The Neo Entrepreneur

In my five years in an entrepreneurial venture I have seen very few people who really know themselves. When I say know themselves, it does not mean a favorite color, favorite movie star or a favorite car. Rather, I mean knowing about how you would react to certain situations when you face them. It is only in adverse situations that the real character of a person comes out.

Entrepreneur, the word, has always been associated with adjectives like brave, visionary and a person who has met eye to eye with every adverse situation and always looked ahead. We have seen a lot of Entrepreneurs create fortune from a mere idea. In earlier times the information and goods did not travel as fast as they travel now. The competition has increased immensely with increase in technology, emerging of the web and more resources at disposal.

This is where the Neo Entrepreneur rises. The new breeds of entrepreneurs have to update themselves with technology and protect their idea against all adversities. It is a known fact that if you don’t grow, you stultify. The Neo Entrepreneur knows that in this age, you need to grow faster and thus arises a need to learn the new challenges technology brings up.

The technology is a major concern for new age entrepreneurs. Most of the new business ideas since the year 2000 are related to the web. So the companies who have been related to web design and development have also been acting as consultants. There are a lot of budding entrepreneurs who wish to start or migrate a new product line or a new service on the web, who do not have an idea of the capabilities of the web platform. So the development company who act as their consultant tries to impose in a lot of products explaining them how they would benefit from promotional packages. Since these companies did not come up with the idea, they are not responsible for the outcome. So knowing about your product/ idea offline is as important as exploring it online. A preliminary research of various companies associated with a similar product is necessary, not just on the website but about the business models.

When you have a new idea, you are very secretive about it. You enter a very paranoid state where you are not sure if you should share your business idea as it can be duplicated. I remember an incident with a friend of mine who wanted to start a Tea Chain where he would supply different types of teas. The idea was new for a smaller city and it would have been very popular amongst the tea drinking population. The landlord of the premises he wished to rent, forced him to discuss the idea as the landlord made him believe that unless he understands what my friend is doing he wont be satisfied that he will be able to pay rent. So he went ahead and discussed it. After the discussion the landlord stalled my friend for a few days and then turned him down. After 2 months we saw a similar looking Tea Shop opened in his premises. Since it was a new idea, it was an instant hit. Although, after a few months, he could not sustain the losses due to poor service and bad planning that led to his downfall and the place had to shut down.

There are a lot of entrepreneurs who think that if anyone else can do this, it was not worth doing it. So he shares his ideas openly with people, giving them a first mover’s advantage. On the contrary if we take an example of Steve Jobs and his secrecy of launching products with a lot of speculations and no one knowing the actual design and features, looks like a better model. Also since he controls the iPhone app development platform, his USP is exclusivity besides innovation.

Not everyone is apple and even apple in the starting days had to collaborate with a lot of different companies for the development of its product line. The famous example of Apple working with Microsoft and as a result Windows launched worldwide before the Macintosh with a similar look and feel is a known fact. Steve jobs then did not care about the contract; his mind seduced him into believing in his innovative and exclusive product line and simply ignored the simple business facts that led to his downfall.

The ignorance is not bliss for a Neo Entrepreneur. If you have a vision or idea, you have to protect it. You cannot let your mind or heart take control of you. It has to be a balanced state all the time, since there will be times when you have to believe more in your idea than the facts! Sharing an idea is not bad at all as you will get a perspective into the various areas or situations you failed to notice. It is very important for a Neo Entrepreneur to collaborate with various entities for a faster growth, thus a compulsory need to share an idea. This new age inorganic growth model is a big advantage for a startup provided there are no lose ends. The collaboration is due to expertise of various companies/people in their fields to ensure the quality of products or the process and it increases the speed of execution with very less resources at disposal. Thus, the startups have started offering shares as compensation for the services provided to various partners.

Another major aspect for the Neo Entrepreneur is Patents. Most of the patents that are filed for a software service do not stand when disputed in the court. Since a minor change in the code makes the whole source code invalid as a patent, you should avoid patenting the source code of the software. The actual thing that can be patented is an idea, which has to be structured as a method or a process while filing a patent.  I would cite one example of my own business group, who owned a company and had patented this idea of a website and the process. Due to some financial dispute, the team associated with the website decided to separate from the investor and start a similar service with the same connections. They were challenged in court by the investors and the team had to finally shut down operations. The patent document was so precise that no duplication of the process was possible.

