‘Being an entrepreneur makes you a better person’

This post was originally posted on rediff

Professor Nandini Vaidyanathan, an alumni of Delhi [ Images ] School of Economics, has spent 20 years in the corporate sector, working in a cross-section of industries — security, media, pharmaceuticals, gas, office automation, equity market and animation — all over the world.

She has been teaching entrepreneurship in premier business schools in India (IIMB), US (Princeton), Singapore (NUS) and UK (LSE) for the last four years. In 2008 alone, she taught over 2,300 students around the world.

She has been working in India, Afghanistan and the Sub-Saharan Africa. She is a mentor with New Ventures India, a joint initiative between World Resources Institute, Washington, CII Godrej [ Get Quote ] green building, Hyderabad and MentorPartners, an on-line enterprise support and mentoring platform for entrepreneurs.

She is also the mentor-promoter of a company called Startups that mentors young entrepreneurs.

Startups is actively involved with micro finance institutions in facilitating business models that transcend poverty lines and loan recovery.

She was in Hyderabad to speak at the TiE-ISB Connect 2009 on Incubation Centres and Mentors at the ‘Start Up Your Venture’ workshop. Soon after her speech, she was surrounded by young entrepreneurs for advice.

She took some time off from the young future entrepreneurs to speak to rediff.com.

You have spoken to many entrepreneurs all over the world. Is there any difference in the way Indians approach an idea?

I see two big differences. Entrepreneurs in India are more intelligent and better educated. That is the positive difference. But the negative difference is that there is no ecosystem in India that encourages them to be entrepreneurs.

In other parts of the world, when you say you want to be an entrepreneur, nobody raises an eyebrow. In India, if you say you have done your engineering and want to be an entrepreneur, the first thing parents ask is ‘Have you gone mad? Why do you want to do that?’

Everybody will tell you that the opportunity cost of becoming an entrepreneur is very high and after you finish your MBA, you are offered fancy salaries and why would you want to give up that? I had a student in IIM Bangalore who told me, ‘Ma’am, I have an offer of Rs 26 lakh (Rs 2.6 million). If I become an entrepreneur, I may not make Rs 26 lakh in my lifetime’!

This is the case with educated people. What about the not-so-educated people who start various businesses in their little space?

I work with women in the micro-enterprise space in India, Addis Ababa, Rwanda, Kabul, etc. Kabul is very difficult for women entrepreneurs.

Are these people bigger risk-takers?

They don’t look at it as risk-taking. For them there is no other option to come out of poverty and build a meaningful quality life. So, they see entrepreneurship as the only option for a better life. This is how it should be.

I feel this should be the attitude of all. I was saying the same thing to some youngsters who said, ‘We are engineers, how do we go about as entrepreneurs?’ I said, first, you don’t go for placement, be an entrepreneur. That is the only way you do it.

How does being an entrepreneur enhance the quality of life of an individual?

If you are an employee, it will take about ten years to learn all the aspects of business. If you are entrepreneur, you pretty much learn it in one year.

The downside of it is that you get grey hair faster when you are an entrepreneur! The upside is, the learning compression is phenomenal. And that makes you a better person. If you are working for somebody, you may be a marketing person or a finance person or a technology person but if you are an entrepreneur, you are all rolled into one.

The kind of exposure across functions and the ability to think on your feet, the ability to take risks, the ability to visualise tomorrow, the ability to plan for tomorrow – I think those are skill sets you are able to acquire literally overnight. It’s a hard knock. I am not saying it is easy. But you do it the hard way and you learn them at the end of it. That makes you a better person.

How should an entrepreneur look at becoming an entrepreneur — as a wealth creator or creating something more for society?

Primarily, the motive of an entrepreneur should be creating meaning in life, enhancing the quality of life around him. It is not about making money. He wants to be an entrepreneur because he wants to create meaning for other people and himself. He is creating a better quality of life, the way it can be done.

The unintended consequence of that is wealth creation and wealth distribution, but that can’t be the primary motive. Having said that, I don’t mean he does it for charity; not at all. Every entrepreneur, every enterprise has to have wealth creation in the agenda. He can’t keep making losses for the rest of his life because he can’t sustain it. But that is an unintended consequence.

The primary reason why you become an entrepreneur is because you want to create meaning and you want to leave a footprint! That is the only way you can do it.

You said ‘they leave a footprint’. In the last few years, can you name a few entrepreneurs who have impressed you?

There are many. In the last three years, I worked with over 300 entrepreneurs. Each one of them is unique. To me, every one of them is a hero. They are doing something phenomenally out there.

What will you tell those young people out there who have a desire to be entrepreneurs?

Go ahead and be an entrepreneur! Don’t keep saying, ‘I want to be an entrepreneur’ and ‘One day I will be one’. There is no ‘some day’; just go out and chase your dreams!

Theory of Moment of Perception Shift

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta
This theory states that ”the day you move from the supplier side of the value chain in the world to the needy side, you see people (friends, well wishers) approaching you dropping drastically in number and there comes a moment in life when your perception of yourself is challenged from within. While most people surrender to this moment of perception shift admitting that they can’t live in this aloof arena, there remains some who evolve with a golden glow, with their characters grown multi fold. This moment of perception shift can either make or break you in life – it all depends on your understanding of the existence of this moment and how well you can handle it. People that stand by you during this time are the people that would be with you forever.”

Few example for correlation of existence of this moment:

• The day you lose your job, the number of people calling you drop drastically. Suddenly no one in the world is bothered about you and you meet the moment of perception shift questioning everything about yourself.
• The day you are caught by cops for some thing wrong, boom!people gone and you meet the moment.
• The day you are bankrupt, boom!
• The day you move to the startup life, boom!

I have a strange feeling from the day I started working on my start-up. Earlier, people had a different way of discussing stuff but now the equation seems skewed. I can clearly see the theory being applicable in my life and hence I am better prepared for it. I don’t think that we can really change.. I truly believe that attitude matters in life and just screw it, don’t give a damn to the suckers.. Let’s see the world truly believing in who we are!

Startup Life – My Dos and Don’ts

This blog is written and owned by Saurabh Gupta

Its been quite a ride since I decided to work full time with WKI Solutions in May 2009. Few things that I have learned from my experience and I hope would help people jumping from a well settled job life to startup life:

• Do check out the team potential – Team is every thing for a successful venture and you can only fight limited battles in life, hence validating team strength is a must
• Do some primary research about the idea – It’s not cool at all to re-invent the wheel, hence it’s worth checking out the market for the idea
• Do continue focusing on social-networking – It’s friends & family who help you during the tough times, hence social circle helps a lot in making you succeed in start-up world
• Don’t over-heat yourself - Things in the outer world have a tendency to run at a slower than expected pace, so over-heating is not an option for start-ups
• Don’t plan a lot – Nothing rolls out the way they are planned initially, so don’t get demoralized by feedbacks and changes. Remember “Rome was not built in a day”

And here’s an insider tip:

• Financial planning for some extra time – Things around have a hidden tendency to test you when you jump in for a start-up, so keep some extra bucks in bank for these rough patches

These are some of my dos and don’ts that might help you make the move. I have moved to Mumbai and would love to catch up for any help. Thanks for your time and feedback.