Entrepreneurs are beginning to make an impact on India today. I like the way Guy Kawasaki put it “The entrepreneur’s role is to make the world a better place and reap some economic rewards for doing so.” True entrepreneurs are evangelists and revolutionaries in a way. So many of them are told they are crazy, their ideas will never work, what they propose can’t be done. And yet, time and again, they seem to do the impossible.
As an entrepreneur you can make an impact, take charge, build wealth for the community, create jobs, and solve problems. If you choose the space carefully – something you are passionate about, work becomes fun. For me, it's a no-brainer. Entrepreneurship is the way to go. Fortunately, entrepreneuship is on the increase around the world.
Look at some statistics from the most entrepreneurial country - the US. One out of every 12 person starts a new business; 7 out of 10 students want to build their own businesses when they grow up. More than 50% of new jobs are generated by new entrepreneurships. I am not sure of the data in India; but I guess it is getting interesting.
To be an entrepreneur, it takes guts, creativity and innovation and an ability to survive in chaotic uncertainty. Indians seem to be beginning to do rather well as entrepreneurs. On a lighter vein, a Singaporean friend of mine said – “No wonder Indians can make great entrepreneurs. Life itself is so enterprising here. There is so much chaos and still you function. All your faculties have to be very alert.” Take just crossing the road in India. The text book way says look to your right and then to your left and when you see a lull in traffic, cross carefully. In India, in most roads it is not that simple. The traffic never comes down. You look at your right and look very quickly to your left (You may find a scooterist dashing down at high speed from the wrong way) and when the traffic offers you a few milliseconds, just dart across. And don’t forget to look right and left alternately extremely fast. The fast dashing car, scooter, cyclist, phenomenon could occur any time from any direction. And if you are lucky and made one third of the road, just take a quick look, for the next one third may be a far more difficult one. While crossing, you may have to make real-time computations and determine the odds of going forward or backward. You may have to dart back and start all over again. And while looking left and right on the journey, don’t forget to take a quick look ahead, there may be some other soul trying to cross the opposite direction looking right and left and come dashing at you. And it may be a good idea to look up for some falling debris from the windows above. Also, don't forget to look down for craters in the middle of the road. If you succeed in your venture of crossing the road, thank your luck and set forth on the next journey. With simple things like crossing the road needing so much enterprise, no wonder Indians are turning out to be good entrepreneurs. Winston Churchill aptly described India as a “functioning chaos” and if you could successfully function in that chaos, your entrepreneurial spirit gets kindled so well. I pity the Singaporeans, crossing the road there is so very easy. Everything happens so very predictably.
The opportunities are huge in India. I end this posting with an example:
About three years back, on a Friday afternoon in one of India’s biggest steel plants, a senior executive found the neighborhood of his building required some good cleaning. He asked one of his junior colleagues to find a contractor and get his plant area cleaned up over the week end. The younger executive thought about it. He called half a dozen young men from his village - poor agriculture laborers who were pestering him for a job. He ensured that the team was well organized, made a clear work plan and a simple but effective process to ensure a good execution. When the senior executive returned after the weekend, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He simply asked his junior to hire whichever agency he used for the whole plant. To cut a long story short, the young executive today runs a company of his own with revenue touching $ 20 Million and growing fast. If you visit his core team you will find them as savvy as the core team of Infosys, the most admired Indian tech company. What they specialize is just “Jadu Pochcha !” Ie. The “bucket and broom”. But he does it damn well and is very successful. He does it for all top industries, and utilities. The moral of the story is: We are just waking up. A lot of things need to be done. Every problem is an entrepreneurial opportunity. Some of them huge! There are opportunities galore waiting to be tapped. That is what makes India so exciting today.
And it is just beginning. We are only 14 years old as an entrepreneurial country today. It all started with 1992 with the liberalization of the economy. Prior to that we were a semi socialist economy. Entrepreneurs were bad boys then. Not any more. We just poosted a 9% plus growth last quarter. Economically, this is probbably one of the best times for India over the past 300 years. It is one of the greatest of times to live in India. Potential entrepreneurs must grab the opportunity with both hands, and build wealth for the country and for themselves.
