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8/9/2019 E-mag!ne - Anniversary (Downloadable version 1.2 MB only!)
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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frostsaid this years ago, yet this thought is still young and driving, aswe quote it here, here in this issue of E-mag!ne which has completed one whole
year. They say life comes a full circle and how? Today takes us a year back when
we first incepted this wild ideawhich led to a number of raised eyebrows and
even more number of smirks! All we could do was to smile andwellsmileagain. Our silence was itself confused, whether we are sure of what lies ahead
whether this would be just another random idea that would fume away with
the haze of umpteen cups of hot tea or is this something that would eventually
get entwined with our lives so much so that a 365 days would pass with just a
batting of an eye. We wanted to risk the unusualwe just didn't want to settle
for the ordinary.
And as all great people have said, that hardship owns its reward, our initiative
too reaped a lot of accolades, over the months comprising its journey, that
silenced our retractors. E-mag!ne not only broke across many barriers that had
entwined our lives, but it also forged many a relationship with a world hitherto
unknown to us. It not only did good for the cause we established it for, it also
enriched us & all our stakeholders in ways which never ceased to surprise us!
Slowly E-mag!ne became as integral to our lives as water is to a fish's existence.
The hard stones stepped upon along the journey only made us bask rather
unabashedly and merrily on the fruits we gathered later on. When we say that
E-mag!ne has reached far and wide, we do so with a fair amount of conviction
because we have witnessed its reach touch lives beyond the domain of our
mother land India even!
We know what it feels to dream and when that dream takes a form of of itsown. We identify with the pain and the immense joy that is felt to let it take on
the world on its own. Pain to let it go.. Joy.. to witness it take its first flight and
every flight ever since. Having gone through all of those juxtaposed emotions,
having spent a full year of living this dream every single day, we realize and
salute the spirit of Doing your own thing, the spirit of doing it differently, the
spirit of Entrepreneurship.
This month E-mag!ne comes with an exclusive look. All sections that
you shall see in this issue are anniversary special. Also introduced Is the
blog this! feature. Now you can blog on the articles you read here.Just follow the link on the bottom-right corner of the page. Hope you
have a good read and also that you continue supporting us! cheers!
E DI T ORI A L
We identify
with the pain
and the
immense joy
that is felt to
let it take on
the world on
its own. Painto let it go..
Joy.. to
witness it take
its first flight
and every
flight eversince.
- Team E-mag!ne : Srimoyee Ray & Bikram Sarkar
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C o n t e n t s 01/10FEATURED
04 SurveyA survey on the entrepreneurial
attitude amongst the people of
India.
Entrepreneurs14Nandini Vaidyanathan writes her
experiences on entrepreneurship for
us.
INTERVIEW
06KAUSHIK MUKHERJEEChucking a career at Goldman Sachs,
Kaushik Mukherjee took up the bold
descision to be an entrepreneur.
RAMPRASAD RAJENDRAN
Gaming on social networking sites?
this is the man you got to thank!
09
Tete-e-tete
VISHAL SETHIThe man who revolutionized event
management in India speaks up in
an E-mag!ne exclusive.
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FEATUREDS URV E Y
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On asking their preference of the city in India that they
would want to start their venture in .i.e, the city that
would be the base camp and on it the venture would
eventually spread its roots to other parts of the country,
this was the trend that followed :
Kolkata was preferred most in terms of the city ranking.
The reasons that we could ration out was Kolkata being
a fairly cost effective locale, people thought that it
would be a comfortable zone to kick off their venture,
even with a not so handsome capital investment. Only
next preferred location was Mumbai, obviously because
it is the financial capital of the country and consequently
the opportunities and possibilities are immense in the
city of dreams. Delhi followed closely with a host of
other preferred city like Bangalore, Gurgaon and
Chennai.
We also tried to gauge a little of the
emotional/psychological aspect that is entwined with
entrepreneurship in an indispensable way. We asked our
respondents, who is that person or icon that they idolize
when it comes to taking this bold step in the world of
different thinkers? This is what we got :
We noticed that a host of respondents between the age
group of 23 to 25 years idolized stalwarts like Mr.
Dhirubhai Ambani and Mr. Narayan Murthy. Amongst
the other responses were, Mr. Steve Jobbs, Richard
Branson, and even our very own, the greatest Bapu ji.
There were responses that claimed that a lot of their
inspiration was due to their family members who had
already taken a plunge into this interesting world and
emerged victorious and successful.
