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Category: IIMB

  • Entrepreneur’s Interview – BrizzTV

    Sachi: Good Evening Amar, thank you for accepting to come on to this interview.  
     
    Amar is the founder and CEO of Brizz TV. Brizz TV is an innovative platform that delivers internet content directly to the television using set top box technology.  
     
    Without further adieu I would like to ask Amar to briefly tell us about his background and then about the idea?  
     
    Amar:
    Thank you. My name is Amarendra Sahoo, I am a 2004 Computer Science Graduate from NITK Suratkal. After graduation from Suratkal in 2004 I worked across various companies like – Cisco, Juniper, and Lucent for about 5 year. Then I joined IIM Bangalore in 2009, and that is when I started the company – 2009 December.
    Clearing the CAT I would say was an accident, and I joined IIMB – also to fulfil the dream of my parents, wife etc – not many could get a selection to IIMB and not join it. In all this, I was still a “Techie” at heart. Neither the work as an IT professional nor the MBA knowledge was able to satisfy the void I felt. There was a period of self introspection and the meaning of the MBA and the work that would be of interest to me while at IIMB.
    I was also reading some very interesting technology and entrepreneurship blogs at the time, – the achievements of people seems to push me to believe I could do something too. I felt I had quite some time at my hand and I should consider starting off.
    I come from an embedded system, networks background and that probably fed me to believe I could do something more challenging than a e-commerce site. At the point I was thinking of all the idea I consciously stayed away from it even though ecommerce sites were getting a lot of funding.
    While all these questions were popping up at the back of my mind, one day while sitting in a case discussion on Reliance Big TV – as part of the Marketing Course; It struck me that I could be very interesting if we could show Wikipedia on the television without any complex internet stuff in it! A regular TV but with Internet content in it – That is how BrizzTV began.
    At BrizzTV, we show selected Internet content directly on your TV – Example, if we are pushing facebook on your TV you could watch it, unlike internet where you can pull the content. Just like you cannot watch a cricket match on ESPN unless it has been broadcasted, you wouldn’t be able to watch unless we broadcast it. So the data that we transmit will be available on the TV just like any normal channel.
    Our focus is to keep this medium affordable, accessible and easy to use. The problem that we are solving is pretty interesting – in a country with a large rural population, an investment into a PC wouldn’t be economical. Added to this would be the cost of internet. Internet is also not all pervasive, and also costly for a rural consumer.
    In addition to the cost of purchasing the PC, the other barrier for people to adopt to PCs is lies with the additional learning of the usage of the operating systems, brower etc that are  a sort of barrier for adoption.  Also the rural person could run his life without an internet connection!
    Given these thoughts, I wanted to give an affordable, accessible and simple solution – that would have to be the TV. There is not much complexity to using the TV too!
    Facebook which I used as an example earlier is just to make a mention – our focus is on providing quality content that would be mass consumed like; say Wikipedia, or Exam preparation etc. The facebook example was primarily to relate with the present generation J.
    Simply put, Brizz TV enables you put selected internet content on TV, available on a channel interface – say channel 931, 971 etc.
    Sachi: Could you tell us how you managed to put your first team together, and how you managed your finances?
    Amar:
    I never thought I was heading this company, and hence there was no thought of putting up the team as such. I discussed the idea with my friends, and whoever felt that the idea was good I believed we could form a team.
    The first friend I found this way was my batch mate from Surathkal – Jeetu. He was working with Cisco at that time. So we both came together to start this venture off. None of us were from the broadcast domain, and our limited understanding wouldn’t give us a real picture of the technical constraints we might face. We approached an expert – Krishnan who at that point was working at Philips and understood the set-top box pretty well. He encouraged us, and after some calculations and suggested this could be possible if a broadcaster like Airtel or Tata could agree. This was how we formed the first team.
    Coming to the point of Funding part – Both Jeetu and I were basically programmer, and hence we believed we didn’t need any funds to start off. We had a product bent of mind and hence finance was something that we didn’t bother much about. We began working on the product in December 2009 and by April 2010 we had built the prototype. We next had to move towards meeting a broadcaster.
    We approached NSRCEL with the thinking that they could help us connect with the broadcast companies. At NSRCEL we met Guhesh who thought the idea was cool enough to try – he had a friend at Airtel and we were able to get the traction. With this prototype demonstrated, Airtel was willing to work with us. Other things began to move ahead – we were funded by NSRCEL in December 2010. 6 months post the VC round of investment from NSRCEL, we got our next round of investment from Ojas.
    Sachi: Could you tell us how the discussion with Airtel happened, how was the experience? 
     
