and is aiming to teach one million students a year. Ms. Salti argues that entrepreneurs can stimulate the economy, give young people a purpose and revitalize the Arab world. Girls in particular have flourished in the program, which has had excellent reviews and is getting support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. My hunch is that Ms. Salti will contribute more to stability and peace in the Middle East than any number of tanks in Iraq, U.N. resolutions or summit meetings.
“If you can capture the youth and change the way they think, then you can change the future,” she said.
Another young person on a mission is Ariel Zylbersztejn, a 27-year-old Mexican who founded and runs a company called Cinepop, which projects movies onto inflatable screens and shows them free in public parks. Mr. Zylbersztejn realized that 90 percent of Mexicans can’t afford to go to movies, so he started his own business model: He sells sponsorships to companies to advertise to the thousands of viewers who come to watch the free entertainment.
Mr. Zylbersztejn works with microcredit agencies and social welfare groups to engage the families that come to his movies and help them start businesses or try other strategies to overcome poverty. Cinepop is only three years old, but already 250,000 people a year watch movies on his screens — and his goal is to take the model to Brazil, India, China and other countries.
So as we follow the presidential campaign, let’s not forget that the winner isn’t the only one who will shape the world. Only one person can become president of the United States, but there’s no limit to the number of social entrepreneurs who can make this planet a better place.

Vote 4 me: 60 million cell users get spammed as politicos go tech savvy

2008-12-10T19:19:00.001+14:00

Source: The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Here’s one mobile phone application that most users might find too bugging—political SMS campaigns via mobile phones. Yet that’s what
unfolded in the recent elections. While the NSG commandos were fighting a pitched battle with terrorists in Mumbai last month, the country’s political parties were engaged in a high-pitched m-campaign, bombarding users with political messages on mobile phones. The recent election campaign in five states saw over 60 million mobile subscribers being spammed with about double the number of SMSes! Delhi alone witnessed about five million SMSes sent out by each of the main parties in the fray. And many messages were sent without scrubbing the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry list. According to the watchdog, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), spamming mobile phones of registered subscribers is illegal. If a public interest litigation is filed against them the parties may have to shell out lot of money as compensation. Taking an average of Rs 1,000 per incident, for just about one crore SMSes (far more were sent out), the size of the penalty on political parties reaches to about Rs 1,000 crore! However value added services (VAS) providers who were engaged to send the political messages said they had scrubbed the data. One97 Communication CEO, Vijay Shekhar Sharma said: “On an average, two SMSes per person were sent by each party. We have worked for all the political parties and sent out close to 50 million messages. We have scrubbed numbers from DNC and have sent out messages only to those numbers which are not registered. The parties have spent close to 6% of their total budget in this mode of promotion.” In contrast, the CEO of one of the leading SMS sending websites said that: “The mode these parties have used is illegal and their basic modus operandi was spamming. The parties did not scrub numbers with DNC registry and sent messages to people irrespective of whether they are registered with DNC or not. More than 50 lakh SMSes were sent out by each party. This apparently is banned following the scam when some messages were sent out defaming the ruling party (Congress). The parties approached us too but we refused simply because of the legal angle attached to it.” Political parties however plead ignorance. Speaking to ET, Delhi BJP unit chief Dr Harshvardhan said: “SMSes were mostly sent by party members to inform others about party meetings and announcements. However we need more clarity on it.” Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi declined to comment on the issue. Another major bulk messaging and VAS provider Valuefirst said that it scrubbed all data through the DNC database which has about one crore out of 30 crore mobile subscribers in India. “We provide application tools to independents and political parties which they can integrate with a simple spreadsheet or database, to send them SMSes,” said a Valuefirst spokesperson.

A TRAI source however said that implicating a candidate in the fray will be very difficult as a mobile operator can take action only by
disconnecting a line, and they are not regular telemarketers. “We are deliberating on this technical issue as anybody can send any anti-national SMS to a large population and get away by just discarding the SIM. With IP based communication, tracing a sender becomes difficult sometimes.” There are divergent views on the legality as well. Internet and Mobile Association of India president Subho Ray maintains that it’s a violation of law if a candidate sends a SMS to a voter registered with the Do Not Call Registry. But a Delhi-based telecom analyst Mahesh Uppal offers another view. “These messages are a nuisance. However, these cannot be treated as a violation of a norm since the DNC has no mechanism to deal with non-telemarketing operators. The power to act in this case lies only in the hands of the Election Commission,” he said.

Startup Checklist

2008-12-06T01:17:00.003+14:00

I have been drilling my head, pooling some time to kick start my business and there are so many elements involved in this process.
I thought let me put a checklist together which will help other entrepreneurs too.
Please leave your comments if there is anything to add.

Ideation and Plan building

Assess your strengths and weaknesses
Market and sector research
Look for mentors - very helpful at times!!
Look at your financial resources and see how you can use it at best
Determine your startup costs - keep it low and be a miser in this case
Develop a marketing plan
Who are your customers going to be?
Talk to people to find if what your approach is the right one
What would be the possible financial Risks
Source your suppliers

Operational Plan

Decide your office location
Choose a form of organisation
Get a logo and marketing collateral
register your firm
look for an insurance agent
create a bank account
get an accountant
get business cards
get a business license if required
look at the tax norms

A letter from my fellow citizen to the Prime Minister

2008-12-04T20:10:00.001+14:00

Dear Mr. Prime minister I am a typical mouse from Mumbai. In the local train compartment which has capacity of 100 persons, I travel with 500 more mouse. Mouse at least squeak but we don't even do that. Today I heard your speech. In which you said 'NO BODY WOULD BE SPARED'. I would like to remind you that fourteen years has passed since serial bomb blast in Mumbai took place. Dawood was the main conspirator. Till today he is not caught. All our bolywood actors, our builders, our Gutka king meets him but your Government can not catch him. Reason is simple; all your ministers are hand in glove with him. If any attempt is made to catch him everybody will be exposed. Your statement 'NOBODY WOULD BE SPARED' is nothing but a cruel joke on this unfortunate people of India.Enough is enough. As such after seeing terrorist attack carried out by about a dozen young boys I realize that if same thing continues days are not away when terrorist will attack by air, destroy our nuclear reactor and there will be one more Hiroshima. We the people are left with only one mantra. Womb to Bomb to Tomb. You promised Mumbaikar Shanghai what you have given us is Jalianwala Baug.Today only your home minister resigned. What took you so long to kick out this joker? Only reason was that he was loyal to Gandhi family. Loyalty to Gandhi family is more important than blood of innocent people, isn't it? I am born and bought up in Mumbai for last fifty eight years. Believe me corruption in Maharashtra is worse than that in Bihar. Look at all the politician, Sharad Pawar, Chagan Bhujbal, Narayan Rane, Bal Thackray , Gopinath Munde, Raj Thackray, Vilasrao Deshmukh all are rolling in money. Vilasrao Deshmukh is one of the worst Chief minister I have seen. His only business is to increase the FSI every other day, make money and send it to Delhiso Congress can fight next election. Now the clown has found new way and will increase FSI for fisherman so they can build concrete house right on sea shore. Next time terrorist can comfortably live in those house , enjoy the beauty of sea and then attack the Mumbai at their will.Recently I had to purchase house in Mumbai. I met about two dozen builders.. Everybody wanted about 30% in black. A common person like me knows this and with all your intelligent agency & CBI you and your finance minister are not aware of it. Where all the black money goes? To the underworld isn't it? Our politicians take help of these goondas to vacate people by force. I myself was victim of it. If you have time please come to me, I will tell you everything. If this has been land of fools, idiots then I would not have ever cared to write you this letter. Just see the tragedy, on one side we are reaching moon, people are so intelligent and on other side you politician has converted nectar into deadly poison. I am everything Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Schedule caste, OBC, Muslim OBC, Christian Schedule caste, Creamy Schedule caste only what I am not is INDIAN. You politician have raped every part of mother Indiaby your policy of divide and rule. Take example of former president Abdul Kalam. Such a intelligent person, such a fine human being. You politician didn't even spare him. Your party along with opposition joined the hands, because politician feels they are supreme and there is no place for good person.Dear Mr Prime minister you are one of the most intelligent person, most learned person. Just wake up, be a real SARDAR. First and foremost expose all selfish politician. Ask Swiss bank to give name of all Indian account holder. Give reins of CBI to independent agency. Let them find wolf among us. There will be political upheaval but that will better than dance of death which we are witnessing every day. Just give us ambient where we can work honestly and without fear. Let there be rule of law. Everything else will be taken care of. Choice is yours Mr. Prime Minister. Do you want to be lead by one person or you want to lead the nation of 100 Crore people?

Pride and Shame for shooting

2008-12-03T19:57:00.001+14:00

Source: From a Forward

An Olympic shooter wins Gold (Only a game) & Government gives him 3 Crores.

Another Shooter dies, fighting with terrorists (Saving our country and our live) & government pays his family 5 lakhs.

1. Do not worry about those who have come thru boats... Our forces can easily defeat them. WORRY about those who have come thru votes.... Those are our REAL ENEMIES.... 2. What a shame and disgrace to every citizen of India that the elite NSG Force was transported into ordinary BEST buses, whereas our cricketers are transported into state of the art luxury buses, these Jawans lay down their lives to protect every Indian and these cricketers get paid even if they lose a match, we worship these cricketers and forget the martyrdom of these brave Jawans. The Jawans should be paid the salaries of the cricketers and the cricketers should be paid the salaries of the Jawans. 3. An ace shooter shoots and gets gold medal, govt gives 3cr, another shooter dies while shooting terrorist, govt gives 5 lakh. WHO DESERVES MORE? Please be a patriot and forward this to everyone u know. Really great!!!!!!!!!!! Hats off to India !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who are we breeding? Terrorists?

2008-12-02T04:02:00.002+14:00

Today after the attacks we are raising fingers at the Pakistani govt for letting the training camps prevail in their country but what is India any different in this matter?
We are allowing non-immigrants stay without any check and just breeding them without any proper regulation and monitoring.
Sick and tired of such bad structure. If we find any such people we have to raise questions to the govt and ask them about why are they allowed to stay??

MUMBAI 9/11 vs 26/11

2008-11-29T18:47:00.004+14:00

After a long time I am reminded of my blog to share something with the readers.
What has made me do that? The overwhelming 3 day fight at Mumbai, as the media titles it as "THE INDIA 9/11".

Where is all this leading to? Why are people getting so barbaric? Is this the purpose of life? Is this what is representation of today's youth?

Bharat entrepreneurs need to look at this issue to solve. Entrepreneurs are people who can actively take up problems and efficiently provide solutions to such issues. We need to create an army fund, crisis management system and an organisation to monitor the political instability in this country.

Wake up and let start a movement.

Many Lives Many Masters

2008-10-14T00:00:00.005+14:00

The might sound mystical to people who do not believe in concepts like reincarnation, after-life and spirits. Well it is a part of our life and has to be accepted by the non believers some day or the other.
For people who do believe in these concepts it is a treasure as it takes the reader through the conversations with various masters and the purpose of life.
Read more about this in the book, " Many Lives, Many Masters" written by Dr.Brian Weiss.

Guy Kawasaki speaks about making meaning not money

2008-09-15T21:45:00.002+14:00

Courtesy: Inquirer.net

As a motivational speaker, Guy Kawasaki is blessed with a funky name, a charming smile and sense of humor perfect for delivering slide presentations. Yet he calls himself a "bozo".No wonder, business intelligence and analytics software firm SAS timed his presentation after lunchtime. Kawasaki wowed the Mumbai crowd with his presentation entitled "The Art of Innovation", eliciting plenty of chuckles and applause.In his speech, he gave advice on what he refers to as the Holy Grail for any entrepreneur: coming up with a unique product that has great value. To illustrate this point, he talked about how companies like Nike, Apple, Federal Express and Breitling are doing it.So what exactly are these types of products? A flashlight that can run on different types of batteries and an outdoor watch that comes with a built-in SOS signal are among his examples.But his most profound piece of advice for would-be entrepreneurs: Make meaning, not money."Based from my observation, companies that really are successful change people's lives. Most companies that set up just to make money eventually fail," he told INQUIRER.net during a short interview after his talk.Kawasaki who was born on Honolulu, Hawaii and considers himself half-American half-Japanese, was appointed Apple Fellow during the 80s. He is credited as one of the earlier "evangelists" responsible for the success of Apple's Macintosh computer. He is also a noted venture capitalist in Silicon Valley as managing director of Garage Technology Ventures. Recently, he founded alltop.com, a website that aggregates news based on topics.Asked if his "make meaning, not money" ethos applies more (or maybe less) to entrepreneurs in places like the Philippines where there isn't as much access to venture capital, Kawasaki said it applies to everyone, while saying it's now a "different world out there" for entrepreneurs in the technology industry, thanks to open source."Now, because of things like MySQL, Rails, PhP, you can do things so much cheaper than before. It's a great time to be an entrepreneur, you can delay venture capital funding for a longer period, get further and therefore you have higher valuation," Kawasaki said."Before, the first step was sort of try to raise money and build your product. Now you build your product and then try to raise money. It's a very different world," he added.And in the same vein, he had another advice for would-be CEOs: Make a mantra, not lengthy mission statements. And to observe his personal "10-20-30" rule: 10 Powerpoint slides, 20 minutes tops (he takes a crack at Windows for booting up longer thus, less presentation time) and size 30 font (which also applies to his business card below).Also, he took note of bozos (or slang for stupid) who are either out to make money (who, according to him, drive cars and wear clothes ending in "i" like Ferrari, Maserati and Armani) or who fail to see where technology is heading.So why does he call himself a bozo then? He tells his story about how he was once offered to become a CEO of a then start-up but was too lazy to drive all the way to his new office and after looking at the company's website, dismissed it as "just a collection of their these guys' favorite websites".That company turned out to be Yahoo!