Based on certain myths that we keep on hearing every
now and then, that out country India, produces
potential minds but however does not support
entrepreneurship when it comes to the opportunities
that are available. So we tried to find out what
percentage of the respondents feel likewise or ratherunlikewise the above. We found that :
39.13 % respondents felt that the opportunities that
are available in India are very good and that India is
very much able and capable to support the minds that
harbor the interest to take the road not taken with a
host of opportunities and amenities.
Inspite of all the planning and the background work, at
times some ventures fall flat on the face or get
handicapped mid way. This in turn creates a sort ofprejudice amongst the people against this particular
field. We tried to find what according to the
respondents might be the reason that lead to a
sudden demise of a plan which was alive and beating
at one point in time.
Poor Planning/research/analysis/study
Poor funding
Lack of vision
Lack of endurance
Power politics Environmental change
Lack of risk taking ability
The above are some of the reasons that was cited by
our respondents as being the primary concerns for a
startup to meet its unnatural death. Respondents
between the age group of 23 to 25 years felt that lack
of enough funds and poor planning whilst our
respondents of 30years and above adjudged, lack of
operational skills and inability to think long term as
the major reasons for failure. The proper flow ofthings that should help a startup in the long run would
be : Right Information, Right Funding and Right
people.
So what are the necessary traits that one should
possess in order to be an Entrepreneur?
Heres what our respondents feel: Focus, Hardwork,
Perseverance, Non -Conformity, Leadership, Patience,
Innovation, Sacrifice are the key pillars on which an
able head rests with a firm foot on grounds. Yes, we
agree too, but E-mag!ne would prescribe just onetonic Imagine !! and that should take care of
everything that follows
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INTERVIEWE NTRE P RE NE URS
6 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
K A US HI K MUK HE RJ E EF o u n d i n g Di r e c t o r , COO : f i n t a c t . c o m
Kaushik Mukherjee, an IIM Ahmedabad and BITS Pilani alumnus gave up a lucrative investment
banking career at Goldman Sachs, New York in 2008 to found Fintact.com a leading online
insurance portal in India. At IIMA, he was awarded the KVS Gold Medal for Best All-round Student. In
his spare time, he enjoys teaching western ballroom dancing, long-distance biking and playing poker.
The decision to be an entrepreneur is a very personal one
for most people who end up doing something out of the
ordinary. Since I had already worked both in India and
abroad in technical and financial domains, I had a vague
idea about how much a regular job would have to offer in
terms of
(a) learning(b) excitement, and
(c) money
The problem is that as life progresses, the dependency
on a stable stream of (c) becomes so important that we
are forced to push (a) and (b) lower down in our priority
list and sometimes erase it altogether. When I started up,
to me (a) and (b) were more important than (c) since
there is only so much money an unmarried male in the
mid-twenties needs to afford a good lifestyle. Hence, I
did not have too much of a hesitation in taking a longer-term bet on my life, since I was confident that the
opportunities that I was foregoing to pursue a dream on
my own was something that I could get back to at a later
date.
In the present, it was more important to do something
different. Engineering, MBA, IT beyond a point, if you
don't differentiate yourself from the people you see
when you look around you you lose yourself in a crowd.
And the way I am I knew I would never be happy if I let
that happen. The small probability of striking gold is still a
chance and I was prepared to take a chance on that.
During my days at IIM Ahmedabad, there used to be
many case contests and personality assessment
events, which gave me ample scope to test myself
against my peers and earn some money as well.
Together my business partner and I had won prize
money totalling to approx 5 lacs. Since this was excessmoney anyways, we decided to invest that in
registering a company and launching our business.
It was a different thing that we blew that money in 8
months and were virtually pushed to the brink of
going back to a job but we stuck it out and the
learning from those days is something that help me
even today. We started out with an eCommerce idea,
but much like most over-educated, self-confident
MBAs we missed out on analysis some of the basic
elements of the business we were getting into whether the idea was right for the time, the market
and us. This turned out to be a self-imposed
internship, which helped us ensure that the next time
we set out to run a company we would be better
equipped and better prepared.
Why
entrepreneurship?
How has been your
entrepreneurial journey?How did you start out?
What were the initial reactions
of your family and friends when
you said that you want to start
something of your own?
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I think this one's predictable. They were visibly
disappointed as the job offer I was giving up was one of the
highest grossing salaries in my batch as an Investment
Banker at Goldman Sachs, New York. Hence, for a little
while my decision seemed quite inexplicable to them. But
as they say with parents you can't negotiate, you take
your time and you reason.