    Amar: 
    Airtel is a very partner friendly company, most of their activities are outsourced. They weren’t very aggressive in the negotiation too.
    I wasn’t looking for a negotiation too; I always thought that the product I was building had to see the light of the day. I approached it with an open mind.
    Airtel wanted the technology evaluation and proof of concept – all this happened extremely quickly. The approach seemed to be that we (Brizz TV) could do a lot of value add if the young team was taken care off. Airtel has been a fantastic organization to work with. Given their long term vision with Brizz TV, they offered what they generally offer to anyone else without much negotiation.
    There was some bit of luck and the remaining worked with the technical strength the team had.
    Sachi: You have been funded at a very early stage – it would be interesting to understand the experience? 
    Amar: We are a pre-revenue product company – any VC who would invest in us wouldn’t be looking at any revenue for at least one year. It was pretty interesting if we look back at the instance. None of the factors seemed to be favoring us – I was studying, and there were 2 other members in the team. The product was just taking shape, and the company we were working with – Airtel was thought to be as someone whom a start up should be scared off. The technology that we were building was however a very interesting one.
    We went about looking at many VCs in search of funding. The IIMB – NSRCEL connection helped us get a ear from the people we met. Though the technology was interesting, it want something that was tested – they weren’t sure about the monetization prospects of the company.
    I was again luck that I came across to the Ojas investments – Mr Rajest. He was also an NITK alumnus, which helped connect better with him. The team seemed to have struck chords as well. The perspective of looking at Airtel being interested in us also seems to have worked for us. And I think he was willing to take the bet on us.
    Though initially we went about just meeting folks, we began to feel the pinch towards May 2011. We required the money for supporting the operator lab that was crucial for the testing of the final product. Again I believe it was luck that pulled us through.
    Sachi: Out of curiosity, did Airtel help you? Did they co-develop the product or did you get an infrastructure support ?
    Amar: 
    Airtel provided free access to their labs, but given their schedules etc they couldn’t co-develop the product with us. We suggested that we would take care of the technology, and Airtel could help test the product in the lab.
    I should say they facilitated everything around technology development and that help  for us.
    Sachi: Most of your team is from NITK. What do you think excited people to work with you??
     Amar: At college we were always perceived as being friendly guys, we were not considered geeks. People knew us as these are cool chaps and straight from heart. They do things right and they don’t lie. When they say something they mean it. I think this reputation seems to have paid off. So our friends are always willing to work with us.
    The open approach we have followed has helped us all through.
    Sachi: How do you envision yourself in the next 4 or 5 years?
     
    Amar: I think I should be still be rocking. Doing something that excites me something in the tech space. Hopefully Brizz tv, will be a much bigger company – more than just in terms of revenue. We intend to create something meaningful out of India that world finds useful.
    Sachi: If I could mention, you represented India at the Intel UC Berkeley Challenge. Could you tell us how that experience was? How did it help? 
     
    Amar:
    The trip gave me a free trip to Berkeley – I saw a parking space “Reserved at all times for Nobel Laureates” – that excited me as I had never seen a Nobel laureate. I felt extremely excited about the concept.
    The competition was good too, we didn’t win the competition but the experience was pretty good. The exposure was pretty useful for us.
    Some of the competitors from China were doing a bio-oil business – this got me to think of the Indian context where we do 90% business and 10% technology. The kind of innovations from these countries seems to be more technology focused than us. It was a feeling like we could see the future being built here.
    Sachi: You are an MBA and an Entrepreneur – It is generally felt that this combination doesn’t work best. What do you have say about it?
    Amar: 
    It is like telling people who have pistol are dangerous because they can fire!!
    MBA to me is a tool; it is good to have that. It tells you something beyond technology that you could use – you could value add.
    To me personally I have seen If I am not having MBA, things would have been little slower.
    It gives you a market focus, structures your thought.
    If there is a question is “Does the MBA make a better entrepreneur?” I cannot answer that question. But I  am going to  say it  never going to be a harm  it only helps as long as you know how to use it like a tool and it works in  some person’s hand and does not work some else.
    Besides the large network that an MBA provides if you have graduated from a top institute, it gives you a different way of looking at things you know. I am personally excited of doing an MBA.
    It definitely adds value to my team, my company – but I am still a techie at heart. If you consider MBA to be a tool it would be a good perspective. – It never harms, it helps
    Sachi: What message would you like to send across to all the readers?
    Amar: Since I am a techie at heart, I would talk about technology. If you are a technology person, build your technology product first. Build it so well that world just cannot ignore it. People just cannot take their eyes off it.
    If you look at Indian web companies, there is lot of things as an engineer I never liked. The scope to improve is vast. You can make it 50% or 100% better than what it is today.
    Keep your eyes open. Don’t listen to the markets. The market’s foresight is pretty short – a quarter of a year.
    Do not believe when any one says you need leadership and all of that. All these are secondary. If you are good person given a chance, you can be a good leader.
    Build your character and just keep building a good product.
    Sachi:  Thank you Amar, taking your time to this interview. Thank you once again.