Chaiwala at IIM-Ahmedabad

2008-09-15T21:44:00.000+14:00

Courtesy: The Telegraph

A humble chaiwala who inspired a website has been honoured with a case study at IIM-A on his business that has all the ingredients that go into a successful venture.
For the past 25 years, Ram Attar Kori has been selling student favourites such as tea, biscuits, egg bhujiya, buns, paan and cigarettes on the footpath outside the campus of the premier business school which has recognised him by “opening” a window through the border wall which allows easier access.
Today, Rambhai, 51, was in the classroom as an “observer”, listening to three management experts who presented a case study on his business model, which, as one of them said, was a humbling lesson on the untold success stories that abound on India’s dusty and bustling streets.
He keenly listened to the discussion on the case study presented by the three: Umesh Neelakantan of the DCMAT School of Media and Business, Kerala, Jaspreet Ahluwalia, assistant professor at the Centre for Management Training and Research, Mohali, and Sonal Katewa, assistant professor, Asia Pacific Institute of Management, Jaipur.
The trio are part of a batch of 38 business management teachers who are doing a faculty development programme at IIM.
“The reason why we chose Rambhai as our case study is that we noticed he had a huge clientele among the students. We learnt that he has been doing business at the same place for the last 25 years. As we have to do a case study as a part of our curriculum, we decided that instead of going to any corporate house, why not study this man who has blended various principles of management without undergoing any formal management training,” said Katewa.
Language was no barrier as Rambhai listened to the presentation on him and his business model.
“I was not supposed to say anything as I was there as a guest and observer,” said the man who had turned out for his big moment shorn of his patent stubble and smartly attired in a new olive green shirt and cream trousers.
Much like Pramod-da of Calcutta’s Presidency College and Arun-da of St Xavier’s, who has “retired”, Rambhai is a legend on campus. He has even inspired a website www.rambhai.com, which is a platform for free exchange of views, similar to the kiosk he runs where many ideas have been born.
The son of an agriculture labourer from Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, Rambhai came to Ahmedabad at the age of four. After doing odd jobs, he started his teashop in the early eighties and has not looked back since.
And like any savvy entrepreneur, he isn’t willing to let out the numbers. “Let me say that I earn well enough to look after my needy relatives and educate my 20-year-old daughter, a student of fine arts at CN Vidyalaya,” he said, adding that the IIM experts had promised to help him expand his business. But students say his daily sale would be “at least” Rs 2,000.
Neelakantan said the rationale for doing a case study on the man was to show that “even an institute like IIM-A can learn a lesson from a street vendor”.
“Generally, street vendors are perceived to be tough and ill- mannered guys, but here is a man who is simple, loveable, light-hearted and yet has been successfully doing business outside an elite institute, stationing himself in one place for the last 25 years and maintaining a long-term customer relationship,” said Neelakantan.
Ahluwalia pointed out that even without formal management training, Rambhai was “practically executing all management principles”.
“Like every entrepreneur, he first saw an opportunity to start his own business outside the IIM-A campus, developed a strategy and maintained a system which ensured he got repeat customers,” said Ahluwalia.
Katewa said Rambhai mastered the concept of good customer relations: a popular management concept considered a cornerstone of success for any consumer product. “He has been observing customers. He realised the importance of location, right outside the IIM-A gate,” said Katewa.

Nayana Karunaratne Woman Entrepreneur of the Year

2008-09-04T19:02:00.000+14:00

Courtesy: Dailymirror

Nayana Karunaratne, one of the most well known faces in the Asian hair and beauty industry was recognized as the Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2007, at the awards ceremony organized by the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce on August 26, 2008. She was also the winner of a gold medal for the Business category - large.
The Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 awards ceremony takes place on an annual basis, with a focus on evaluating the performance of women in business. The winners were selected from four categories – Large, Small, Medium and Micro, along with an overall award to outstanding professional women from the large category.
Speaking on her achievement, Karunaratne said, “I am greatly appreciative of winning this award but in perspective I am more overjoyed that someone from my industry has been recognized for the hard work and dedication put in to become a success story. I am essentially a hairdresser, and have been a businesswoman for the past 28 years. It has been long road to get to where I am today but I have perservered, because I knew at a very young age that this was what I wanted in life.”
Adding on, she said, “The key to my success is because I am very focused, goal oriented, hard working, disciplined and extremely organized in what I endeavor in. This has been a progressive growth for me, starting with the opening of my salon, and its expansion within Sri Lanka as well as into India. What has driven so far has been my passionate sense of personal commitment to the services offered at Salon Nayana. This goes hand in hand with the fact that I have dedicated my career in helping both men and women to look their best and to elevate the profession of hairdressing in Asia to global standards.”
Nayana Karunaratne has been instrumental in revolutionizing the concepts of beauty culture among Sri Lankans for over two decades. The success of Salon Nayana is attributed to a team of over 150 dedicated professionals comprising of cosmetologists, stylists and nutritionists who bring in their uniqueness and expertise, with an unrivalled, passionate sense of personal commitment to the services offered by Nayana and her reputed network of salons.
Established in 1980, Salon Nayana has come along, becoming an enterprise has evolved and positioned itself as a contemporary leader in the hair industry with a chain of 12 salons in Sri Lanka and India, and has produced many winners at both nation and international hair and make up competitions.
In addition to her chain of unisex hair and beauty salons in Sri Lanka and India, she is the founder of the Image Academy of Hair and Beauty as well as the Image Academy of Personality Development. The professional hairdressing and beauty therapy courses conducted by the academy are recognized by the Immigration authorities of Australia and Canada.
It also works in association with Pivot Point International, issuing certificated recognized by the European Union. The Image Academy of Personality Development provides personal development programmes for corporates and individuals on self worth, grooming, corporate dress sense, team work and stress management among others.
She is also the founder of the Sri Lanka Association for Hairdressers and Beauticians (SLAHAB) in 1996. Reflective of her commitment to elevate the profession of hairdressing in Sri Lanka to international standards, today the organization has a 3000 strong membership and represents Sri Lanka in the Organization Modiale de la Coiffure (OMC), also known as the World Federation of Hairdressers to represent Sri Lanka. She has also organized the Hair Asia Pacific, the international Hair and Make up competition for ten years to develop the Asian industry.
At present she is a board member of the World Federation of Hairdressers (OMC) and the President of the OMC Asia Zone. This position enables her yearly access to attend and host six training events all over the world.
Her working partnership with the best creative talent in the world and the experience gained judging OMC Zone and the World Championships has widened her creative and teaching horizons immensely. Today she is one of the most respected and experienced hairdressers in the world.
She is also an international trainer, in her capacity as OMC Asia President, where she travels extensively nationally and internationally, inspiring future stylists and make up artists.
Her vast experience includes training programmes in Hair and Beauty, Chennai, Hair India People, Mumbai, Hair and Beauty Association of Thailand as well as Sino Beauty, China.

Indian Harvard grads turning biz plans into success stories

2008-08-04T21:04:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: Economic Times