Since the world around you changes faster than you can comprehend, the only thing to learn is that change is constant. You need to change from being an Entrepreneur to a Neo Entrepreneur, a far more balanced breed of innovators and creators. You need to learn about the change in policies, technology and new competitors (which can give you nightmares sometimes) and be fast to comprehend. Being an entrepreneur is about knowing your limits and then going beyond. It is a rigorous process where you should have a hunger to explore new ventures and in the process know yourself! One thing I have learned lately is that during this process of knowing yourself, your paths will cross spirituality and yogic sciences. It is an endless pool of knowledge, which gives you the wisdom to understand that since you cannot change how the world behaves around you, what you should change is yourself. So get out there, the world awaits a Neo Entrepreneur.

Infosys, Wipro and Innovatrix are competing !

It was in my 4th Year, when I was in the Training and Placement Cell of my college. I had access to the HR of most IT companies and a few very informal moments with them. The guys from each company had a one liner to hook the students to their company. The lines like... "Once you have a degree, cash it! Then do your MBA" were winners. I did not understand what craze freelance writers, graphic designers, dancers and music lovers had in IT companies. Everybody is not the same, and so are their qualities. Most of them had unique talents but did not have the heart to follow it. They were debarred of the bigger picture and did not have the guidance to go after them. This is at least what I thought till the college days.

I always thought that my real struggle will be to get new clients for the company, to expand the business and explore new avenues. These things are as important but the last few years have made me think otherwise. Since my college days I knew the imporatance of a good team. In those days, it was diffcult to ask everbody to give their 100%. They had their own commitments to study and other personal ones. It was difficult to motivate them and people kept on dropping every year from the team which was very disheartening.

I never thought my competitors are Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Accenture!! I know whats on your mind, these guys are so big and I am so small that even if they sneeze i would be snuffed out! But it is not that I am fighting them eye to eye but their policies that have taken the young minds. It is the AC offices, larger than life work place, promises to go abroad on site and all this at the cost of job dissatisfaction and punching down their passion in life. These things do not seem that important as everybody seems to be doing it. Eveybody makes compromises with their passion and follows a path that will lead them to a comfortable life. They seem to take advice of their parents who take the advice of other parents and family friends. This advice chain continues on and on and eventually nobody knows who gave advice to whom in the first place, under what circumstances and for what purpose. If two people can't be the same, how can the same advice be given to both?

When we compare a start-up to an MNC. Sure, everybody is concerned about the risk. But nobody sees it this way. You work for yourself in a start-up, your working day and night gives results that reflects directly upon you. You work on what you are best at and increase your skills with each milestone. When you see yourself after years you will see that you have become what you always wanted to be and you will be doing what you always wanted to do.

I know everytime someone from my team goes MNC hunting, it would be disappointing to see them miss a great opportunity in their life. I will stay the course and keep moving forward.

There is a line from border I always remember....

Chaman mein ittelaate range bu se baat banti hai, hum hee hum hain to kya hum hain, tum hee tum ho to kya tum ho?

What do you need to be an entrepreneur?

Is it tough metal, decision making power, convincing power or a post graduate degree? I have gone through all these text book answers over and over again for the last two years. I will just share what works for me. In a day's work you have to make tough decisions, show some mental toughness to bloopers and unforeseen expenses and issues that rise from nowhere. You  have to be steady when you have a months salary left in your bank account and you have people leaving the company for a better job and also when you cannot meet the deadline ( I haven't seen anyone doing that as yet ). The problems are immense and never ending. If you start contemplating, you will end up in a vicious circle. 

I decided to become an entrepreneur when I realized the difference in working for someone and working for yourself. I think entrepreneurship teaches you to know your limitations and then come over them. In every new challenge there is a lesson to be learned. I am not scared of challenges anymore, I am on the lookout for the new ones every time. I just affirm faith in myself and keep moving forward. 