So after a week's talk, they did see that it wouldn't hurt my
career if I took a couple of years off at worst to try out
something. And from then on, whether they understand
my business or not they know from the days of bus travel
in 2006 to the days of frequent flight travel nowadays, that
all is well.
Friends were excited of course but clearly divided into
two categories. Those that were worried about how we
did and those that were curious about how we did. Thosethat cared and those that wagered bets on when we
would get back to a 'normal' job.
Fintact.com is an online insurance portal that helps
people choose the right insurance policies for themselves
and their family. We have tied up with a number of
agents across different cities and service our customers
by connecting them to these agents.
Our target market is mostly the age-group between 21-
45 gender-agnostic, who mostly turn to the internet as
the primary source of information. Geographically we
serve 10 cities in India as of now with plans of spreading
into 14 other cities by the end of the year.
The first wave of recognition for any venture comes
when you are planning to raise some funding to
operate it for a specific amount of time. With
Fintact.com we went through a long-drawn and
sometimes-painful VC/Investor-pitching exercise,
which finally closed with us sealing our first round of
funding from Rediff.com. A year from now will be a
good time to take stock since we would have been inmarket for more than a year by then.
All business ideas are replicable. I think our strength
lies in our team and our execution ability. Over the
years we have been able to attract talent from India
and overseas people who have stuck on because
they love the company culture and the freedom they
are given to set their own targets and achieve them.
This is difficult to replicate and as of today, we are
fortunate to have a company where the employees
treat the company as theirs and worked really hard to
beat the service that our competitors are offering.
Learnt my lesson earlier. Answers to such questions
should never be in print. Sometime in the future, they
always come back haunt you in one way or the other.
7 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
INTERVIEWE NTRE P RE NE URS
How would you describe your
venture? Some details about the
business idea that you started
out with?
What would you describe asyour target market?
What kind of recognition has
your venture gained over the
years? Has that been along
expected lines?
What do you think sets your
venture apart?
What are your future
plans ?
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5
6
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Be ridiculous. No, seriously. Till about a year back, I used to
think that being persevering would be enough but there
are far too many people who exist and fade away without
making a dent. To stand out of the crowd the crowd is not
going to move you have to draw attention to yourself by
being different.
Make a conscious attempt to be different from the personnext to you. Entrepreneurship is a bent of mind that
teaches you to look for arbitrage opportunities in life.
These translate into large-scale opportunities that help you
make money, name, fame and of course spread some
cheer.
It's pitiful. When I started up, it was almost a shameful
thing to give up a job and try something on your own.
Thanks to the NEN, proto.in and organizations like yours
that evangelize entrepreneurship, today starting up is
not considered akin to committing hara-kiri. However, fartoo many people are thinking about far too many ideas
with far too few people who have money.
In India you'll find investors and VCs aplenty who appear
at these conventions and talk nineteen-to-the-dozen
about how amazingly awesome it if to start up and how
they believe in backing people and their ideas. However,
when it comes to putting their money where their mouth
is you'll see quite a different person.
I think the strength lies is the non-conventional channels.There are enough and more HNIs with risk appetite and if
one is able to network effectively, he/she should be able
to tap the right sources to fund his/her dream
venture.
8 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
INTERVIEWE NTRE P RE NE URS
Your message for young
entrepreneurs out there? Which
trait is most essential that you
think an individual should
possess to venture into a startup?
What do you feel about the
current state of
entrepreneurship in India?
What are its strength's and
pitfalls?
Accolades :
In April 2008, Kaushik was awarded theprestigious KVS Gold Medal for the Best
Graduating All-round student of 2008 at IIM
Ahmedabad.
In November 2007, he was awarded the title
of Ashwamedha The Best Manager from
amongst over 1000 participants from 30 of
Indias best business schools at IIM Indores
annual business summit IRIS. In January 2008,
he finished Runners-Up in a similar event,
Olympus at IIM Calcutta.
Social concern :Kaushik has shown his commitment to social
causes by being a regular blood donor,
participating in the Revlon New York Run for
fight against womens cancer and being a
member of the NGO foundation aProCh
during 2007-08.
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INTERVIEWE NTRE P RE NE URS
9 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
RA MP RAS A D RA J E NDRAN
Co - f o u n d e r : Ha s h c u b e
Hashcube is a social gaming company started by school friends Deepan (26) and
Ram (25) that makes popular puzzle type games on social networking sites and
mobile platforms like the iPhone.