Back in 2005, Ashwin Damera, a student at Harvard Business School (HBS), had a bright idea. What India’s booming e-commerce industry lacked, he believed, was a comprehensive travel portal. His idea won him second place in the classroom business plan contest; the winner of which was a proposed plus size lingerie company. He doesn’t think that one came through, but a year later Travelguru did, thanks partly to generous cheques from three unexpected investors - Damera’s own classmates. Meet Ankur Daga, one of Damera’s angel investors, and himself an entrepreneur. Fresh out of HBS he founded Angara, an online jewellery company that emerged from watching friends struggle with purchasing jewellery. Despite his family background in jewellery, Daga wasn’t expected to follow suit. “The question was always ‘You’re highly educated, shouldn’t you be working for a private equity or a consulting firm’ ?” he says. But Daga doesn’t feel deprived. “I’ve done the McKinsey stint; I wanted to start something on my own, and the earlier the better.” Daga and Damera aren’t the only ones to go against the grain. More and more Indian graduates from HBS are rocking the boat by ditching traditionally espoused careers on wall street or in consulting for entrepreneurship , ending up with cross-border businesses and bifurcated lives. They include people like Naveen Tewari (Class of 05), a McKinsey consultant who returned to India to start mKhoj, a mobile advertising network . “When I went in to HBS all I wanted to be was a partner in McKinsey . That disappeared in exactly three months,” he says. According to William Sahlman, Senior Associate Dean at HBS who teaches a second year course on Entrepreneurial Finance, after 10-15 years, almost 50% of graduates are involved in entrepreneurial settings. India has seen its share of successful HBS entrepreneurs from Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital to Avnish Bajaj and Suvir Sujan of Bazee (later gobbled by eBay). Lately, though, they are jumping into the water and getting their feet wet earlier, sometimes , while still in school. Kapil Vishwanathan’s was a case of campus entrepreneurship. He floated Pre-Media Global, a Chennai-based leading vendor providing content services to the US publishing industry , while still at HBS, along with his sister Kami, also an HBS alum. He’s wanted to become entrepreneur as long as he can remember. “It had to be a cross-border enterprise . It was just a question of when,” he says. He even tried to support other young business leaders pursue their entrepreneurial dreams by starting the Entrepreneurship Club at HBS. “Of course, the investing and banking clubs were larger,” he jokes. Entrepreneurship has never been more in vogue than now. Paresh Vaish, a partner with Boston Consulting group and HBS Class of ‘86, says, “The top quartile of the class got jobs in investment banking and the rest aimed for corporate jobs.” Since his time, the number of electives in entrepreneurship has gone from three to 20, and number of dedicated faculty from five to 32, the largest faculty contingent focused on entrepreneurship at any business school in the world. “In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s, HBS was all about propelling you the quickest to make partner in McKinsey or Goldman Sachs. It’s no longer the case,” says Sumeet Narang, batch of 06, who rejected an offer from Goldman to start Samara Capital, an India-focused private equity firm. For Narang, this was his second management degree; he’s also an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. His second stab at it was largely driven by the fact that HBS offers one of the most “international and diverse candidature among business schools” . With a history in private equity and investment banking in his six-year career with Citibank, Narang says the tug to turn entrepreneur was always there, but HBS intensified it. Like Narang’s , many of these startups were based on business plan entries in the second year business plan contest. Georgia-born , Gujarat-raised Abhi Shah, founder of Clutch — voted top Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) company from among 80 LPOs worldwide — says he and a classmate came up with 38 different business ideas during Think Week, a concept they borrowed from Bill Gates. A part of the plan generating process was to have them be thrown out the window. Anshul Arora (MBA 04) followed neither of the two plans he submitted for the contest. Instead, with an “atypical” career at McKinsey with exposure in developmental work, Arora pursued his dream of a business with a “clear social mandate and a commercial motive” . The result was Edvance Learning, an inventive education model that spots gaps in the education and training landscape, and designs products to fill the lacuna. For Arora the choice was between Harvard and Stanford which, he says, also has a great entrepreneurial flavour to it, along with physical proximity to Silicon Valley, the birthplace of aggressive entrepreneurship. A key Harvard advantage, he says, lay in its international leaning. “HBS with its general management perspective naturally has a strength in entrepreneurship vis-à-vis business schools like Wharton or Stanford that have strengths in finance and strategy ,” says Ashish Singh, MD Bain Consulting and HBS alum. Another trump card for the school, according to Tewari, is its famed case study methodology. “The case study method means there is no structure and no formula. Life is like that. You’ll never get a situation that is a replica of what you learn,” he says. Every week, he recalls, the class was introduced to the case of a thriving entrepreneur, ranging from Narayana Murthy (Infosys) to Jeff Taylor (Monster) and Andrew Viterbi (Qualcomm). “I began to realise that I could be just like them and it didn’t involve rocket science,” he says. That’s a sentiment everyone felt at some point in the course of two years , says Daga: “In a class of 900, at least 200 think seriously about entrepreneurship .” Those that do act upon it have a common starting point — the HBS alumni network — deemed one of the world’s most powerful networks with over 70,000 members. “The best part about graduating from HBS is that you can get a meeting with anyone at anytime. And as an entrepreneur that’s the hardest part,” says Daga. “We have more than a 20% share of the global venture capital business with examples like John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins and Tim Draper at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. That kind of network is hard to replicate ,” says Sahlman. A significant part of mKhoj’s $7 million Series A investment was landed through the HBS connection. “There is immediately a connection and the first question is, ‘Which section are you from’ ?” says Tewari. In fact, HBS has made such a success out of institutionalising its network that Vishwanathan didn’t require an investment banker when he raised $18 million for PreMedia ; he knew exactly who to call. For Shah, on the other hand, the HBS advantage wasn’t just about fund-raising . Having built a political advocacy group for the Indian American community with 65,000 members , and a successful summer internship with Jerry Rao at Mphasis, meant his network of influence was fairly extensive and with deep pockets. “For me the choice was going the Bobby Jindal way or coming to India and making an impact as an entrepreneur ,” he jokes. Where the HBS connection did come to play was in his endeavour to recruit the best and the brightest. “It’s the credibility that comes from a school with pedigree,” he says.
Opening doors If there is one thing the school doesn’t provide, it is in first-hand startup operational exposure, but that is acquired by candidates over their summer internships, typically spent shadowing first generation entrepreneurs. When Damera was torn between BoozAllen, London and assisting the CEO at Jet Blue in New York, he chose the latter. “I realised I want to be this guy, taking all the decisions,” he says. Daga got a bird’s eye view of mining operations, manufacturing and wholesale when he interned with the CEO of Rosy Blu. The CEO promised he would be the first investor in Daga’s venture, and Rosy Blu emerged the largest of four. There’s something also to be said of affluent classmates. Narang wangled a $1000 cheque from a classmate as well as the use of his father’s office in New York for the few months before setting up office in Mumbai. Daga himself “successfully” invested in more than one friend’s venture; in some cases followon rounds have come from top-tier VCs or have received substantial offers for acquisition. And where chequebooks didn’t count, the collective intellect in the classroom certainly did. Vishwanathan recalls a classmate who, at 26, sold his first company — an auction site — to eBay for 75 million and he wasn’t the exception. “It really helps to have a peer group with such varied perspectives. HBS is very focused on that in its selection process,” says Nandu Madhava (Class of 06), who himself deferred a job with Goldman Sachs after his undergraduate degree to volunteer with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic as a medical and teaching assistant . He saw the transformation in the city of Bangalore while on a vacation and chose it to launch mDhil, a medicare information portal. Sometimes, as those same classmates start giving in to the trappings of a job in consulting and i-banking, even the bravest of resolves waver. Vishwanathan recalls hanging out in shorts and loafers while friends attended recruitment day. “When they were talking about their signing bonuses, it wasn’t always easy,” he says. Most graduates exit HBS with substantial debt and the economics of rejecting a $175,000 job with a $50,000 debt doesn’t always work out. People like Shah chose to skip recruitment entirely so that he “wouldn’t have a back-up to tempt him to cop out”. Rahul Aggarwal, class of 05 and ex-Bayers , did the same because his heart was in returning to India. He started Red Earth, a hospitality company that turns around underperforming assets and converts them into branded two and three star properties . According to Madhava, this trend of US-raised HBS grads of Indian origin coming to India to start ventures coincides with macro factors. “Our year (2004) was the tipping point. Not only has the number of students coming directly from India gone up but the HBS India research center has come to life bringing richer case studies to the school and world class executive education to India,” says Arora. Still, with all the conviction they had, some say there was nothing that prepared them for start-up growing pains. The hit they have to take on their lifestyles often comes as a shock. “Conceptually one knows what entrepreneurship is about, but living it is a whole different ballgame,” says Daga. Shah recalls how his first employee landed up in the emergency room before finalising his contract and his first client passed away one day before signing the contract. He’s not especially unhappy to have to take a hit in lifestyle — flying economy and taking rickshaws is not a problem, maybe because he understands he may not have to do that for long, given his ambitions to take Clutch public for a billion dollars in five years. And if that doesn’t go according to plan, he says Harvard is the best insurance policy you can get. “I know that at the end of the day if I don’t succeed, I’ll get a $200,000 job,” says Damera, who admits that it might just be thanks to the safety net of HBS that he took the leap. Luckily, nobody believes they’ll ever need it. “Harvard forces you to think big, which unfortunately is not part of the Indian middle class mentality. You just realise that just working for a large company is not making full use of your resources,” says Tewari. Madhava believes that the most important lesson learnt at HBS is not how to cope with failure but a strong moral code. He recalls how an entrepreneurial professor once told him - “You’re so fortunate to be at Harvard, the only thing that you can ever do to jeopardize your future is something unethical or illegal”. Those futures are being written. For most going back to consulting or banking would be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. “I think most of my section wishes they had done what I had done,” says Daga. For Tewari nothing could top being summoned to the entrepreneurship class of 2020 as a case in point.

Inspiring conversation for aspiring women entrepreneurs

2008-07-11T19:31:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: Desi Critics.org

Shibani Jain is the CEO of Craftsbridge India Pvt. Ltd. A first generation woman entrepreneur, she has stuck through a lot of ups and downs to build a very unique and inspiring business - bringing India's traditional crafts and arts to a wider market, using the Internet and direct marketing as tools to ensure the craftsmen get their right recognition and dues. I interviewed her online a few weeks ago, and gained some significant insights into a woman's entrepreneurial journey.
1. Could you brief us about your company's main offerings?
Shibani: We offer designer and special skill products which map current corporate requirements. We work with special skill groups across the country and our sales help these small rural urban groups to generate income.
We offer corporate promotional and motivational products like desktop products and office accessories.
We arrived at this focus after a lot of trial and error. We tried many other things at first - home textiles which we were exporting; retail sales for domestic markets (garment apparels, etc). We even had our own stitching unit. But then, we realized it's not possible to do so much; especially since they were all virtually different businesses - with separate infrastructure requirements, different markets and different production bases. We decided to cut down and we focused on the business where we had the strongest market traction.
2. Since your website is one of the primary marketing channels, what strategies would you advise to promote one's website and make it more productive in terms of customers and revenues?
Shibani: Our website is only 7% of our total business today. I would advise the following for similar ventures:
Unique offerings
Decent strategic tie-ups/partner sites to ensure you get the eyeballs
Constant renewal of offerings and content
The web site is more a promotional tool for us, today than bringing in real business. But we find it useful to refer our customers to our site.
3. What prompted you to begin your current venture? What thought process led to this idea, and what initial challenges did you have to face?
Shibani: I was a web and multimedia designer and always interested in handicrafts. We thought that we could make a difference to this business (even if it was done in a small way to start with) with our ability to understand current market norms, design and bring in professional inputs.
We were also excited by the concept of "customized crafts". Being handmade product, it is relatively easier to customize a product with a special message or specification or color, even in small quantities. We thought of how a "grain of rice" can be packaged nicely with a hand written message and magnifying glass and sent off anywhere in the world.
And we were excited about the fact that we could be the one middle point between the end buyer and the end producer. It was exciting to visualize a situation where we could be the bridge between the rural/grass roots producer who has no market access and the end buyer who has no idea about the craft producer and their stories. It was interesting from a social and creative perspective.
We felt this was possible with a dot com model - with producers on one end and buyers on the other. In fact, we were incubated as a dot com. We made it through incubation funding, but were late in the dot com boom. The bust ensured that no one even heard us out as a dot come investment. The choice before us was either to shut down or change the model. We changed the model and started selling directly to corporate buyers.
4. When the chips are down, how do you deal with those kinds of situations?
Shibani: We have had many times when the chips were down. And we persevered. I did not give up. We evolved and sharpened our model in terms of cutting costs, reducing overheads, sharpening our focus, building systems and processes. We had to go through really tough transitions, like when I closed down the home textiles exports business - it was a harrowing time. We had to let go of trained staff, say no to customers who had started initiatives with us and manage all excess raw material fabric stock which was left over. At this time we simply stuck to our guns, gave ourselves a time line and swallowed our losses on this.
Another transition happened when my partner who headed the corporate business suddenly decided to quit after five years of managing this business. We then had to transition and learn many things afresh. The knowledge of the business went with him. We had a huge struggle just to re-educate ourselves about our customer requirements, vendor capabilities and issues and so many other things. But this transition actually resulted in us moving from a one man show into a 'team' approach. We built a team and dependence on one person is much reduced today. We also focused on more documentation, systems and processes at this stage.
5. What plans do you have for the future for your company?
Shibani: We have many dreams - of them one is that of having our brand recognized in the form of retail stores of our own. The other picture is to take our gifts offerings to foreign shores.
6. If you had to do it all over again, what would you differently?Shibani: We had very high costs when we started up - manpower, office, etc. I would now start like a garage operation if I had to restart. I would also focus, focus and focus from day one.
7. What drives you to work everyday?
Shibani: The thought that there is so much more to do, that we have only scratched the surface. The fact that I have something new to learn every day some new idea to pursue.
8. What three things would you advise aspiring women entrepreneurs?
Shibani:
Be courageous. Do not worry about the fact that you are a woman and chances are that others will not worry about it either. Very often the problem is not external if it's not internal.
Find and use external support. Today women entrepreneurs have a lot of external support- special funds, working capital loans, network groups- find them & use them well. Am not exactly aware of which ones, but banks like SIDBI, women's cooperative banks are women friendly. To be honest I have not had to find one myself- but they are there- on the net/banking community/funding groups.
Manage your guilt well. If you also have a family to look after. Guilt is not good for you/your family/your business. You might as well realize that this is what you love to do and your family might as well realize this too! Honesty is the best policy here in more ways than one!
9. What books or events have inspired you the most?Shibani:So many books! From Ayn Rand (We the living, The Fountainhead) at 16, to Herman Miller (Siddhart) at 20 to Celestine Prophecy (colin wilson?) to Conversations with God recently.
I was also influenced by books like All Paths Lead To Gold and Winning by Jack Welch.
On events - I did a course in Vipassana meditation in the mountains of Igatpuri- this is a 10 day silent course- and it changed my life. It taught me to view life in perspective- and the fact that mind control is the most important control to have. The mind must not dictate you, you must control your mind.
Also every time I see street children in India, I feel compelled to do something. Anything to alleviate the suffering that so much of mankind seems to have. I feel outraged that so little is done and about the unfairness of it all.
I feel sad when I see beautiful, skilled products, sold in a shabby way, at shabby prices and in a shabby manner. I feel bad that the artist who created such a beautiful product is not getting his/her due- neither price nor recognition. I just feel that it's all a criminal waste.
10. What advice would you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in general, and women entrepreneurs specifically?
Shibani:
Out of 10 start up businesses only 3/4 survive. The trick is to persevere and to believe in your picture.
Being at the right time and at the right place is important when you start- a good idea is not enough- a hard look at viability is a must.
Being an entrepreneur is very tough- it's even tougher if you are trying to do something different/not done before/charting a different path. I would advise all young people trying to start a business to go in with their eyes open, but also with dreams in their mind.
For women I would say- your job is even tougher- like it or not, the family looks at you to keep the home fires running-but the flip side is that you may not have to be the bread earner! Enjoy this freedom and do something that you truly want to do. This is not to say that your success is not important- it is just as important, but you may have the option to choose!
For women I would also say, that consider the logistics of your life as a serious matter - like how far is your office from home? How much support do you have (family and otherwise), good help at home!!! These are small, practical and according to me imperative tips for the women entrepreneur. I could never have run Craftsbridge, if these logistics were not in my favor.
KK: Thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into answering this long list of questions! Would it be OK, if readers of this blog wanted to get in touch with you?