  • Entrepreneur’s Interview – OnUs Payments

    Sachi: Good evening everybody, today our guest for this entrepreneur’s interview is G.G. Shrinivas. G.G. Srinivas along with Hari have founder this startup called ‘Onus payment’. 
    Without further delay I would request G.G to give us brief background about himself, his co-founder and founding of the company.
    Shrinivas: Thank you. I am a 97 graduate of IIM Bangalore. Hari and I were colleagues in Standard Charted Bank – we were working in card sales at that point of time. We occasionally kept in touch with each other and saying some day we want to start off. Everything kind of fell in place thanks to the circumstances and the opportunity that was there at that time. Both of us were in Bombay fairly dissatisfied with what was going on – that is when we began working on taking this off the ground.
    So there was sense of comfort with each other because, we had worked as colleagues. We were just ordinary colleagues, there was bit of respect, but I wouldn’t call it as deep friendship. I can talk about respect for Hari, I think he is the one of the best sales man that I have ever seen in my Professional stint. He gets across to the table something very fundamental. So even if we are not friends at that point of that time, the fact that we respected each other, we said let’s try it out.
    We went about the classical way, I mean like you know, normally whatever anyone would do, when he starts a company. Get the idea it’s like one of our boss used to say take a deep drag of band substance or is their market at hand. So, we did a lot of validation in that point of time. We went to lot of seniors who were in this fields, I mean to a couple of heads of MNC Banks in India, A couple assets heads in India of MNC Banks. And said this is the opportunity at hand, are we dreaming this or is this opportunity that is there to be exploited. The unequivocal response that we had from everybody was, this makes a lot of sense provided you scale it up. This is going to be pretty big opportunity. I think to the extent that we spent little too much time on the validation, but we went about validating the complete idea. We went customers and we said if we give this product how much would pay? It was never about would you like this product – it was always about would you pay money for this product? We had gone to some of the high end schools in Bombay, which is where we were located at that point of the time and asked them about this.
    We had industry experts who said this possible. We had customers who said they are willing to pay. The funny thing was Hari being Hari, went out and actually closed to sales and came back and didn’t had product, money, technology nothing. I mean we had not even incorporated our company!
    The next phase of it was we had to go back to our families and say that this is what we starting. For first time entrepreneurs like us, it was very important to have a backing of the family. So we went up to senior people in Hari’s family and said, ‘this is what idea is’ should we be going ahead – one of  them actually ended up being on our advisory board. So, that’s the great thing for us. They actually liked the idea, after we had checked, cross-checked, verified and re-verified and we had wasted sixth month of time, is when we said OK fine now we have to form a company now. That’s when we started a company.
    Sachi: Could you explain what your company does so that the readers of the blog have an idea? 
    Shrinivas: Without going into great details about what the structure of payment industries is like in India; Think about any transaction less than 200 Rupees these are the transactions like buying coffee, buying an idly, buying a tea, buying a cholle buthur kind of thing and you are doing a lot of these transactions day in and day out. There are lot of transaction we do in less than 200 bracket – the only transaction tool that is available to us is cash. We can go by our personal experience or whatever we transact on a daily basis which is less than 200 Rs. Irrespective of which category of customer class it belong to the only transaction tool that is available to us is cash and cash is increasingly becoming difficult to use as a transaction tool because some of the changes we are seeing to. As you know, right in front of our eyes the 50 paisa is going out fashion. People neither give 50 paisa nor accept 50 paisa. As late as 2 year back some people were accepting it and without knowing it’s not getting accepted.
    So what happens is the bulk of the transaction that we are doing is less Rs. 200. And this transaction cannot be done on cash. So we looked at this and said – is there an opportunity for us to tap into these segments. These transactions come into the ‘C’ category of transaction – This is large volume low value.
    If we keep focus right and if we cherry pick within this transaction, this is substantial value of transaction that can be done on this. Provided you get across the right technology, keep your cost low everything else goes with to run a company. So if you keep everything else constant you should make money!
    Sachi: Both Hari and you are from the sales background of and to scale up the back end operations will be IT. We have seen that many firms begin with creating the software themselves. I understand that you have not taken that approach. How have you managed all that?
    Shrinivas: Hari and I are yes from sales background, Hari is one  of the superlative sales guy that I  have seen. There is fundamental understanding that when you are up to start up a company, to start off a new product, new concept it will take heck a lot of selling to push the product across. May be a little naively, but we believed that everything else can be made. Once customer exist and once he is willing to pay, the rest of the stuff can be put in place – as in raising the money to start the operations, getting the technology to run the operations, actually running the – operations everything can be put in place provided you have customer first. Obviously two of us are forced to think like this because we are not technology persons.
    I am a jack of all, whereas Hari is primarily into sales. The advantage this gives us is that when the operations are still not scaled up I am pretty much capable of handling operations, technology and marketing. Having said that jack of all trades never works out when things going to specialization. When the company is starting off somebody like me, would be able to handle, all the other things that Hari is not handling. There is an understanding between Hari and me what he is handling at this point of time is one of the important things of business. Getting to run a company is almost like pushing a vegan once it is running even I can go and give it a push, but when it is standing to make it move  is what is very difficult. Hari provides the traction I ensure that I take care of everything else. So, we don’t increase our cost base in the interim. Now once the whole thing starts of we need to obviously get in people who handle the technology, operation – at that point of time there would be fair bit of specialization.I think we are approaching that time because what we have done.
    Because of this approach, have we made mistakes? – Yes we have made mistakes. I mean there was a wrong choice of one of the product we had taken which kind of set us back by about four months. Would trained technology have helped? Obviously, I mean like you know Grade A technologist would have helped. Have we suffered from other fronts because of this? No, technology is one of the issues that we had. But it was not unmanageable. Thankfully it didn’t sink the company.
    We put the paying customer in front of us and align the rest of us behind the paying customer. With one and half year of this, I can say it works.
    Sachi: Putting the customer front and aligning all other things behind it definitely has some advantages, would you also highlight some of the challenges yuo faced in this approach and how you handled it? 
    Shrinivas: Between Hari and me we have 21 -22 years of payment card experience. Either in sales, marketing, operations, a little bit of service and collections. What you try to do is you end up a duplicating a whole bunch of things which are there on a payment card.
    The biggest example I can quote is – the credit card allows you to do paisa transactions. When you go and buy something in a super market you can buy for 1063.15. In real life I have not done a 0.15 transaction ever. Now over the last 15 odd months we have done over 17 lakh transactions. Within this transaction everyone of the paisa transaction that has come to us, is actually an error by the customer on the data entry front. What essentially has happened is something where I can go and probably pump my chest and say you do a one paisa transaction, is nothing but a boast .Which doesn’t hold any value for the customer because the customer is entering into round figure transaction of one rupee. And here I have build up a utility which can take paisa transaction. Now look at this and ask – why did this you stupid mistake happen? Don’t I go out and purchase? To put it simply, if I am drinking chai every day, and this were to be taken on a card how many times paid in a paisa. And answer is ‘NO’, so why did I put it on payment card? – Because I was aping credit card.