It is the passion and love for what I believe in. I must be honest here, I am a bit dreamy. I dream about my goals with open eyes. I dream about reaching to the end of the tunnel and imagine how life will be at the other end. I must confess it was not the same. Bigger projects mean bigger responsibilities, more working hours and more head scratching. It pushes me from inside to go out there and bring out the best I can. One thing I have learned is that you have to be alert with a sound mind all the time. You cannot spend long hours coding yourself because you never know when an opportunity comes banging at your doorsteps. You should be on guard most of the time and take out time to think ... where do you go from here. 

It is said in our world... If you dont grow... You Stultify!

The First Project...

I have been building websites for almost 8 years now. I remember, I started with making pages in Yahoo Geocites and boasted about it. :) I started building a webpage for myself and then moved on to take up a social cause. Obviously it was too immature. I wanted to come up with something revolutionary, somthing that would make maintainence of websites easy for organizations that need regular updates. It took me 8 years to finally figure that out. During the period I kept on improving the designs but never really cared about making it easy for updation. 

I was blessed with a wonderful team all throughout my college life. We were a tech team first, that was the stepping stone. Our projects attracted a lot of public attention. If there were praises, there were critics too. We heard the critics and worked on our limitations. We created documentries, websites and loads of other services. We always had a good start, good response to our work but that vanished very soon. We did not understand despite our best efforts we put in, our projects didn't serve the purpose for too long. We probably never thought in this area, but kept on making stuff that would be a show stopper! We liked the limelight so didn't care about the outcome. 

When I started doing web development commercially for living, this issue popped up again. I prepared a few websites in my starting days and the clients demanded for maintenance. I was working on a software to find a solution. During my initial struggling days, I met medury sir in noida, he asked me to send a proposal for the 3 websites of the Jaypee Institutes. I sent him a proposal in a week. I did not get a response for a long time. He said, yes I read the proposal, give me some time to think. I started comtemplating, what are they actually looking for? I had made JUIT website in my college days and it occured to me... the most important thing is maintaining the website! I called up Dr. Medury and told him we have made a Content Management System! The response... Ok Pramir, Come to JUIT, we will strike a deal!

Everything came back to me in a flash. It was maintenance that was the key! We signed a contract and we were on it in a flash. We explored a new technology Adobe Air, which was a revolution in software development. It had beautiful interface which helped in cracking the deal. It is the simplicity in a system that sells! The website development took more than the time we quoted. But there was regular progress, so nobody complained.

It was the first fifteen days, when we had loads of ideas in the table. Some ideas went wayward, others we thought could be executed. Jaypee had a brand name in construction, so our website was aimed at highlighting these. Hence, came the SWF which starts with an animation of constructing the buildings. Then the colours had to be in sync with the logo and the colour Jaypee uses in most of its projects. We were here to sell our stuff... so the client was kept in mind all the time. Integration of Podacsts, Videos that we believed would communicate better and a Google Map to be updated with the technology. 

But then something came up that stole all the limelight... the Virtual Tour. This Virtual Tour was a 360 degree view of the campus and finally became the USP. People talking about the website, talked about the virtual tour first.

The Content Mangement System was the reason I got the contract, so that was built with great care and dedication. This system came out very well, it made the content management very simple. The System was pretty complex in design but the interface came out nicely making it easy for a layman to update stuff. I do remember the numerous fights we had over perfection. Shivam, Lakshya and Me are perfectionists and thankfully the guys associate with us are too. We would fight on phone, gtalk or in face to achieve that. Sometime we lost interst in work, but the motivation was there inside everybody to prove a point, "If we are given a chance we wont let you down". Lots of hiccups came during this project, our files were lost, the computers crashed, we had to build the whole stuff again a couple of times. We started taking frequent backups because work was being done at a great pace. 

I used to attend office in the morning, finish my daily work and then get home by 8:30. It was by 9'O clock our work started. And most of the time, continued all night till 5 in the morning. We loved the work we did, so there were no regrets about the routine. I was exhausted till november when I made a visit to the campus and installed Notice Management System which became a big hit! This relieved some fo the stress. By december I had interns, we started working rigorously all day on my original website. The nights were all for the Jaypee project. I had to sync things, keep the stuff in mind. Think about the deadline and making my team ready to meet that.