The dream of change

2008-07-11T19:24:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: Financial Express

Insurance, to most amongst us, would have seemed extremely complicated at some point in time. Now imagine explaining health insurance to, say, your vegetable vendor or maidservant who in most likelihood is also educationally deprived. Explaining the premiums and the benefits would still be relatively easier a task. Try convincing them to buy one. Think it would be difficult? Not for Mukti Bosco who has convinced 45,000 people to insure their health for less than a rupee a day. The promise: a health cover of Rs 20,000 for a family of five and personal accident benefits of Rs 25,000 each on member and spouse. If plans go well she would have extended insurance cover to 50,000 families by the end of the year. Commendable? But success hasn’t come easy to her. It took her two years to design a plan for them. The product, Parivar Suraksha Bima (Family Insurance Scheme), is recognised as the first of its kind by USAID and ILO. What makes it revolutionary is the state of healthcare in India. Nearly 90% of India’s population does not have any access to healthcare financing. 77% amongst them struggle to survive just above the inefficient measure called ‘poverty line’. Not to forget our rural brethren. Believe the estimates if you will — just 2% of them are insured. For a daily wage earner who earns just enough to survive the day, it is a difficult task to save. According to the World Bank, about one fourth of hospitalised Indians fall below the poverty line as a direct result of the hospital expenses. “It’s not just about creating awareness. It’s rather about creating an association. The community has to begin to trust you. Life insurance is simpler, micro health insurance far more complex,” says Bosco, the founder of Healing Fields Foundation. For a service fee of Rs 101 per policy, the Foundation is indeed doing credible work. “We wanted a revenue generation model that could make the project sustainable,” she reasons with complete conviction.
The concept of a social entrepreneur has been afloat in the US for a long time now. In India too it has been around for a while now. Dr Verghese Kurien (Amul) and Ela Bhatt (Sewa) can well be called the pioneers in India. They tested the waters way back in the early 1970s. “Eight years ago a mention of ‘social entrepreneur’ only drew blank stares. Today it has become a brand wagon that people want to ride, whether they are really social entrepreneurs or not,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public. Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs, has since 1981 encouraged over 1,800 entrepreneurs through fellowships. “Entrepreneurship has new frontiers of possibility. And this is just one of them,” feels Sushmita Ghosh. She leads the Global Academy of Social Entrepreneurs and is also the chairperson of Changemakers.net. “This is an extremely timely phenomenon for the business and the social sector to look at. Given the increasing potential of India in the global eyes, definitely,” Ghosh adds.
It is equally imperative to consider the different connotations of entrepreneurship. “At Ashoka we don’t just consider revenue models — we look at a range of systemic efforts for social change. Things are changing, but funding still remains a problem. We need to work closely with the mainstream financial sector. Until that happens, the challenge beckons,” says Sohini Bhattacharya, director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Innovators for the Public.
Bosco is not the only one to subscribe to the philosophy of social entrepreneurship. There are several others who share her desire to bring change…they have the vision and also the entrepreneurial skills to achieve it. Like craft activist and industrial designer Neelam Chhiber. More than a decade back, in 1994, she decided to tap natural fibre crafts by setting up Industree. The turnover in the first year was non-existent and the labour largely made of unpaid voluntary workers. Today its turnover has touched Rs 40 million. Recently it turned down retail giant Ikea’s offer due to production issues. “We realised that our small business would have turned into a large scale factory in Bangalore city. This did not gel with our philosophy. We started to promote rural livelihood and wanted to continue doing it,” says Chhiber. The enterprise has tested Chhiber’s balancing skills a number of times — whether to have the product at 100% mark up price or more; whether to globalise completely or also cater to the booming domestic market; how to sell the products. “Typically, craft shops had the reputation of being government funded, with products collecting dust on shelves. By attracting contemporary furniture shoppers, we felt that we could catch clients in a different frame of mind and this selling strategy proved to be successful. And selling goods is an expensive venture. So, currently we sell our products in our own shops and also in partnership with an additional 50 retail points,” she adds. The perk of her job: to feel the difference created to 5,000 lives across India — right from Tamil Nadu to Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Considering that artisans and craftspeople constitute the second largest employment group in India, Chhiber’s step comes across as extremely commendable.
Sumita Ghose has chosen a similar area of work but in a different place — largely western Rajasthan. Rangsutra, her project, is an extremely thought-provoking one. After lot of deliberation on different organisational models — cooperative, society, charitable trust, company — she decided to settle for the company format. And to ensure that the craftspeople get a substantial part of the wealth they create, she decided to make them shareholders. “The idea was to build up social capital with economic viability,” she says adding, “one can adopt a balanced approach. Empowerment of artisans and increase in sales can coexist.” Three-year-old Rangsutra has been able to achieve a three crore turnover — a gradual approach to Ghose’s 10-year vision which is to have at least 1,00,000 artisans as shareholders.
Anita Ahuja’s field of work is absolutely different from Ghose’s and Chhiber’s. She probably is one person in the capital who can afford not to feel guilty about indispensable plastic (the ‘menace’). Consider this: According to a study, recently released by the Canadian International Development Authority, New Delhi is imbued with solid waste. Of the 4,000-odd tonnes of waste, which the capital generates everyday, nearly 60 ton comprises plastic. To some extent Ahuja has been able to tame the plastic. Her entrepreneurial model, Conserve, is working with nearly 300 rag pickers to convert waste plastic into a range of commercially successful products — umbrellas, diaries, bags, raincoats... supplied to the likes of Benetton and Unicef. She noticed how the rag pickers were reduced to a mere footnote in the entire system and decided to mainstream them. The least her effort has done is to restore dignity to their job. The rag pickers now proudly take back a salary of Rs 3,000 every month. She even helps the rag pickers set up their own fabrication groups that use her patented technology to make plastic sheets. “Training them wasn’t an easy task,” she says. When she found that most rag pickers couldn’t identify colours, she used Bollywood to bridge the gap. So, Pink became Kareena and Shah Rukh became black. Five successful years of operation have made Conserve a social brand now. How successful exactly you may ask. Well, the brand that barely managed a breakeven in its first year of operation, registered a turnover of Rs 1.5 crore in the last fiscal.
Here are people who did not wait for things to change on their own. They knew that would not happen ever — someone had to take the initiative to change them. And they decided to become that ‘someone’. Chetna Gala Sinha, the founder of Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank is mention worthy in the same breath. Social Entrepreneur ‘07 finalist for Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation, Sinha’s is an interesting story. Reserve Bank of India rejected her application for a bank because there were more thumb impressions than signatures on the proposal note. The rural women, determined, attended adult literacy classes and approached the chief general manager soon after. They were technically literate now. But they drew their real confidence from their level of social intelligence: “we can calculate the interest for any amount without using a calculator. Can any of your employees do that?” Gala-Sinha, an economist-activist herself, humbly shares the Bank’s genesis. “You need to understand how it works at the grassroots. Why do people approach moneylenders but not banks despite the significant difference in the rates of interest? We tried to understand what they really needed and took banking to their doorstep. These people are bankable too. We gave loans to street vendors for sun umbrellas when we found that due to sunstroke they were losing their daily income,”she adds. In less than 10 years the Bank has been able to earn 72,000 women clients. It has four branches in Satara district (Maharashtra) alone. Credit Gala-Sinha, also for setting up Udyogini, a rural business school for women. “We learn from these women. They tell us what they need…like when they told us that selling prepaid vouchers for cell phones can help them earn, we taught them to do that,” she says. In the last fiscal, it posted net profits of Rs 2,31,000 and reported a loan recovery rate of 97%.
Vineet Rai couldn’t have agreed more. He found his calling in helping rural innovators set up their enterprise. That led to the creation of Aavishkaar India, a social micro venture capital fund. “The banks weren’t interested in giving loans to them because they found it too risky. But there was definitely a need, and a market. And I don’t see any problem with the for-profit format,” says Rai. Eight of the 14 investments he has made so far are making profit.
However, the above instances are in no way an attempt to be hypercritical about NGOs. They too have managed to sustain themselves economically. Like the Sesame Workshop of the Galli Galli Sim Sim fame (the multi platform education initiative.) “We have been non-profit for 40 years in the US and in India too we run on the same format. “We primarily sustain ourselves through philanthropic grants, corporate social responsibility funds, donations, licensing of our products across toys, publishing, home videos, broadcast fees, content development and training,” says Sashwati Banerjee, executive director, Sesame Workshop India. Sustainability, she feels, is not just about being economically viable. It is defined by capacities we build for the development process to continue.”

Startup Saturday_12_07_08

2008-07-09T20:00:00.001+14:00

The schedule of July edition of Startup Saturday is as follows:
Date: July 12th, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 10:30 AM - 1 PM
Venue: Indian Institute of BangaloreThe agenda for the meet is as follows
10:30 AM - 11 AM : *DEMO* by Yusuf Motiwala on Tring Me Enterprise Solutions
11 AM -12 pm: *TALK* by Bharti Jacob of Seedfund
12 PM - 1 PM: Networking with Bharti Jacob
Its is a free event hosted by NSRCEL, IIMPlease register at http://startupsaturday.in/index.php?title=Registration

No Clan, No Ilk, No Limits

2008-07-09T18:29:00.005+14:00

Entrepreneurship has become viral now a days. I see no limits with the industry, space or scale.
I am talking about today's Indian youth who dont flaunt away their enterprises but just run behind their passion. The Unstoppable.
Here are a few of them:
Name: Galeej Gurus
Space: Music - Concerts
The team comprises of folks from 21 year old to 28 year old Ananth Menon. They are a team of five who came together to start Galeej Gurus in 2000. Now this team has a bag of achievements which includes a performance at Dubai Desert Rock Festival.
Achievements: > Playing alongside the Rasmus in 2005 > Opening for Deep Purple concert in 2006 > Headlining the popular national talent hunt campus Rock Idols South zone in 2006 and 2007........phew you got to google to know the rest of their acievements.

Name: Abhishek Mazumdar
Space: Arts - Theatre
Here is our 27 year old hero who finished his engineering and MBA and started discovering himself in theatre after achieving financial independence.
Achievements: > In 2006, he won the Charles Wallace Fellowship and continued to learn more about theatre and performing arts from then on...

Name: Vishal Talreja
Space: NGO - Empowering Underprevileged children
Vishal is 29 who set his foot as a social entrepreneur as the managing trustee of Drea a Dream (DAD). He gave up a lucrative job when he was 24 and involved himself in the social sector.
Achievements: > Regional finalists in the India NGO Awards 2007 > Received Ashoka Fellowship.

Courtesy: India Today

Interview with Vinod Dham, father of the Pentium, on a life in technology and venture investing