    So the experience that we have some time noose around your neck. That’s when we decided that will not invent feature that are nice on credit card, unless the customer comes and ask for a feature which we should have the ability to turn it around fast. We would not implement that idea because we burnt our fingers in couple of features which we put on the card which the customer never uses. They are nice to tell on the sales pitch but all most never the customer has a utility for that kind of transaction. Sometimes like the paisa example I gave you, they actually become a point of failure for payment solution.  We went by heuristic of saying if Hari and I want to X number of features on the card. Hari will divide feature at by half and I’ll divided the features at by another half. And whatever is the number of features are left is the features that we implement. Any feature that has to be implemented after that the customer has to ask for it. The design that will have it will take into account that the features may be added later but would not make feature unless customer ask for it. So what happens is we typically go to the customer and say this is the basic product this is what it is you tell us you will use this and if there something needs to be added we can turn it off fast that’s not a problem. Thankfully we have a very good technology partner. So what happens is we can implement those things very fast. We know that we are not wasting our money in terms of spending a feature. So it actually worked out for us very well.
    A wasted feature is wasted time and wasted money. We have couple of them I mean like we talk some experience on this.
    Sachi: You said, customer feedback on features is essential, did your dependence on this feedback hold you back?
    Shrinivas:Thanks for the confluence of a couple of technology issues of that we had,  for first seventy days of operation we visited the customers every single day and at 11.00 O’clock in the night. One of us would drive, 50Kmtrs, two ways and visit the customer at 11.00 PM including December 31st of 2010. If you visit a customer 70 days continuously doesn’t matter whether the customer is a dumb guy – he will start talking. Even if you are deaf you will start listening because there will be issues on the card which would start understanding pretty fast.
    In hindsight, that was the best thing would have happened to us. Rather than the pain of going there every day at 11.00 O’clock that was the one best thing happened to us because at the end of it we understood how the customer is using. Simple thing like a 21 years young girl telling a boy with her – telling him that I will pay by my card it is much cooler! It makes your day. Obviously I am not giving you the bad news.
    70 days of visiting the customer you pretty much get it. I would honest enough say that we say that this is the not part of the design, If anything else it would be part of the bug. But it helped us a lot.
    Something that we tried now consciously to do that even when we set up installation, however small the installation is we ensure that for a  25 days we will visit the customer every alternate day. To a point the customers starts asking why are you not handling over the solution to us. There are a the couple of features on the card which we do not hand over because you want the customers to realize, otherwise he will never gets into the operation. We continue to visit – Till he says why you are coming so often, it is at that point that we complete the installation and at that time we handover.
    It is at that point of time that you understand lot of things which are going over there. First and foremost you know we need to know what the points of expansion in the business are.  It is not to understand the customer business, but it is to understand where our future points of expansion are. It’s a small installation one is I can say god has given me small installation to this place. Other is to look at it and say where can I expand his business and in the process expand myself also. So, it helps us in the 25 days to understand where we can be, where the solution has to move, what are the kind of thing. So, we added a couple of solutions, which are totally not part of payment in this process when we understood from the customer, so it helps us there, for us it is a big thing, even it is painful we will have to visit the customer first 25 days at least every alternate day. Obviously it is a big installation we will have to park as on there of 4,5,6,7 hours a day. In the process we understand good amount of thing of the customer and that tells us what are the feature sets that we need to have? what is the pain points? what is the future expansion that can happen?. You pretty much bit understand the flow of transaction, whose blocking the process, whose helping the process, who are your early adopters. So there is lot of things that you understand at this point of time. That kind of helps us to define the features set.
    Sachi: Lot of aspiring entrepreneurs have questions on funding so – could you tell us how you organize your funding? 
    Shrinivas: As a background I think we lost about 5 and half months of time on funding. Before we had gone off this entire round, there were three things that we ensured.
    The first thing we said was at all points of time have sufficient capital to run the business one mistake should not turn the game. That helps because both of us are experience professionals to that extent we had sufficient of payments so that we could spend on the company.
    That the second what we did was we said that as founders may be will not pick up money from company as in charges but as founders we also will never cross a particular limit – that is we would not get into a situation of good money of the bad money. We drew a line of what you would invest. We had friends and family money always as a backup, there are commitment from friends and family due to us. Third we were in touch with some couple of angels who were really helpful in the whole process.
    Thanks to a confluence of things we wanted to pick up our first funding from NSRCEL, that got delayed extremely and the mistake that we made and this is the second big mistake that we made  one was obviously the whole process of super validation and seeking over the customers and customers starting of everything. This is the second mistake that we made was we didn’t know when to  say no to NSRCEL money and actually go to the angle who was pretty much saying come and take the money. Because he was happy with the traction and he didn’t wanted us to die for lack of money. I think we did a mistake there. Yeah, it didn’t kill us it hurt us but all that were same mistakes, something that will carry forward from this wrong.  One was the complete validation phase we kept on validating. Second one we were also turning all the stones to figure out where we can find funding. Because we knew that some time we would be going for big amount of funding. So one of the things that we did was we started looking out for money not   asking for money but looking out for money before there was a need. We are happy that point of time because crux comes to crux we can get about 10-12 months of money almost in weeks time into our bank account but do you want that No. No we don’t want that because – like ambulance coming to you early is good thing but actually calling it is early is not a good thing.
    Sachi: In the discussion you did mentioned about first mistake waiting for a customer. Could you just tell us bit about that?
    Shrinivas: We have three first customers all three of them like the product. All three of them are saying ya let’s do it. So, we are wearing the bride’s maid dress and marriage is not happening.
    Were we doing something wrong? Actually to say we are not doing anything wrong – we are good thing, we are adding value to the customers and customer are saying we are interested in you but guess what he is interested in his business I mean he is running his primary business. And there are days when I would to get frustrated and lets pick up the phone and like you know lets pursue and Hari would stop me , and there are days he would do that and I would stop him. We were like bride’s maid for for four and half months.
    Thats heck of lot of time, I mean like you know when you have product ready, everything is ready with you and you are dying to start of the race. And dam referee is not shooting the gun!.
    So you start wondering what’s happening. I don’t know unlike the funding part of which doesn’t mentioned is the second mistake which where we clear learning in terms of to do next time when we have a situation like this. Here I don’t know what to do? Thankfully, I have never been in the state again. Its learning but I don’t know I will apply it next time.
    Sachi: What is your message for other aspiring entrepreneurs?
     