It was on 8th Jan '09 that we finished the Jaypee University website, uploaded, checked for errors and made it available. It might look a simple website when you browse through it. But do you remember those lines... 

It is so simple to be happy, but so difficult to be simple! 

It was simplicity that we were searching for, through our technical knowledge and our experience of working in this area for all these years. We achieved simplicity upto a level that we aimed for. But everytime we reach there, we set the bar higher and it has been set. We are all set too... to achieve that. We are ready for the next challenge! 

The Link: http://www.juit.ac.in

An Eventful Year...

I saw the stock market crash, the investors unwilling to invest in new ventures, not many new ventures coming up and the ones that are there are on the verge on annihilation. People starting from my lawyer to my coworkers are facing the crisis. Even my venture on retail has taken a hit. People are not ready to invest in new things, they just want to play safe. 

I have faced a time, when I had to postpone salaries, bills and rent. The money in my account was to pay my employees for a month and with no money assured in the future. This is one equation I knew will come to me as well. I wont say this was easy, but it was my personal relations that came in handy. The last month, I have been busy with interns from JUIT. The guys are motivated to the core. They bring in so much energy to work that gives me motivation to move ahead. 

Since September I was busy with the Jaypee Education Institutes. We successfully completed the design of a JUIT website and the Notice Management System. Both were well appreciated. We got another contract based on our work. This was satisfying. The success of this project opened a lot of opportunities in this sector for the company. Thus we survived the disaster. The project promises regular income for sometime. But I guess it is time to pull up something foolish, something that will be the biggest risk of my career. Steve Jobs once said in his speech in Stanford... Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish! 

I don't have any idols, but yes now after a year and 2 months, I feel this line explains a lot about entrepreneurship. 

My First Big Deal...

People say it was brave on my part to venture out. Some say it was a premature decision. Frankly, I did not care at all. I was holding on to something, my spirit, my dream and my sister's words. I had no reason to stop!

It was in october when I first came to gurgaon, to make it BIG! :) I had no idea of what was going around me, no place to stay, nothing to start with! It took me two months to finally come to life. My dad was very kind to give me what he was saving for me for all these years and by december I had my first office. I had an idea in my mind, that was very immature and impractical, but it did raise a few eyebrows when it was talked about.

I used to attend conferences in New Delhi by TiE and ASSOCHAM. They were highly rich in content and a good place for networking and discussing ideas. I could polish my ideas in these conferences and then finally I decided to start a private limited firm. The name was decided 3 years back... INNOVATRIX. So I went ahead and started a hunt for a CA. I met a Chartered Accountant in Gurgaon... he talked to me for 10 min. and charged me 750/- bucks. A very close lawyer friend adviced me... that I should search for a lawyer. I found a lawyer close to my house and started the process of making a company.

A bit delayed but yet a grand inauguration happened on 19th Feb 2008. I could not believe my eyes, all of jaipur was there in my teeny-tiny office that very day. I could make out... happiness on their face was real! For a next few months I was working alone in the office. I needed a few people to start with, the idea was there... the launch pad had to be made. Anshul, Shashank and Archit pursuing MBA joined me and so did Shivam from the TECH CLUB. We started working on the website and formulating strategies to be implemented. We could decode one latest software in about 3 weeks (thanks to shivam) and in the next one month, everything fell into shape. The launching pad was ready. But just then... I met medury sir. He heard from me and looked at my projects and offered me a contract for all three websites!!

This came as a surprise for me. I sent the proposal... but no immediate response came. By this time I needed money for marketing and paying up salaries. I thought this would go in vain and I left it aside. But then one fine day I called him up and he said.. Come to JUIT... we'll strike a deal! I was ecstatic! I decided to accept the offer and prepare for the deal. Finally, I went to JUIT where it just felt like.. I was back home. I walked for 5 kms to the campus with a heavy bag on my shoulders. I wanted to enjoy every bit of it. Then came the question... how much should I quote. This was tough for me because the deal was with a University. I could not think of a price that would leave all of us satisfied.

I finally decided on something, which I thought would be negotiated. But I could not believe my eyes when Medury sir agreed on the amount and we had a deal!! And an assurance for the more in the next few months... I HAD MY FIRST BIG DEAL!