2008-07-07T19:56:00.003+14:00

Courtesy: Venture Beat

Dean Takahashi July 3rd, 2008
Vinod Dham has lived the quintessential Silicon Valley rags to riches immigrant story. Born in Pune, India, he came to the U.S. in 1975 as an engineering student with just $8 in his pocket. He became a chip engineer and helped invent Intel’s first flash memory chip. He went on to manage Intel’s microprocessor projects, including the breakaway Pentium chip that debuted in 1993 and cemented the company’s position as the world’s biggest chip maker. He handled the bad press on the Pentium’s bug and later joined Intel rivals NexGen and Advanced Micro Devices. He became the CEO of Silicon Spice, which he sold to Broadcom for $1.2 billion in 2000. Then he became a venture capitalist, first at NewPath Ventures and now at NEA-IndoUS Ventures, where his aim is to give something back to his native India.
VB: What inspired you get into electronics when you were growing up in India?
VD: When I graduated in 1971, at 21, I ended up at the only semiconductor company that existed in India. It was a start-up that spun out of Teradyne Semiconductor and it happened to be in New Delhi. My home was seven kilometers away. It was perfect for me to live at home with my parents and work. It wasn’t until I worked at this company that my love for semiconductors bloomed. I found it to be a very exciting field because it brought in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and mechanical drawing. I moved to the U.S. and studied for a master’s degree in solid-state sciences at the University of Cincinnati, where I studied silicon germanium and compound transistors. I was doing that back in 1975.
VB: You came with very little money?
VD: I came with $8. In the 1970s, the government of India had little money to spare for foreign travel. They gave $8 to foreign tourists. As a student, I could get an additional $20. You had to go to the reserve bank of India. You had to apply. But it was such a corrupt country at the time; you had to bribe somebody to get the $20. I refused to do that. I said I’ll just go with $8.
VB: How did you get off the ground in the U.S. with just $8?
VD: That was the most amazing part. I kept it with me. There were many distractions. Even on the plane, they would sell cartons of cigarettes. People used to smoke. I used to smoke. The carton cost about as much as I had. The hostess offered me just one. I said I could live without smoking for a day. I went to the foreign student office. There was a lady named Mary Campbell. She had been corresponding with me for a year. She asked what she could do for me. I asked about my research assistant job. That was supposed to pay $325. She said I don’t get that money until I did a month of work. I told her I needed $75 to get into an efficiency and $15 for health insurance. I needed $90 to survive, and I needed more for food. She went to a room and came back with $125 in cash. She said it was a distress fund. I paid it back at zero percent interest at about $25 a month. She saved my butt.
VB: You got work in semiconductors after school?
VD: I went to work for NCR. I had some experience from India. I worked on non-volatile memory (which stores data when the power is off). I had a mentor there, Murray Trudel, who was my boss, my friend. I was like the apprentice. We created some fundamental work. He sent me to present a paper, which was where I met Bill Johnson, a director at Intel. He stole me away to work at Intel. I worked with Stefan Lai and a new college grad from Berkeley. The three of us invented Intel’s flash memory business.
VB: How big is that business now?
VD: It’s billions of dollars. I remember at the beginning I had a guy who was telling me to justify my existence. We had to make projections of the revenue we would generate. We were so wrong it’s embarrassing to talk about it. We never envisioned this whole market that has come about with memory in cell phones. We were only looking to replace an existing chip. That’s the way we thought. It was a linear extension. You don’t think about the things that can be created with it.
VB: Tell us how you became the father of the Pentium?
VD: I left R&D to get involved in Intel’s business with customers. I wanted to be a general manager instead of staying with a white coat in a lab. My first foray there was working on the 386 microprocessor. It was on its 15th or so rev through the factory. A guy named Gene Hill used to run it. They didn’t know why the yield was half a chip per wafer. (Normally, it’s around 100 good chips per wafer). Intel had a lot of pressure because Motorola had its 32-bit chip out already. I got into a task force with Craig Barrett. [Intel co-founder] Gordon Moore got it together because this was a disaster for the company. I was a manufacturing technologist, not a chip designer. We found that a coupling in the chip was not properly designed. Within nine months, we got to 21 chips per wafer. That was a big boost for me within Intel.
In return for doing that, they let me learn about microprocessors. I started with the new versions of the 386. Then we moved on to 486s. I had to try to build a multi-billion dollar business. Once we succeeded, Andy Grove asked me to do the next one, Pentium. I got associated with this chip.
VB: It was the breakaway chip for Intel?
VD: It was big. But it caught attention because it was the chip that used different branding instead of the numbers. Pentium was where we wanted to breakaway from the crowd: Sun Microsystems and MIPS Computer and Motorola. The pressure was enormous.
VB: There was a bug that led to embarrassment for Intel and a $425 million write-off. What did you take away from the Pentium bug experience?
VD: The reality never really got told. In my mind, when you are in that position of responsibility, then you have to acknowledge it. There was a paranoia inside that this admission would cause the company to fold and disappear. That was blown way out of proportion. If you own 80 percent of the market, you have to be honest and acknowledge it.
VB: You left Intel in 1995 after 16 years there. Was it a tough decision?VD: One of the best decisions I ever made was joining Intel. And the next-best decision was to leave Intel. This entire world of venture capital that I am now in – I didn’t know it. You build something when everything is stacked up against you. It’s not the way life is inside a big company. I would have never experienced this start-up life and it is far more fulfilling and learning.
VB: Then you went to the microprocessor start-up NexGen and they got acquired by Advanced Micro Devices.
VD: I knew nothing about the start-up. I’m embarrassed to say I went to NexGen without doing any due diligence. Within a month, I found the company was broken. They would have never gotten through it if I hadn’t told them they needed to put an [Intel-compatible data pathway] on the chip. AMD CEO Jerry Sanders told me many times that he would never have bought that company (for $800 million in 1995) if it had proprietary technologies. That’s what NexGen was doing when I went there. They would have continued to do it. I told Mike Yamamura, the NexGen engineering head, that it was a disaster and they had to put a Pentium bus on it. Mike’s first reaction was: impossible. That very day, he came back in the evening and said he thought we could do it with just 4 percent penalty on performance. For me, AMD was a total culture shock. It was run by someone who ruled it absolutely. He loved and hated that I challenged him all the time. He was surrounded by yes men. I knew I would not last in the AMD culture. It was very different from Intel.
VB: It had to be exhilarating to grow it and sell Silicon Spice to Broadcom for $1.2 billion in stock.
VD: It was a blessing. In normal times, it would have been hard to sell the company for $120 million. We rode the wave. I don’t want to come across as some smart ass guy who knew how to do a $1.2 billion start-up. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you are unlucky, like with the Pentium bug.
VB: You got your shot at venture capital after that?
VD: Yes, thanks to Dick Kramlich and Mark Perry at New Enterprise Associates. They wrote the first check for Silicon Spice. We started NewPath Ventures. I wanted to do something in venture capital and something in India. It was payback time for me. India in 2001 wasn’t on the map. People were afraid to set up in India, so all of my investments at NewPath were in companies set up here that could utilize labor in India. India had capital efficiency. After the dotcom crash, it was clear you couldn’t sell companies for $1.2 billion anymore. It will be sold for $100 million or $200 million. You had to reduce the capital going into the startup to get a healthy return. That was why we went to India.
VB: Were you able to extract your own holdings from Silicon Spice and put it directly into NewPath?
VD: No. I rode it enough to lead a comfortable life but nowhere near close to what could have happened. As a principal at Broadcom, I could only trade during certain windows and only so much. I felt blessed to get what I did. You only get in life what is due to you.
VB: So NewPath Ventures was raised from a group of investors?
VD: I put a little of my own money but it was mostly outside. I also put some of my own money into the follow-up fund, NEA-IndoUS Ventures.
VB: NewPath Ventures invested only in India-related startups?
VD: All of the companies had sales and marketing in the U.S. and engineering in India. One company, Telsima, also does sales and marketing India because it is a WiMax company and its market is in India. Insilica, a chip design play, has markets around the world but it has engineering in Bangalore. The same thing with Nevis Networks. The chip design and networking software is done in India and the marketing here. It was more of an incubator with a few big plays with a $130 million fund. But we are doing subsequent rounds with a lot of capital that came from other VC firms.
VB: And how is NEA-IndoUS Ventures different?
VD: It is my first true VC fund where the money has not come from people I knew as VCs. It has come from limited partners. It’s a $189 million fund. I felt with this one that India was ready to do companies based in India. I needed people who could be in India. The new name reflects the new partners and the change. NEA wanted to partner with us. We can do big bulky investments, dubbed venture growth equity. We have invested in 16 companies already and next year we will hopefully go for a new fund.
VB: How is your scorecard?
VD: The exits aren’t what they used to be. It’s not three or four years and is more like seven or eight years. Through the rounds of funding, we can judge the valuations of the companies and they are looking healthy.
VB: You had a setback with Montalvo Systems, the company that tried to take on Intel. (see our story on Montalvo).
VD: It’s OK. The rule of thumb in the VC world is that you have to do dozens of companies to get one or two right. We know that is going to happen and it was a good attempt.
VB: For the future, you expect cell phones will be the engine of the future, not PCs?
VD: Absolutely. I’ve had that view for many years and I’m glad to see that Intel has that view now. Paul Otellini has said that and it’s a major acknowledgment.
VB: What sort of usage of cell phones will happen?
VD: There is nothing except maybe Excel spreadsheets that you can’t do on a cell phone. You can do mails, SMS, MMS. You can do photo sharing. You can find the nearest restaurant. You can’t do the latter on a laptop. It’s a far richer medium. You will see a lot of big screens in the home and a cell phone won’t compete with that. But the ubiquitous device that you won’t leave home without is the cell phone. In India, when they’re fishing, they call back and say how many pounds of fish they caught and when they will be back. That creates a real-time market with buyers.
VB: What’s your view of the venture business?
VD: I think it’s one of the most exciting businesses in the world. You can nurture entrepreneurs, invest, and make a difference in areas like energy and biotech. Semiconductors is running out of steam and nanotechnology has backfired. It hasn’t produced anything worthwhile. India, China and emerging nations will have tremendous opportunities to create applications and services to enable new technologies and their populations will benefit from that.
VB: Your son went to India. That’s full circle, right?
VD: Yes. Ankush Dham. He’s a venture capitalist. He’s working for Reliance Technology Ventures. He has been there almost a year. It’s not an easy place to live but he wanted to experience it. I would come home from these trips and say it’s not companies being built, but a country being built. That’s a once in a lifetime phenomenon. Everywhere you look, something is under construction. He wanted to be part of that. Life is tough and demanding there. Kids who grow up in a bubble life don’t realize what it’s like. My youngest son, Rajeev, is an analyst at Goldman Sachs and next year he will join Silver Lake Partners in private equity work.
VB: And you have strong feelings about the immigration laws that enabled you to come here?
VD: India and the U.S. should look at each other as natural allies. They’re democracies that depend on each other for geopolitical safety and the talent both need to continue to innovate and grow. There aren’t enough students going into engineering here. Ultimately, having a good relationship with a country like India is a win-win. It shouldn’t be at the expense of people here.
VB: Well, it’s your fault and the Pentium’s fault that everybody wants to play Guitar Hero now instead of study math.
VD: We had no clue that it would lead to that and the Internet and this whole idea of Thomas Friedman’s book “The World is Flat.” There was no way to let the intelligence flow back and forth across the world so easily. Now it is possible.

IIM-A alumnus sells vegetables in Patna

2008-07-03T22:20:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: ExpressIndia.com

Steering clear of the beaten track, a graduate from IIM, Ahmedabad, once chose to sell vegetables on the streets of Patna to fulfil his career dream.
Meet 27-year-old Kaushalendra, son of a college demonstrator in the nondescript block town of Ekangarsarai in Nalanda district. "I have a dream to build Bihar into the vegetable hub of the country. I want vegetables grown in Bihar on dining tables everywhere -- from Srinagar to Salem and from Shillong to Surat," says Kaushalendra.
Perhaps the most highly educated green grocer India has ever produced, the young man from Nalanda has founded a farmers' cooperative, Samriddhi, which sells vegetables in ice-cooled pushcarts.
The private-public partnership venture, launched about a couple of months ago with assistance from Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) with just one pushcart, has now placed an order for 50 more carts, thanks to a collateral-free loan of Rs 50 lakh from Punjab National Bank.
Nearly 300 farmers have associated themselves with Samriddhi. ATMA, a government undertaking, is training these farmers in matters relating to high-yield seeds and crop protection.
"Our aim is to propagate organic farming and use our expertise in marketing to reach the markets not only in India but also abroad so that the farmers of Bihar fetch good return for their produce. In five years, we target to penetrate the vegetable markets in the US, Europe and Japan," Kaushalendra says.
The ice-cooled pushcart vegetables are a hit with customers in parts of southern Patna. "The vegetables taste garden fresh, are priced reasonably and, to add to that, they are weighed accurately with electronic weighing machines... we are just delighted to have it at a time when we have to make do with shoestring budget thanks to record inflation," says Bharti, a housewife in Kankarbagh area.
Moreover, the pushcart vendor gives the buyers a cash-memo which no other vegetable seller does, as further authentication of the quality and quantity of the vegetables.
"I am not only selling vegetables, but also the name of the farmer and the village where it has been grown. The farmer should not remain an unsung hero any more," he says pointing at the tag on the vegetables which has the mention of the name of the farmer and his village.
"One day," he said with a twinkle in his eyes, "we will be able to build Bihar into a brand... the largest selling brand in horticulture."
Asked about the initial reaction of his family to the idea of their highly qualified son foregoing a lucrative career in the corporate world and opting for an uncertain future, Kaushalendra said, "They were shocked but were later reconciled... now they seem happy that I am trying to do something that would benefit hundreds and thousands of farmers of Bihar."
Asked to comment on the job offers he had, the self-effacing IIM graduate said, "I did not opt for the placement process. So, in that sense, I had none. I saw the farmers of my vegetable-growing village eke out a living by the sweat of their brow and then watch with abject resignation the fruits of their toil rot during the floods. I always dreamt of doing something for them and I am just chasing that dream," Kaushalendra says.

Raghu B Viswanath: Championing the cause of brands

2008-07-02T18:36:00.001+14:00

Courtesy: The Economic Times

He’s an engineer from IIT and an MBA from IIM. Having worked in blue-chip brand-savvy companies like Titan Watches and Smith Kline Beecham Consumer Healthcare, he realised the significance of branding as a strategy. So Raghu B Viswanath vacated his lush seat on the corporate bandwagon and climbed aboard the vehicle of entrepreneurship in end-1999. That was the beginning of Vertebrand, India’s first integrated brand strategy consulting firm. “I believed the fast-growing Indian SME brands essentially suffered from a lack of in-house managerial talent, coupled with inadequate financial muscle to take on the biggies in terms of advertising spends,” Mr Viswanath says as he recalls the beginning of Vertebrand’s journey.

Vertebrand was started with a deep desire to assist lesser-known brands in transforming them into valuable powerhouses. Most importantly, the market presented an opportunity since no advertising agency or consulting firm offered specialised brand-building solutions or services. The scientific approach to brand-building was missing. Moreover, branding was often equated with physical identity and advertising. “Hardly anyone was paying attention to their internal business as a whole and therefore its implications on the equity of the brand. Therein, I believe, lay a huge opportunity,” states Mr Viswanath, who’s today the MD of Vertebrand. What came in as an opportunity also brought along a challenge.