    Shrinivas: I don’t know, whether we are to pass messages and give advice we need to have bank balance – Bank balance that has come from this operation.
    When you look back at whole journey right from the stage of  validating  the idea to this point of  time where we are saying hey we are doing X number of transactions that represent a valid like high number of  transactions per month kind of thing. The sheer number people would want to help you is phenomenal and to anybody who doesn’t start off and cannot understand what I am talking about – because number of people who are likely to laugh at you, and declare as you public hazard, trying to kill you by laughter for having propounded such a silly idea is so miniscule compared  to the number of guy who would actually go on a limb and help you with the things like where find a customer, where to find the technology help you on their area expertise, giving a general bit of advice, maintain your operations.
    It is phenomenal, for example I have friend of mine sitting in UAE and writing major amount of code for me for free. Why because somehow people will always help somebody who is taking a risk. It’s something that we always discount. It is when you start off that you realize – there are some really nice people who really love to help anybody who are taking risks.
    I call it good luck that will not be a part of business plan but ones you are start off their bound to be huge amount of good luck. There are I mean like there are lot of people who would like to help you. It is very heartening thing, it’s very non-monetary payoff for the whole thing, obviously in the start of thing talk about non-monetary pay off.
    Sachi: Thank you once again for being in this interview. Thank you.