I've always been fascinated with entrepreneurship. I
worked in a few companies before I ventured to start on
my own and got a feel of how companies work. There is a
lot of freedom when you are on your own and you get to
explore and try out your own ideas and the ideas that
you believe and trust in.
Deepan(my co-founder) were schoolmates. We did a
bouncing ball game back then and during Deepan's
college he made a sudoku puzzle application and built a
website around it. It started to gain traction and after
that we started out. The entrepreneurial journey hasbeen fun and tough. There are multiple lessons that
we've learned over the years and we've had the chance
to meet and interact with a lot of interesting people.
There have been mixed reactions. Some people
encouraged and motivated while the others had their
doubts. We would have never know the result until we
start out.
HashCube is a social gaming company that makes fun
to play puzzle games on social networks like facebook.
We initially started of with building games on
standalone websites but later realised that gaming on
social networks was a new and a bigger industry and
we shifted focus.
Everybody who uses social networks and plays games
Why entrepreneurship?
How has been yourentrepreneurial journey?
How did you start out?
What were the initial
reactions of your family and
friends when you said that
you want to start somethingof your own?
How would you describe
your venture? Some details
about the business idea
that you started out with?
What would you describeas your target market?
What kind of recognition
has your venture gained
over the years? Has that
been along expected lines?
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HashCube was incubated as part of the iAccelerator
program that happened at IIM Ahmedabad. Our userbase
has significantly grown and we've been featured by
bloggers and the press.
We want to continue to make games that are fun and are
played by millions.
Start out as early as possible. Patience and perseverance
are necessary along with other traits.
Entrepreneurship is booming in India. There is a lot of help
that you could get from mailing lists, fellow entrepreneursand there are also multiple events focussed on startups
and entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is
booming in India...
10 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
INTERVIEWE NTRE P RE NE URS
What are your future plans?
Your message for youngentrepreneurs out there? Which
trait is most essential that you
think an individual should possess
to venture into a start up?
What do you feel about the
current state of entrepreneurship
in India? What are its strength's
and pitfalls?
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Tete-e-teteE NTRE P RE NE URS
There is a lot of learning in the
entire startup process...
VISHAL SETHIFounder : Meraevent.com
11 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
Vishal Sethi is the founder of MeraEvent Interactive Pvt Ltd, one of theiaccelerator 2009 companies, an initiative by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad, whichhe describes as a 'platform to connect the event stakeholders'.He is also anInstitute of Management Technology and St. Xaviers college, Kolkataalumnus. He, a first generation entrepreneur, shares his journey andexperiences w ith us...
Tell us something about yourself?
I had my schooling from DPS,Farakka, around 300 kms from Kolkata. After that my family settled in
kolkata, then i took admission in B.com (hons) at St. Xavier college. After passing out from St.Xaviers, i
worked a bit for companies like ABN amro and Cadbury India Pvt Ltd. Then i Did my MBA from Institute of
Management Technology (IMT). From there i got a job in Idea cellular, There i worked for around 19-20
months. I had a business idea from my MBA days,won few business plan competitions also.
In fact, my enthusiasm towards these competitive events led to the initial idea for my entrepreneurial
journey. I used to miss out on a lot of these events due to lack of proper information. So i came up with
the idea of having an event directory, i.e an medium to spread information and awareness about these
competitive events. Later on this business plan was refined and remodelled to take its current shape.
I decided to work for couple of years,get some work exp. and savings.
I quit my job in january 2009 ,jumped full time into my venture.Then in march it got selected in as one of
the iaccelerator companies 2009 - initiative by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad..
Sir, how did this IIM-Ahemdabad thing happen? A little bit more detail?
CIIE at IIM Ahmedabad runs a program called iAccelerator. 5-6 start ups are selected which are then
mentored and seed-funded.
We had to stay in IIM campus during this prog.which was a great learning for me.
Sir, a little bit about your venture?
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Its called Meraevent Interactive pvt ltd.Its a platform to connect the stakeholders of events and
entertainment industry. There are basically 3 parties related to an event, The user- who watches it, the
performer, and the organizer.
It gives the opputunity to all event vendors to expand their business and increase their reach and also
ease to users who want to get an event done across all categories.
Sir, is there any minimum amount that a user has to have as a budjet for the
event he/she is planning in order to be able to access meraevent.com?