Branding was then greatly confined to the advertising industry and brand assignments were primarily awarded to Ad agencies and/or creative design shops. “The market was not willing to easily accept a brand consulting firm which was left-brained in its approach, run predominantly by Engineer-MBAs and who had no Cannes Awards to their credit,” remarks Mr Viswanath. It was certainly an uphill task but Mr Viswanath was able to overcome it. “Sheer perseverance and a belief in the cause of strategic branding have helped me achieve my pride of place today,” he says. One of the key reasons behind the success of Vertebrand has been an exceptionally good team. In fact, Mr Viswanath believes that every member of his champion team is a top-notch entrepreneur! “All of them decided to throw up the trappings of corporate luxury, to work towards the cause,” he asserts.

Vertebrand is undoubtedly doing well today having served a wide range of clients including MNCs, large Indian corporates as well as many progressive SMEs. The concept of scientific branding is today receiving huge attention and Mr Viswanath acknowledges that it is having a positive impact on Vertebrand’s success. People are realising that true branding can impart business revenues and valuations. Today, Vertebrand has carved a niche for itself in the market. In fact, having successfully tried and tested in India, its processes can be replicated across all developing economies. “Vertebrand is poised to become a truly, pan-Asian brand consultancy of repute,” says Mr Viswanath. Of course, the success so far hasn’t come easily. There have been sacrifices on family fronts and huge obstacles in the professional journey. But his family always stood by him through all the thick and thin. Mr Viswanath strongly believes that entrepreneurship should not be equated with a means of becoming rich. Entrepreneurship implies never giving up. That’s his simple message.

Entrepreneur Population growing

2008-06-25T20:26:00.004+14:00

Courtesy: TOI

With a great job at Infosys that offered a long-term relocation to the UK, life couldn’t have gotten rosier for Santosh Rao. But Rao (29) gave it all up for an idea that caught his fancy while at B-school — to offer cost effective web portals for educational institutions. He quit Infosys last October to set up Vrixx Education Solutions in February and was soon joined by fellow Infoscian Arvind Singh (27). Today, they have a basement office in Indiranagar with three employees — all in their 20s. “We’re not very cash rich and projects are trickling in by and by. But it doesn’t seem like work to Arvind or me. This is what we enjoy doing,” says the IIM-Kolkata grad. Like Rao, there are an increasing number of young professionals — mostly in their 20s — who’re quitting cushy jobs for the challenge of entrepreneurship. “There is no official record of the number of entrepreneurs in the country, so there is no way one can get exact figures on the increase of entrepreneurs. However, there are many indicators that one can look at to see the increase in entrepreneurs,” says Laura Parkin, executive director of National Entrepreneurship Network, a body that seeks to promote entrepreneurship by bringing together students and entrepreneurs. “For one, there has been a heightened participation of students in NEN — from 500 five years ago to 55,000 today. Another is the number of entrepreneurship societies that have been formed.” Clubs like Kickstart, Mobile Mondays, Proto.in and Open Coffee Club (OCC) have opened in the past five years across the country and the membership numbers in each city run into hundreds. “Out of the 50 core entrepreneurial members in our club, at least 40% are below or around 30,” says Amarinder Singh, co-ordinator of OCC Bangalore. “There is also great interest from students and professionals who come in wondering if they’re up to taking the plunge.” Venture capital companies too have noticed a marked increase in projects that flow in. “From about 10 projects in a month, we now look at around 50 every month. And although there has been a marked interest in entrepreneurship across board, there is certainly much more buzz from the age group of people in their early 30s,” says Kanwaljit Singh, MD of Helion Venture Partners. VC companies estimate that there has been almost 40% increase in young professionals who have quit their jobs to be their own bosses. “I met an IIT-Delhi grad a couple of weeks ago who came to me with a project. He told me that 80% of his batchmates are now entrepreneurs,” says Anjana Vivek, founder of VentureBean Consulting. Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore are leading the entrepreneur brat pack, with Pune and Hyderabad catching up. In Bangalore, most of the entrepreneurs are in the technology, internet, mobile and telecom space, while Chennai sees more action in the service and software product segment. Mumbai’s entrepreneurs gravitate towards internet companies and non-technology ventures like retail, particularly F&B retail. “At least 40% of today’s entrepreneurs in the mobile and internet space is dominated by people in their late 20s and early 30s. Mobile related applications see huge interest in India because of the enormous market size,” says T C Meenakshisundaram, MD of venture capital firm IDG Ventures India. “The quality of deals has gone up. We now see more organized projects, greater products and better business models.” It’s mostly corporate executives — with average experience of eight to ten years — from IT services companies like Infosys, Wipro and TCS who are turning into entrepreneurs. “But I would like to see more people from companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Nokia. We need more product-based companies rather than service companies,” says Meenakshisundaram. Yet to mature However, entrepreneurship and the venture capital (VC) community in India is not a mature segment. “Most start ups lack organizational and managerial skills. They want to start their business but lack professional management. When a VC comes in, the young guys find it hard to share their space with someone senior from the industry,” says Harish Gandhi, executive director of Canaan Partners. “Along with our funding we bring in professional management, which the start ups can’t always handle.” Murugavel Janakiraman, CEO of Consim Info (formerly Bharat Matrimony), reminisces his initial days of VC participation in 2006 with a smile. “I was not used to answering anyone for the eight years that I ran the company alone. And suddenly you find yourself facing a board of directors,” he recalls. “It’s not easy. But you learn to appreciate their experience, which enables them to give you great advice in times of crisis.” The network and contact base of the more experienced members too is an advantage that young entrepreneurs take time to appreciate. VCs feel that most start up teams are either an all-techie bunch without much business acumen or are a marketing team without much knowledge or understanding of technology. “To find a complete team is the biggest challenge with new companies. I would rather fund a great team with a good idea than a good team with a great idea. A great team can quickly learn the market nuances that make a successful venture,” says Meenakshisundaram. When Sunil Maheshwari (33) and his partner Lekh Joshi (32) floated Mango Technologies two years ago, the biggest challenge was to get funds to start their venture. The company provides mobile applications platform for low cost devices targeting emerging markets. “Most of the venture capital firms are US-based. Their mindset is different so while funding they think in terms of the US business environment,” says Maheshwari. “They need to understand that the way business functions here is totally different. Entrepreneurs who have only lived in India and not in the US, display a cultural difference in their estimation of money required for a venture and utilisation of funds. Getting angel funding is not difficult in the US but in India it’s not easy to get even Rs 20 lakh to 30 lakh.” Maheshwari faced challenges in accessing seed money to start the company and do the initial setup. “The product market is a longterm game and you need to understand that every product may not be successful but returns are also very high for a successful product,” he says. “Seed money was a constraint, but all of us at Mango have really enjoyed going through this phase. It gave us the strength to save every rupee and give our best in a constrained environment.” At the end, nothing succeeds like success. “The concept of entrepreneurship has been romanticised a lot. A lot of people jump in thinking it’s ‘cool’. But it’s a lot of hard work and it takes a strong team to stick it out,” says Rao. MORE STORIES 1 Praveen Jain (29) quit KPMG to start E-Media Genie — a retail marketing firm to install LCD screens in pharmacies — in August 2007 with childhood friend Naresh Kothari (29) and already has 100 pharmacies as clients. 2 Anand (30) quit Amazon to join hands with Aparna Sharma (28) and Prashant Gyan (25), both of whom quit Oracle, to start Kuliza Technologies, an offshore product development firm in September 2006. Today, they have 40 people on payroll and generate profits. 3 Jay Gupta (33) plunged straight into retail after college and four years ago started discount store The Loot on banker support. Today he runs 30 stores in 15 cities. 4 Prodipto Ghosh (35) quit KPMG and started Math sQuotient, an operation consulting services firm, in 2004 and has Tata Tele Services and Siemens on his client list.

Leaders redefine entrepreneurship: Employee Attrition

2008-06-24T19:33:00.002+14:00

Courtesy: The Economic Times

This article speaks about the ability of an entrepreneur as leader.
Dwight D Eisenhower, the 34th US President and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in World War II, described leadership as ‘the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it’.

For an entrepreneur who has a startup the most difficult challenge is to retain employees. If they are true leaders, they will successful is inspiring their employees with their vision.
Here are a few extracts from the article posted on Economic Times.

Leadership is a blend of several qualities; it’s a role that demands multi-tasking. That’s exactly what a successful entrepreneur does.

If entrepreneurship is about utilising a market opportunity to create a business, leadership is about building the right team and getting it involved in achieving the business goals.

A good leader is able to take his team along with him; it is not so much about people management as it is about understanding people and inspiring them. Organisational structures are necessary to facilitate smooth operations. But they are good enough only as long as they work as enablers and not become impediments. Good leaders understand this and also recognise the importance of providing a healthy work environment where employees can express their views and ideas irrespective of their position in the organisational structure. Good leaders are good listeners who pay attention to what their employees say.

Featured on Money Today- An Indis Today group magazine

2008-06-24T18:14:00.003+14:00

I am happy to announce that I have been featured in an article called "Dad likes deposits, I like equities" published in the Money Today magazine.

"I do not liquidate investments frequently, but some stocks are deliberately picked up with a target price in mind. Once it is achieved, I book profits. This ensures that my overall strategy is not disturbed,” says Nischala Agnihotri. No, she isn’t a greying market veteran. She’s a 21-year-old marketing associate based in Bengaluru.
There are many others like Agnihotri—young investors who not only understand that equities give high returns, but also how the stock market works. They know when to get in, when to get out and what to buy. “I am an investor not a trader,” says 25-year-old CJ Sathya, a Hyderabad-based business development manager. Most young investors echo this sentiment.
They are not interested in day trading or making a bundle during temporary market swings. They know that the longer you hold equity investments, higher are the returns. The majority of the investors we spoke to make careful bets that will yield rich rewards in the future. A 40-year-old might leave the decision to a financial planner.
But not these young people. For instance, 24-year-old Pramod HS, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, has been investing since he was 22 and relies on his judgement alone. “I discuss the market buzz with my broker. But the final decision depends on the calculations in my notepad,” he says. What are the parameters of their choice?
Sandeep Upadhyay, Delhi, assistant managerAge: 27Income: Rs 38,000 a monthAge at first investment: 25First investment: Tech Mahindra IPOInvesting strategy now: Invests nearly 50% of his income. Invests in stocks every month: large caps for long term and mid- and small-caps for short term“I started dabbling in stocks in college. The experience is very useful now”
CJ Sathya, Hyderabad, business development managerAge: 25Income: Rs 40,000 a monthAge at first investment: 23First investment: Equity-linked saving schemesInvesting strategy now: First meets investment target for the month and spends the rest. All investments are in equities. Started with equity funds, then large-cap stocks and now invests in mid- and small-cap stocks Equity Corpus» Rs 1.7 lakh in mutual funds and shares“I realise that I have a high risk appetite and want to exploit it fully”
Pramod HS, Bengaluru, software engineerAge: 24Income: Rs 32,000 a monthAge at first investment: 22First investment: Birla Long-Term Advantage FundInvesting strategy now: Invests everything he saves. Does elaborate analysis of each stock and fund to achieve investing targets“Only if there is no opportunity in the markets do I have some money in my savings account. Else, everything is invested”"For stocks, I consider the sales growth of the company for the past four years, the current price to earnings ratio, comparison of the stock price movement with its average and a few other figures of the company’s order book. Only when they conform to my criteria do I invest in the stock,” says Pramod. Like many of his contemporaries, Pramod understands capital markets and puts this knowledge to good use.
Delhi-based assistant manager with Bharti Airtel, Sandeep Upadhyay, 27, started investing with Tech Mahindra’s IPO. “I invested about Rs 10,000 and it has grown about eight times since then,” he says. Upadhyay keeps an eye on high-growth sectors and invests in companies that have a line-up of good projects. In addition, he does some technical analysis to determine a stock’s current price evaluation. “I compare the figures to other companies in the sector and then make a final choice,” he explains.
This expertise is not restricted to investing directly in equities. Most people invest through mutual funds because they do not understand the way the market works. But these young investors use mutual funds in a scientific manner. “The first consideration is the mutual fund’s objective. Once I zero in on the funds that have a goal consistent to mine, I compare their returns in the past five-six years. The record of the asset management company and the fund manager’s achievements are next on my checklist. Finally, I look at the fund’s portfolio, especially the proportion of investments to specific sectors before making the final decision,” says Dalal.
These parameters are not inflexible. Young investors do make an exception for gut instinct. Says Pramod: “I believe that the capital goods sector will earn high revenues in the coming years. So though Bhel had a high PE ratio of 34, I still bought it.” In other cases, cold logic dictates the choice of investment. So even though Upadhyay fancies mid- and small-cap companies, he invests in large-cap stocks for better diversification and lower risk.The passion for equities is carried on even when buying insurance or when planning tax tax saving investments. When it comes to insurance, they pick unit-linked insurance plans rather than pure risk cover. And equity linked savings schemes (ELSS) are all the rage as tax-planning tools.
What’s more, almost 90% of the young investors we spoke to are eager to learn about the even riskier derivatives market. Agnihotri has already started to read about futures and options in a bid to accelerate her portfolio’s growth. Not that she isn’t aware of the high risks involved. But who’s afraid? Certainly not these informed investors who take calculated risks.
WHAT YOUTH CONSIDER BEFORE INVESTINGStocks
Sector growth Better prospects mean higher stock prices in future
Corporate earnings The higher, the better. Profits should be consistently high, indicating sustained growth
Price evaluations A high price to earnings ratio makes stocks less attractiveGovernment policies If they favour a sector, better for companies operating in it

Lessons to Success_ Learn from Failure

2008-06-18T23:55:00.003+14:00

Startups are not all about success but also counts in failure.
Here are few stories about a few startups who started passionately but had to close down their ventures midway.
Seraja
Seraja was an event startup promoted by Rajesh Jain and Ramesh Jain which was called off due to "lack of focus" as the founders say. To know more
Jhoom.in
It was a social network site launched in 2006 and catered to Bollywood and Indian Music fans. They had to shut down because they couldnt gain much traction from the India netizens. To know more

I do not want to write detailed notes of unsuccessful startups as this blog is to inspire entrepreneurs and not scare them out. Any way every failure is a learning lesson to success.
Hence, only the reason for such close down has been mentioned.