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2 comments:
Hi Venkat, I read your whole blog and it was really very inspiring. I have just started my career in field of VLSI. I have done my BTech from IIT Madras and will definetly like to do something for the country
Hi Mr Venkat
I just happened to read an article about Billionways in today's ET and that interested me to checkout ur website and ur blog. It was a nice reading esp. abt Infosys and Huawei. First of all, I am not a Techie and hence my impressions and comments are of a "common-man's" prespective. I have also felt that companies in India has found a easy way out of making money using cost arbitrage whether in IT/ITES or garment-exports (my field) or gems/jewellery exports or in promotion of tourism(as lowcost destination). The real money is on the "value creation" which has to be done on "products & services". I always felt that given our "chaotic democracy", we will never be able to compete on "costs" on the medium and long term. We need to look beyond costs. Products & Value Added Services only will give the edge. Even today Italy and France holds the key to Fashion industry though they are high cost centres. Microsoft still rule the roost(my excuses to open-source users) with their Wow! and Office products, holding Bill as the wealthiest person of the world for the 13th year in a row. SAP (in my opinion is the stupidest ERP system in the world) has a higher turnover and ROCE as compared to our top IT companies(If SAP would have made their user friendly, maybe they would fared better. Bill is planning to enter SAP's zone shortly to break its back). These goes on to prove ur point. I also liked ur other observation on crossing ur road. Like ur Singapore friend, my customer from US once commented while driving from Airport in Bangalore (our city), he now understood why Indians are genetically good in Maths and Science as compared to Americans. He said, everyday, using ur naked eye, you need to measure the angle at which every vehicle will approach u, whether the gap between 2 vehicles are sufficient to stuff ur Coralla in between (my ten-failed hired driver was exactly doing that), visually measure the distance from the speeding car and u and decide the time it will take to reach/hit u., etc. He said no wonder ur ancestors measured the movement of stars and planets without any major equipment. I laughed and thanked him for the reason that for the first time, an American viewpoint was good about an Indian 'ethos'.
Regarding the treating ur vendor fairly, I remember some years back when I was working for a big Industrial house, met a vendor who said that he had to speak/visit our office repeatedly for payments for some raw material supplied. He said he knows that the payment is safe but it puts a huge problem on his working capital cycle. I suggest as a part of Corporate Goverance and Transparency, every company should declare in their annual report their on-time performance on payment to their vendors and this point should be validated only by an external auditor.
Regarding Entrepreneurship, though there is a trend starting that many are willing to venture out on their own, but the environment is still not conducive for venturing out. VCs/Angels are still digging deep on tech side only for their gold. Everyday we see VCs/Angels see investing on tech startups. But lot of other industries are waiting in the wings, for the crucial money. In my opinion, any business will succeed if it makes life comfortable for ur customer - be it MS-Office or a cut-vegetables in foodworld or a idli-batter at ur neighbourhood store. Ready chappatis and idli-batter had made life simplier for many working housewifes (including mine - my wife has asked me to gift one gold ring to the lady who supplies this batter to my neighbourhood store). Making life simple should be motto for any business venture - am damnsure it would succeed, afterall every human psycho wants a relaxed life, worry-free. Our product or service should make the customer addicted without feeling so. So,Angels/VCs should look at that point irrespective which industry it comes from. If they do so, many more entrepreneurs will be made in this country and more and more Googles and Infosys can take shape in other industries. Your example of the "Jaddu-Pocha" is a good one. Even biggies like Godrej had ventured into this business now. Also, Angels/VCs should nurture ideas into proper business proposals. Many ideas go down the drain becoz of some MBA trained tie-down !!(a tie is a funny costume, isn't it?) Business Consultant who will ask the entrepreneur in his funny lingo, business development targets for X+1 and X+3 timeframes and scale-up factors and exit clauses. If the budding entrepreneur bubbling with ideas, I guess will never visit the VC's office again and tell his friends that they seemed not interested in my project. Angels & VCs, on most occasions scare the ideas/people away rather than walk along their lane and understand the entrepreneur. I feel VCs/Angels should be little more "motherly" to understand the entrepreneurs. If they do so, lot of small-scale businesses can also become world-class business in no time (in India, innovation is there everywhere, hence, we do not take it seriously)
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