No, we cater to customers with all kinds of budgets. Someone might have a venue budget for 10 lakh
rupees, while for someone the entire event budget might stand out to be 50k. We have arrangements to
meet both these requirements.
How much potent does an online business model have in today's world?
See, in India Online is not as big a thing as it might be in other parts of the world. Shaadi.com, Naukri.com
all started off with their online models, slowly down the line they have ventured into offline models in big
way like Shaadi centre's Naukri Centre's etc. Our business model will have a 50-50 online/offline focus.
Where are your branches located?
As of now we are present in kolkata and Mumbai.....we will soon be starting off in Delhi and Bangalore.
What about advertizing?
Most of the start ups fail due to money issues, so spending too much on promotion is not IN OUR right
now. More importantly we are trying to partner with major events that are happening to let our
presence felt.Then there is social media...we are planning some interesting activities too but i believe the
best marketing is word of mouth one...nothing beats that.
Our aim is to reach each and every Family, because every family has an event.
Its known that certain states are more active in terms of the number of the
number of events that happen there. So which are the states that you are
targetting majorly?
We have chosen 6 cities to be present in by the end of 2010.
How important would kolkata be to your operations?
Tete-e-teteE NTRE P RE NE URS
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Tete-e-teteE NTRE P RE NE URS
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[Q]
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Kolkata is obviously very important, We are currently head-quartered in Kolkata, but also its true that a
major part of the operational work is being done in Mumbai.
Yes, region wise East is definitely very important to us, not only Kolkata but surrounding areas like
Jamshedpur, Shillong etc are also vital to us.
Who do you think are your competitors?
I would say as a venture meraevent does not have any direct competitors. Yes, information directories
like justdial can be taken as a competitor, but we focus only to events and entertainment industry.
We will have a lead time of atleast 1 year to any other player who enters this market..thanks to our
major tie-ups and network.
Why do you think start ups fail?
Lack of proper mentoring and funding....Though number of incubation cells have come up but still its a
long way to go...But there is a lot of learning in the entire startup process....even a startup fails the
founder learns a lot from mistakes and helps him/her to rectify those later.
Your word of advice for budding entrepreneurs out there?
Have a holistic plan and talk to someone who can give blatant opinions before you start implementing it.
Be open and flexible and take a look at market demands while running the business
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FEATUREDE NTRE P RE NE URS
NA NDI NI V A I D Y A N A T HA N
Me n t o r o n e n t r e p r e n e u r s h i p
Professor Nandini Vaidyanathan, an alumnus of Delhi School of Economics and
London School of Economics, spent twenty years in the corporate sector in MNCs
across all inhabited continents.
For the last four years, she has been teaching entrepreneurship in premier biz and
engineering schools around the world. She is passionate not just about creatingentrepreneurs but a mentorship institution for building a vibrant entrepreneurial
India.
She has set up Entrepreneurship Development Centre at PES School of
Engineering, Bangalore, which along with its sister institutions has over 17,000
students. The Centre has an incubator attached to it and provides pre-seed
capital, infrastructure and mentorship to aspiring entrepreneurs.
She is a Mentor with New Ventures India, which is a joint venture between World
Resources Institute, Washington and Godrej Green Building Hyderabad and
promotes clean tech entrepreneurship.
She is also Mentor with MentorPartners, an online mentoring platform for
entrepreneurs.
She is co-founder of two companies, Startups (forstartups.blogspot.com) and
CARMa (www.carmagroup.in).
CARMa works with SMEs in getting them investment-ready, helping them raise
capital and providing them exit engineering, post capital-raising.
She writes a regular column in the magazine Entrepreneur called Your CARMa.
has written a series of books on entrepreneurship which will be in print sometimethis year. Following is an insightful article on entrepreneurship penned by her.
14 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E - ma g ! n e> > B l o g t h i s ! e ma g i n e - mh r m. b l o g s p o t . c o m
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verybody has a 'wow' moment and if one is
lucky, several of them during a lifetime. I'mEpossibly one of the few really privileged oneswho meets amazing people literally most days of the
year. Which means I have a treasure chest of wow
moments.
But I can tell you this,- if I were asked to pick this one
heirloom which i will want to pass on to the future
generations, it will easily and uncontestably be 2nd Jan
2010 at TCS campus in Hyderabad at the TATA Jagriti
Entrepreneur Rail Yatra. Nothing had prepared me for
what I was going to experience here.