Events this weekend

2008-06-17T21:06:00.002+14:00

"Getting it done..."
How do you translate your idea into reality? How do you inspire your team to have the same passion and get things done on time and well. These experts have been there and done it.
The Panelists for the evening are: Prakash Gurbaxani Founder and CEO of QVC Realty, India's first venture-funded Real Estate Development Company. Prakash has over 20 years of experience in a wide variety of industries including real estate, construction, BPO and technology. B.S Rao Executive Vice President of FranklinCovey He is a firm believer in the 7 habits of Steven Covey and helps to propagate it. Ravi Narayan Managing Director - Mentor Partners Ravi has over 18 years of management and engineering experience in the corporate & startup companies in the Telecom and IT Industry. On: 19th June 2008 - Thursday At: The Chancery (Lavelle Road) Time: 6:30 PM Onwards Special Entry Fee for BNI MembersRs.200/-Kindly confirm your participation. So we can reserve your seat. Reply to this mail or call us, Selvi # 22996651, 22996654 Email: events@businessgyan.comTo get regular updates on Businessgyan Events and Articles register on http://www.businessgyan.com/ Businessgyan proudly associates with TASMAC - a premier business school offering MBA full/part time programmes validated by the University of Wales, U.K. wales@tasmac.ac.in

OCC regarding Open source/ Social networking on June 21st.
Here are the OCC Special Meet details: Date: 21 June 08 Day: Saturday Time: 10:30 AM – 12:30 PM Venue: CoreObjects, Brigade MLR, #50, Vani Vilas Road, Opp. National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, Karnataka 560004 Maps: http://tinyurl.com/4hsfc4 (Yahoo map to Vani Vilas Road).

Special Startup Saturday on a Sunday

2008-06-12T20:06:00.004+14:00

Here is an interesting task taken up by a bunch of young people in Bangalore. It is called Startup Saturday apparently held on June 15th which is a Sunday. It consists of interesting panels and speakers coming to give their knowledge and insights about entrepreneurship.
Agenda
09:00 - 09:30 ---> Registration and Networking
09:30 - 09:45 ---> Introduction to KickStart
09:45 - 10:15 ---> Entrepreneurs and Entrepreneurship
10:15 - 10:45 ---> Idea Validation
10:45 - 11:00 ---> Q & A
11:00 - 11:30 ---> Tea Break
11:30 - 12:30 ---> Business Plan - Basics
12:30 - 13:00 ---> Exercise on Business Plan
13:00 - 14:00 ---> Lunch
14:00 - 14:30 ---> Technology and IPR
14:30 - 15:00 ---> Product Management and Marketing
15:00 - 15:15 ---> Tea Break
15:15 - 15:45 ---> Legal aspects of setting up your own company
15:45 - 16:15 ---> Selling + How to talk to a VC + Alternate sources of funding
16:15 - 16:30 ---> Q & A
16:30 - 18:00 ---> Panel Discussion
18:00 - 18:10 ---> Valedictory

Sponsors

If anybody is interested to sponsor such an event filled with exburance and energy and provides a platform to network with entrepreneurs from various genre.

For further details, please contact-Amit Singh, Kickstart.in - +91 98863 14456 email : amit@kickstart.inTarun Bansal, Kickstart.in +91 93410 41776 email : tarun.tarunbansal@gmail.comAnand Prakash Jangid +91 98454 67835 email : anandjangid@gmail.comKunalkant Sen + 91 92410 09423 email : kunalkantsen@gmail.comRajeev Kumar +91 98861 94776 email : raja.rajeevkumar@gmail.com

Three Mistakes of my life

2008-05-23T00:03:00.003+14:00

Here is the third release of of Chetan Bhagat. This time he has written about three guys again but it is not IIT.
These guys are respectively passionate about their different things and how the the hero - Govind commits three mistakes as he puts his passion before his friendship, relation and life.
Well I am not going to narrate the story, it is best for you guys to read the book. I would rate 3.5 on 5.
I think the entreprenuers would enjoy reading as they can connect with the businessman in the novel.

Mobile Startup Ecosystem

2008-05-16T23:41:00.001+14:00

The Mobile Start-Up Ecosystem - Rudy De Waele

From: rudydw, 7 months ago

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Informa Mobile Web 2.0 Conference London presentation on the Mobile 2.0 Start-Up Ecosystem:

* Integrating mobility: what mobility features are start-ups concentrating on?
* Where do we see new start-ups : Who is investing in what?
* How do Mobile Web 2.0 propositions differentiate?
* Evaluating new propositions: showcase of launches in recent months

SlideShare Link

Independent Computer Security and Digital Intelligence Consultant

2008-05-15T20:02:00.002+14:00

Now I have started to envy all the young entrepreneurs.
Here is Ankit Fadia, 19 years old, an independent Computer Security and Digital Intelligence Consultant and has definitive experience in the field of computers. He has authored several best-selling books on Computer Security, which have been appreciated by both professionals and industry leaders, the world over. His books have sold a record 80,000 copies across the globe. Fadia is also a widely recognized Cyber terrorism expert.

To know more look at his lengthy resume.

MotoDev Summit

2008-05-13T23:11:00.003+14:00

Hello Mobile Freaks.
Here is some that would interest you all.
Motorola is throwing a full day event at the Leela Palace - "MotoDev Summit"
It has various sessions running all round the day and you can make your choice.
Please find the agenda.

You may register online for this event.
Hope you have fun.

Men of Courage

2008-05-13T02:29:00.001+14:00

Men Of Courage

From: Nsichala, 3 minutes ago

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No more number juggling

2008-05-12T18:26:00.004+14:00

Good news for all those callers who want to retain their unique number to stay connected among their group. TRAI has come to rescue.
TRAI has recommended a country-wide implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) policy which would be implemented by June 2009. However the policy also says that the period required to jump from one service provider to another should not be more than two hours, during which the customer will not be able to receive any incoming calls. Another caution that the prepaid callers will not be able to transfer the existing balance while switching lanes.

Well that we have to take it with pinch of salt.
Coming to adding gyan to this article, mobile number portability exists in countries like US, Australia, Singapore, HongKong and some European countries.

Coffee Club for Thinkers

2008-05-12T03:48:00.001+14:00

Thinking is what triggers an idea that has been dormant in the mind of an entrepreneur. It would be very resourceful if one gets a platform where all the thinking could happen and take it to the next level of an actionable business plan. There is one such forum in Bangalore called Open Coffee Club where thinkers meet up to evolve into entrepreneurs.
This time it was on a Sunday, (May 11, 2008) where Ms.Anjana Vivek kindly came over to the forum to give all the aspiring entrepreneurs gathered at Core Objects an insight about how difficult or easy, is a journey of an entrepreneur.
The participants had a lot of questions about how to finance their startup, attrition of human resources, filing patents, scaling up the business fast, choosing mentors, creative revenue models and many more.
I many interesting startups, enthusiastic entrepreneurs and most of all exciting thinkers.

bharatentrepreneurship

2008-05-09T19:22:00.001+14:00

Three Waves Of Outsourcing

From: Nsichala, 4 minutes ago

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Funding, IP & Commercialisation

2008-05-09T07:37:00.004+14:00

This is a key topic of discussion for the technology entrepreneurs. Though a technology has been created, the credit of the creation is not always given to the inventor; sometimes it is given to the owner.
Sounds confusing!!!
The inventor of a technology is not always the owner of it, who gains profits out of it. It is the person who patents it.
This was the discussion at IIIT Bangalore which held a one day free workshop on May 8th, 2008 focusing on the topic “Govt Initiatives for Industry Academia Collaboration – Funding, Intellectual Property and Collaboration”.

The workshop opened with the first session on “ GOI Initiatives in Academia Industry Collaboration including entrepreneurship and patent support”, which was addressed by Dr. Garg, Joint Director from Ministry of Communications and Information technology.
Focus points for entrepreneurs while addressing IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights).
1.Require a written IP policy for any process or product to protect innovation within your company.
2.Create an IP Audit before you start a R&D project.
Example: Sasken Communications conducted an IP audit after the R&D project of an anonymous product (which took 2 years to create and incurred Rs.2 crore) and realized that they had infringed 20 patents due to which the product commercialization had to be dismissed.
3.Do IP due diligence – have a checklist.
4.Prioritize patenting needs for budget purpose (cost effective)
5.Look into parameters such as velocity of patenting and patent mapping process.
Challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Patent process
1.Cost involved in IP due diligence is high.
2.IP Infrastructure unavailable.
3.No effective Search system.
GOI Initiatives
1.IPR Promotion Program
2.Trademark Tool: to avoid names with verbal similarities.
3.SIP-EIT for SMEs & Technology Start ups
4.Tide Program
5.Multiplier brand scheme
To know more about these initiatives visit http://www.mit.gov.in/

Session 2 was presented by Mr. Meenakshi Sundaram and Ranjith Menon from IDG Ventures. http://www.idgventures.com/
As VCs they focused on the challenges faced by their entrepreneurs, and how patents helped them.
Note to the entrepreneurs: Find a lawyer who can write your IP covering a broader spectrum to create monopoly.
Do not encourage people as employees to carry IP from one company to another; it is unethical. Have a strong written IP policy in the employee contract.

Later Sunil Maheswari, CEO of Mango Technologies (Incubated out of IIM-B) spoke his journey as an entrepreneur and the importance of patents. He emphasized on the support and encouragement received from the GOI.
http://www.mangotechno.com/

Where should I go?

2008-05-07T23:34:00.006+14:00

Events in May

22 year old MD

2008-05-07T22:00:00.001+14:00

Aadith Vikram, 22, MD and Vice Chairman of PGC Industries and Group asks "Where is my boss?"
If you are wondering what this is all about.........well it is about a new portal started by PGC Infotech which offers online live interview between employee and employer.
To know more about his innovations visit http://www.whereismyboss.com/.
He proudly mentions that 670 companies have shown interest in participating on this portal.
With other major players like naukri, ibibo, monster...we need to wait and watch how far this innovation would go.........

Pangea Day

2008-05-05T01:54:00.001+14:00

Pangea Day is a global event held on May 10thIST: 11.00 PM to 3.00 AM. It is being celebrated and organised with an objective to remove the differences and borders among people. This is being implemented by hosting 24 films in different languages.
If you also want to be a part of it check out your nearest venue at http://www.pangeaday.org/aboutPangeaDay.php.

Interested souls gather together.

Startup city Event

2008-05-05T01:45:00.001+14:00

This is great opportunity for all VCs and start up firm to know and meet prople from their ecosystem. Thanks to Smart Techie and Silicon India who are hosting a start up show where all start ups would showcase their companies and have a chance to meet few of the top most VCs in the country.
Time: 9.00 AM to 6.00 PM.
Day: May 24, 2008
Venue: Nimhans Covention Center, Bangalore
Registration Free.
To know more visit http://www.thesmarttechie.com/startupcity/

Entrepreneur Addas in Bangalore

2008-05-05T01:38:00.001+14:00

For all entrepreneurs who want to network more and meet more like minded people... here are a few virtual places which would help you guys.
Barcamp Bangalore
Bangalore Dotnet group
Dev Camp
SPIN
Computer Society of India
Coffee Club House
Nokia Forum India

You could google the rest for the respective links.

