They always say that there is something unique about the Silicon Valley that drives professionals who land there to join up for an entrepreneurial cause. Ideas are invented, business models are founded, entrepreneurs are discovered and ventures are born – like an assembly line waiting to be switched on. In the Silicon Valley there are few start-up tales more interesting and unique than that of Cisco Systems. In December 1984 a young Stanford University couple met, fell in love and yet discovered that they had more in common than mere love bugs! They got together, invented the multiprotocol router and started Cisco in their living room, using their own credit cards for financing. Len Bosack was in the computer science department and Sandy Lerner managed the Graduate School of Business' computers. The story of the couple, Bosack and Lerner, mirrors the Silicon Valley dream of professionals. Cisco was to become one of the nation's fastest growing companies by providing the networking equipment that connected the Internet.
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http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/cisco.html)
Though the Valley is seen to have patented the code of the Midas touch, it’s a universal truism that start-ups are likely to thrive where people work well with their immediate environment (which includes other people and opportunities). These factors of the immediate environment determine the sustainability of business ventures, something that helps starters stay afloat and succeed with their dreams even when the going is rough and other resources found wanting. There are stories of how trailblazers began on a lonely path with their ideas and kept picking up fellow dreamers to create a team that shared a common passion for the idea and its fruition. More like a highway bus that keeps picking up people on the way as it rolls along to its destination.
In India, such inspiring stories are fewer than the US but as the business landscape of the nation changes, independent wealth creation has become a curiously observed development that is tipped to become the single most important boom in years to come. The ideas are there, so are the people. Add to that the likelihood of an increasing interest amongst Indian professionals in the Indian marketplace, a changing mindset and a responsive, fertile, widening customer-base in most fields and you are more than likely to have a future that supports professional entrepreneurs.
The Inspiring Mindtree Story
Several successful start-ups began as journeys where professionals connected with each other as they attempted to seek out business-partners, much like the highway ride mentioned above. It brings to mind the story of Mindtree Consulting - an inspiring one in terms of the teamwork, perseverance, toil, focus, honesty of purpose that went into its initial build-up phase. Subroto Bagchi began his journey from a thought that crossed his mind when he visited the Bell Labs of Lucent Technologies, where he worked. Working on a strategic study of the future of the Indian software industry, he wondered how software services would dictate the services industry in future. He believed that the world was moving towards total reliance on software enabled functions which would create a huge space that was required to be handled by leaders with specific capabilities. He called this delivery of software as “knowledge enabled software.”
The idea having germinated within, he called up his ex-colleague Krishnakumar from Wipro and shared with him the possibilities of taking the idea further. Thus began a journey which would involve people, places, events, endless brainstorming sessions, and struggle between timelines, ideas, beliefs and balancing work-life requirements. This journey led to the birth of Mindtree Consulting. Bagchi and his friends worked passionately and feverishly as they bounced ideas off each other, traveled across dusty, potholed roads to a hotel in Vizag where they (he and his team) created business plans, roll out ideas and work incessantly day and night to create a visible business entity out of the dream. As they went on, they discovered new concepts about the software industry that would form a part of their strategy in future. One of the things they saw clearly, as they interacted was the value chain that existed in the software industry. They felt the need to differentiate- through domain, tools, methodology, quality, innovation and branding.
Scouting for the team and funds
On one of his trips, he met Anjan Lahiri in the US to whom he successfully sold the idea of creating a software solutions driven international company back in India. They were further strengthened when N Parthasarathy joined them as the Technical Leader from Wipro. They kept pegging at it together and created their vision, mission and business plan.
The team at Mindtree struggled to find the money for their venture and eventually, their persistence paid off when another expatriate Indian professional agreed to help them out. They scouted for a Chairman and finally got Ashok Soota from Wipro. Fittingly for their passionate run, they got their logo from a child of a spastic society. The making of Mindtree is a classic case of how diverse personalities from different places, skill-sets and beliefs but with versatile qualities, came together, shared a business idea, overrode roadblocks, and formed an organization that thrived on teamwork, drive, passion and knowledge.
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http://www.mindtree.com/about/mkmt.html)
An interesting feature was that these different people linked up as they went along – they may not have been a part of the plan initially. Linking up of professionals who lie outside the sphere of known friends but with professional skills that fit into the business idea is not very common in India. However, such alliances have been very successful in the west, especially in the US. The Mindtree experiment shows that it can succeed in India too.
Mirabilis was founded in July 1996 by four young Israeli professionals who came together under a common business idea. Yair Goldfinger (26), Arik Vardi (27), Sefi Vigiser (25) and Amnon Amir (24) wanted to introduce a new way of communication over the Internet. They observed at that time that though the world wide web helped connectivity, it did not facilitate interconnectivity. They realized that if the missing component would be added, all these people, in addition to interacting with web servers, would be able to interact with each other. The missing link was the technology which would enable the Internet users to locate each other online on the Internet, and to create peer-to-peer communication channels, in a simple manner. They pioneered this technology which opened a whole new industry. ICQ Inc. was to later become the successor of Mirabilis Ltd. after America Online acquired it.