Jagriti is a foundation involved in a number of
developmental activities but this train journey is the
brainchild of Shashank Mani and if you want to know
more about how and why he designed this yatra, just
pick up his book : India : A journey through a healing
civilization, published by Harper Collins.
In 1997, Shashank conceived of an idea to discover
India beyond her sophistication (his words) and
urbanity and experience her home-spun 'genius'
(again his words). He called it Azad Bharat Rail Yatra.
This was the germination of an idea which is all poised
to open the floodgates for an upbeat entrepreneurial
India. It has now morphed into a train journey for
practising and aspiring young entrepreneurs from
what they call the Middle India, middle not in the
geographic or class sense but in the economic sense.
Shashank, Raj and Revathy (whom unfortunately i did
not get to meet as she had stayed back in Chennai) are
responsible for designing an experience for the
entrepreneurs which will stay with them for the rest of
their lives. This is an 18 day train journey through the
length and breadth of India, where people from
different climes and cultures travel together, discover
reach other and in the process manage to hold a
mirror to themselves.
400 young vibrant hungry unmolded minds coming
together, meeting entrepreneurs of different shapes
and sizes and hues, understanding the challenges of
being an entrepreneur, not to be daunted by them but
to convert them into a laundry list of do's and dont's.
God what a divine moment!!!
Let me start the story from the beginning
In mid- December, 2009, I received mail from Ananth
Krishna who introduced himself as the co-ordinator
of the Yatra and invited me to be a panelist either in
Kanyakumari on 28th december or in Hyderabad on
2nd January. I chose Hyderabad.
I had heard of this train journey in 2008 and I was
completely delighted to be invited to be a small part
of it this year.
On 2nd January, at three thirty I walked into the
reception of TCS at Hi-tech city. The security guard
manning the reception just pointed to an area
behind him and asked me to proceed there. I did and
nothing had prepared me for what met my eyes.
I walked out of the reception into an open atrium
built like an amphi-theatre, steep and cascading,
with stone steps going all the way down,
interspersed with bushes and trees. On the steps
were some 400 odd people, youngsters, bright eyed
and bushy tailed notwithstanding the ardor of a train
journey, waiting expectantly, as if they were in
Woodstock, waiting for their favorite rock band to
perform!!!
wilder? What can I say to them that will inspire
them,- these were the big questions that came
flooding my mind and for a moment I lost it and just
wanted to scoot out of there.
But the goose bumps took over thankfully!!! and I
Tata Jagriti Rail Yatra for Entrepreneurs
400 young vibranthungry unmolded
minds comingtogether, meet ingentrepreneurs of d
ifferent shapes andsizes and hues,
understanding thechallenges of being
an entrepreneur, notto be daunted by
them but to convertthem into a laundry
list of do's and
I got goosebumps just
looking at them
and believe you
me, for a minute
I was tempted
to turn on my
heels and run
for dear life
from there.
What is it I can
offer them thatwill make their
eyes twinkle
more, what do I
have in me that
can make them
hungrier and
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16 0 1 / 2 0 1 0 E ma g ! n e> > B l t h i ! i h b l
walked down the steps in awe, in humility, in
anticipation. And that was the beginning of several of
my wow moments.
Since last year Tatas and CNBC have been phenomenal
partners in this event and on the panel were Dr
Krishna Tanuku, ED, Wadhwani Centre forEntrepreneurship, ISB, Mr Mohan Rao, State Director
for Small Scale and Khadi Industries Commission and
myself. The discussion was moderated by Suresh
Venkat, Exec Producer, CNBC. The subject for
discussion : funding for small entrepreneurs.
I wont go into the discussion here, many of you must
have caught it on CNBC last month.
Suresh turned out to be an intelligent, witty
moderator, not one of those who talks more thanthose he moderates!!! We covered a whole gamut of
subjects in the panel discussion.
This was followed by a Q&A session from the audience
and I was astounded at the questions that were asked.
My favorite of course was from an overseas
participant who asked : Everyone talks of what
investors look for in the entrepreneur. What should an
entrepreneur look for in an investor!!!
Once the discussion was over I was mobbed
completely and can you believe it, they even asked mefor my autograph on t-shirts, on paper, on their
palm!!! I was dying of embarrassment.
at the end of it all, i was completely exhausted and
completely, overwhelmingly innervated!!
Shashank, Raj and Ananth? how can I ever thank you
enough? May your tribe increase.
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