Baggit

2008-04-24T20:30:00.001+14:00

Here is what might shock you that an initial investment of Rs.7,000 is now a Rs. 9 crore worth business.
Who bagged it all?
It is the 42 year old Nina Lekhi who made this fortune by manufacturing and designing unique hand bags. She started this business when she was as early as 19 years. Initially she managed the show single handed and now the firm Baggit has been scaled up to 150 employees.
Bravo Lady Entreprenuer!!!!!!!

Entrepreneur behind passion

2008-04-22T19:01:00.000+14:00

Here is a budding entrepreneur who works for his passion. He calls himself a simple guy with big dreams.
He has created a very interesting and up to date website about the events happening in Bangalore which help Bangaloreans to know their city better.
He is working on many such projects which are useful to people.
Anybody who would want to know more about branding should reach him at his blog netbramha.

BARCAMP

2008-04-22T18:54:00.000+14:00

It has been long since I published.
Here is something that caught my interest and would also interest most entrepreneurs.
"BARCAMPS" is the word.
They are very helpful for young entrepreneurs to network and know about different things during the discussions.
The cities in India which hold them actively are Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi and so on.
To know more reach out to Barcamp.org

Wada-Pav King

2007-11-02T21:13:00.000+14:00

Here is another interesting story about an entrepreneur who is called the Wada-Pav king.
He started a company called JumboKing based on the most popular franchise model. He spot that there is immense demand for Wada-Pav in Mumbai and started this venture at Malad.
Where did he receive funding from?
He took a bank loan Rs. 2 lakh and proved all the pessimists wrong, who say business is risky!!
Where did he derive the Inspiration from? Mc Donald

Hope he would see much more success.

Thanks to Google

2007-10-31T18:53:00.000+14:00

Google has joined the Indian Angel Network and invested in Ventureast TeNet Fund II.It is a fund run by the Tenet Group of IIT, Madras, and Ventureast Fund Advisors.
The Indian Angel Network is an organisation of professionals and companies dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship in India.
The Ventureast TeNet II fund invests in technology that enables early stage entrepreneurs to get their businesses off the ground. Emphasis is placed on technologies and solutions focused on small and medium-sized enterprises. “The early stages of venture capital financing are underserved in the Indian market, despite their critical importance to the innovation chain,” said Samir Sood, Google’s Head of Corporate Development for South Asia, in a release.

Courtesy: SifyBusiness.com

Teen Entrepreneurship

2007-10-29T20:18:00.001+14:00

We have heard of early entrepreneurs and teen entrepreneurs are the earliest of this kind.Here are a few interesting stories from India...........

Story One: In Bangalore, Suhas Gopinath is getting ready to address his Korean, Swiss, German and American employees who are here on an exchange programme.Employees are routinely sent to overseas offices so that they get a better understanding of operations. Gopinath founded his company Globals seven years ago when he wasjust 14. Coming from a modest background,failing was simply not an option."I got Rs 30 as pocket money at atime when an hour at the cyber cafe cost Rs 120. I requested the cafe owner to allow me to work for him during lunch time and let me use the Internet for free," he says. He may not be articulate,but he is determined. Today,the company which implements Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions for educational institutions and web and software solutions for corporates,has around 250 clients.Gopinath's India office-he won't disclose his turnover as he is about to divest a stake to a London-based company-alone brings in revenues of around $2.5 million (Rs 9.8 crore). It kick started last year. Askhim to count his achievements and Gopinath lists his entry into the Limca Book of Records in 2006 as the world's youngest executive. "It made my family proud."

Story two: When brothers Bhavin and Divyank Thrakhia were 15 and13, respectively, they made money by finishing their classmates' computer projects. They also started a job portal, did consultancy for companies like Orion softand set up intranets for many a corporates. In 1998,they borrowed Rs 25,000 from their parents to pay for server lease fees. Within a month, they had not only repaid the loan but ploys close to 400 people across 230 countries. They have traded the Santro they had bought in 1999 for a Mercedes C200and Porsche BoxsterS.Their sights are now set on the skies.They want a private jet. The good Gujarati boys (mention that and they squeal in unison "we don't want to bebranded that") get little time to party- "we work till nearly 4 a.m. everyday"-but are into extreme adventure sports like hot air ballooning. Indian entrepreneurs are on the rise,teenage entrepreneurs are a rarity. "In the US,kids are enterprising right from their early days. They do summer jobs and part-time jobs. How many youngsters here do that?" asks Professor V.Chandrashekhar, executive director,Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at the IndianSchool of Business, Hyderabad.

Courtesy: India Today

5 tips to score venture capital funding

2007-09-26T17:37:00.000+14:00

When it comes to funding your start up idea, a well honed business plan may get you in the door, but for most venture capitalists it's the person behind the plan that makes or breaks the pitch.

CNNMoney.com asked several venture capitalists to reveal what they look for in entrepreneurs before they will even consider investing in their start up. And for the most part, they were all in complete agreement.

Old people give no chance to lose.

2007-09-11T17:22:00.000+14:00

Many of the rural Indians were and are unable to get educated in a formal way.
Their childhood runs through many meloncholic stories.
Here is one such man who was unable to finish his schooling.
This was because he walked out of the examination hall in 1967 due to lack of confidence.

He pooled all his confidence and entered the arena of examination again at the age of 69 and finished his higher secondary exams.
Age is no bar for knowledge.
Ramanimohan Pal who achieved this is a senior citizen based out of Agartala.

Child wonder

2007-09-11T16:43:00.000+14:00

This story is an appropriate example to say the entrepreneurship is in the mind of a person right from their inception.
Sushma Verma is the youngest ever school leaver in Indian history.
She has passed the 10th standard board exam at an age of 7 years and 7 months with 59 %.
Both her parents are uneducated.
If you ask her from where did she derive the inspiration to do it.
She says, " None but my brother who passed his 10th board exams at the age of 12."

Her proud parents want her to grow further is the field she wishes to. This proves that every individual has the potential to be a winner, it upto the person when he or she realises it and want to tap and use it in the most appropriate way.

Being one’s own boss.

2007-09-07T17:55:00.000+14:00

Being one’s own boss is exciting and adventurous. Here is the story of an interesting guy who got his MBA from Symbiosis and walked out confidently to make a business out of Puja kits. He called his enterprise Sacred Moments.
His idea was not accepted initially and criticized by many.

But, did he make something out of this. At the age of 27 years when many of his peer group members were engaged in well secured jobs, was this a good idea for him to start this.

Ofcourse!! His enterprise had a turnover of Rs.30lakhs. No wonder to be one’s own boss is exciting with such kind of a turnover. Now, Prakash Mundhra has no looking back. He also included making gift boxes consisting of 32 different items.

This journey will be more adventurous as it goes.

Who says what?

2007-09-06T19:36:00.000+14:00

Executive Director of Wadhwani Foundation Laura A.Parkin says: "Youngsters' expectations for their own futures are broader today.They have grown up with much wider exposure, through cableTV,the Internet and travel."

Did you know?

2007-09-06T19:18:00.000+14:00

Bangalore based Wadhwani Foundation promotes entrepreneurship in emerging economies.

Entrepreneur at 20.

2007-09-06T19:15:00.000+14:00

Rajiv Dhingra another early entrepreneur who started a recruitment firm and a website called jobs4freshers.com at the age of 20 in 2005. He started this when he realized that there was a market by providing career solutions to freshers. Within months the company had 36,000 registered freshers and 1,000 employers, and he managed to raise about Rs 1.5 lakh within a year. This is not the end of the story.

He started a blog called WATconsult.com in 2006. It helps companies engage with their audience using Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, podcasts and wikis. Just after seven months, it has earned Rs 5Olakh.

What do investors say about entrepreneurs?

2007-09-04T02:30:00.000+14:00

"Earlier,people didn't have role models to emulate,
but now, if you just look at IT, there
are thousands who have made it big," says
Saurabh Srivastava, chairman, Indian
Venture Capital Association.

Kerala business festival

2007-09-03T17:53:00.000+14:00

A seven-day ‘Kerala business festival’, being arranged by Indian World Wide Chamber of Commerce in Chennai from September 23, will focus on entrepreneurs from within the country.
The exhibition to be arranged as part of the festival will have about 300 stalls to enable manufacturers, builders and traders from different sectors in the State to showcase their products, according to K.S. Nathan, coordinator of the programme and State General secretary of the WMC.

How would VCs welcome first time entrepreneurs?

2007-09-03T17:43:00.000+14:00

Different VCs look at this issue in different ways.
Some of them see entrepreneurs today as people backed with substantial experience and hence would venture in looking at their business plans.
Few others have their business running with 60% of the entreprenuers who approach them to be first timers.
Other VCs do not stop or would want to avoid any idea.
Who knows where the money is hidden.
Hence good news for all the budding entrepreneurs.
All the best!!!!!!!!!

Small ideas lead to big incomes - Choco lady

2007-09-03T16:48:00.000+14:00

The 25 year old chocolate lady, Rashmi who started selling chocolates as diwali gifts turned to be a great hit. She started it with an investment less than a lakh which was funded by her father.
This concept gained a great acclaim and has been welcomed by many corporates.
The Rage chocolate is handled by her with the help of a small team of 8 assistants for packaging and 2 chefs.

Great going young lady......... To know more follow the link above.

Guruji.com - Indian search engine

2007-09-02T00:56:00.000+14:00

IITans pave way to an Indian search engine that is completely indigenous. It has been built to serve to the Hindustan minds (with more relevance). The search clicks published on this search engine may solve the problem faced by most people who bump into unessecary links with less relvance rate. Anurag and Gaurav have understood the tastes of India but, the challenge is how far will they keep up with the other engines raging with new innovations and expansions........

These guys were funded by Sequioa Capital for this innovation.

Kingdom of the wise

2007-09-02T00:32:00.000+14:00

In a city,it was customary to dethrone the King after one year, put him on a boat, leave him alone in a jungle on the other side of the river and appoint a new king. This was going on for many years. According to the custom, one man was made the king of that city. He was an intelligent man. As soon as he sat on the throne he asked his ministers, "How long will this be?" They said, "For one year." "What will happen after that?" was his next question. He was told, "After the completion of one year you will have no right to rule kingdom, or over the wealth thereof. You will be put in the dense forest on the other side of the river. The boatmen will leave you there and return. This is the time-honoured practice here."
This man thought, "One year is a long time. Anything can happen within this period." He took the responsibility of ruling that place and started work with all sincerity and care.
He ruled with all fairness, but never forgot about the one year period. He never bothered about his personal comforts. He banned all entertainment in the kingdom and gave orders that the forest beyond the river should be converted into a colony. It should be converted into a city! Enough material and men capable of working may be sent there! All arrangements should be completed within a year.
The forest became a beautiful colony within a year. All things were available there. After a year was over, he was dethroned as per the custom. He didn't care; he was laughing. When he was being rowed in the boat, the boatman saw him laughing and asked him, "Every year, when we rowed the kings towards this forest, they used to cry. How is it that you are laughing?' He replied, "My dear brothers! All of them were drowned in pleasures when they were in the kingly state. They never thought about their future. That is why they cried.
But I was always alert. I was always thinking that after a year, I would have to leave this kingdom and all its wealth. So I stopped all useless things, abandoned all personal entertainment and was working for steadying my position after the year is over. Now I have no worry because I have made proper use of the one year's rule I had. That is why I am laughing." May we also be able to laugh like this! May we take care of our children in a detached way! May our attention be on our goal and let us not deter from it.

Techies leaped into food industry

2007-09-02T00:07:00.000+14:00

Here is an interesting story about two techies VinamraPandiya and Ashwini Rathod who tried their luck in the food industry.
The modern Dabbawallas as they could be called. They have started an enterprise which caters to providing food to the employees who are frustrated by the monotonous canteen food. Their USP is that they provide no frills food and no repeats for 30days. This does not end there. It is India's first customised calorie count meal service only at Rs.150.
All this started at Pune with an initial investment of Rs. 1 lakh each. This investment was put into 7 motorbikes for delivering the food efficiently in the Pune traffic. These young entrepreneurs aim to make a Rs.65 lakh sales out this enterprise.

And all this is cooking at Mom's Kitchen...............

Entrepreneurship

2007-09-02T00:02:00.000+14:00

Entrepreneurship is something that every individual experiences in different ways in their daily activity.
It could be in the kitchen, at school or work.
This blog captures a few inspiring stories about entrepreneurs who have carved a niche in their own markets.