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http://www.icq.com/info/icqstory.html )
Nuts and Bolts start the structure
Bridging entrepreneurial ideas is not new. There are instances when professionals working in the same place see the promise of an opportunity together. In the late fifties, two young computer analysts from the aerospace industry saw the opportunity for a new kind of business. They set out by providing computer manufacturers with programs such as assemblers, compilers and operating systems. Of the two, Roy Nutt was a programmer who had developed the first widely accepted assembly program and was a member of the IBM team that developed Fortran. Fletcher Jones came from North American Aviation Corp. where he was into marketing.
In April 1959 Nutt and Jones pooled $100 to start Computer Sciences Corporation. Nutt provided bolts of technical know-how while Jones marketed the stuff. The young company grew quickly to carve a niche in innovative design. Working for many computer manufacturers, CSC developed more systems software than any other computer services company in the industry.
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http://www.csc.com/aboutus/history.shtml)
Diverse Blends
Take another case; that of TakingITGlobal (TIG) where professionals with different backgrounds but compatible skill-sets created a business idea that drew upon their individual strengths. TIG is a popular Canadian online community for young people interested in connecting across cultures - driven by young professionals and enabled by technology. TIG helps the youth in connecting with like minded people to access information, get involved, and take action to improve their local and global communities.
It all began in the summer of 2000 when Jennifer Corriero and Michael Furdyk, two young professionals from Toronto who had met at the professional workplace, left their high-profile consulting jobs with Microsoft Corporation, and spent time traveling across North America, doing surveys across various segments of young people to find out what how they could optimize the use of technology in connecting the youth with each other.
Michael and Jennifer wanted to create a company which, more than having a mere commercial purpose, would impact the world. They had had learning experiences with start-ups and youth programmes. Michael had co-founded two Internet companies – the first was Mydesktop.com that was sold to Internet.com, the other was Buybuddy. Jennifer had developed youth engagement strategies for CIBC and the Ontario Science Center. Therefore, TakingITGlobal appeared like taking a logical move forward -integrating their interests in technology and youth with a mission to create positive global change.
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http://about.takingitglobal.org/)
Indian Trailblazers
There are numerous huge stories of expatriate Indians who went on to set up successful ventures in the west in the 1980s and 1990s. There are some little-known ones too, of professionals like Manoj Saxena from BITS Pilani and Michigan Business School, who raised US$200,000 with about a dozen credit cards to launch Exterprise with Dr. S.P.Rana. Manoj followed his MBA with a seven-year stint at 3M. At 3M he felt he wanted to start his own venture soon, before he went into a comfort zone caused by the comfortable career. It took him close to a year to reach the figure that he wanted to raise - US$200,000. He had very little liquidity to begin with but had a plan to repay his loans in case the venture failed.
Today, the company prepares customized software in Java for companies. Their architecture for B2B marketplaces allows buyers and sellers to meet and exchange real time data and allow customers to share and evaluate information before making a purchase decision. They operate like most companies in the sector and offer software solutions on licenses ranging from US$25,000 to US$250,000 a month. Three years later, as a successful entrepreneur, he continues to put in long hours and has the same passion. He concedes that his success as a CEO is as much due to his professional mates who joined him as it is due to the support he has had from his family.
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http://www.themanagementor.com/kuniverse )
There is a growing number of Indians abroad who have either returned home to do their own thing or are keen to do so. Five-and-a-half years ago two friends, Anand Adkoli and Ramana Gogula, headed homewards from the United States to start Liqwid Krystal. They chose the name because they wanted the company name to be fluid indicative of being able to take on any shape, like liquid and stand for sparkle and dissemination of knowledge. Both Anand and Ramana are first generation entrepreneurs. Anand's father was a forest officer while Ramana's father was an academician. Liqwid Krystal has grown and was chosen by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) for the IT Innovation Award.
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http://in.rediff.com/money/2005/jan/10bspec.htm )
One of the famous stories closer home also has the element of alliance between professionals that helped grow their business venture. When Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw returned from Australia, qualified to be a master brewer from Melbourne University, Australia and began the story of Biocon India in 1978 with Leslie Auchincloss, owner of the small Irish multinational company Biocon Biochemicals, little was she to know that twenty odd years later, she would become one of the most powerful businesswomen of her era. She pinned her hopes on the alliance with Leslie and on her self-confidence. The rest is history.
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http://www.biocon.com/biocon_press_news_news5.asp )
In the entrepreneurial field, innovation is the key. It is a fallacy that entrepreneurship will happen once professionals find the field populated enough to feel secure. On the contrary, the biggest breakthroughs are made when the paths are little known. It is here that ideas and innovations open opportunities for professionals. When you reach out, only then will you find like minded or compatible fellow professionals waiting to form a team to realize your goals. There are many professionals out there, weighing their options, extrapolating their futures in the context of risk and opportunity, figuring out fellow partners in their quest, waiting for that sniff of opportunity to take the first steps to their creation. As we saw in the lives of some of these professionals, luck and opportunity favours those people who, instead of waiting endlessly, wrench open the door to seek out their partners and teams in the journey. To reinforce what we said earlier, India is almost ready to kick-start its next revolution- that of entrepreneurial business innovation and wealth creation. It is the bugle call for professionals to network ideas and people to ride this revolution.
Too often, entrepreneurs don't value the work others do, and they tend to overestimate their own contributions. Of course, in the early days, when you're simply trying to give birth to an idea, you may not need help from outsiders. But when—make that if—you are able to take the business to the next stage of growth, a different and deeper set of talents may be required.
- "NaturalBorn Entrepreneur," Harvard Business Review, Vol.79, No. 8, September 2001.
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