  • Entrepreneur’s Interview – Edu next ventures – A Finishing School business

    Sachi: Good Morning, Swaroop and Vivek, Thanks for coming in for this interview. Swaroop and Vivek are founders of “edu-next ventures”, which operates in the education space. 
     
    I would like to begin the interview with getting to know your background briefly before you could proceed with what edu-next does.
    Swaroop: I am basically from Bangalore. I am a graduate of KREC Suratkal, and then I did my MBA from IIM Bangalore. I then worked with Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) as a consultant for a short while and then I moved to Dell Analytics where I worked in their marketing analytics team. We are now running this venture called Edu-Next which essentially a finishing school for business graduates. We have been working with business schools in India, to provide a careercounseling and mentorship to help students decide better as to what job they would get into and how do they mould themselves to ensure that they get the job.
    Vivek: Hi, this is Vivek and I am a graduate of KREC Suratkal,batch of 2006.
    Sachi:How did the idea of finishing school come to you?
    Vivek: During one of us when brainstorming at IIMB we decided that we would work in the space of education and for obvious reasons we landed at the idea of finishing schools – because it is right at the surface. We wanted to skim the surface first and then see how we can work in the other areas in education.
    In terms of how we came to the idea itself – India being a very competitive environment does not give enough time to people to think about what they want to do in life? or how they move forward? where they want to grow? What they want to do for the rest of their life?
    They are in a hurry and experience enormous peer pressure – thisdrives most career decisions. People do not reflect and think what they done in the past, what they are doing now and what is the personality type, what are their carrier goals, what they can do, what they can’t do, what are the strengths and so on. They approach placement and interviews in a rather unprepared or underprepared fashion. We have also gone experienced similar things.
    Individually for me the dilemma was – MBA or no MBA? Should I stick to my own domain or move to something else?How do I shift?What do I need to make this shift? Where do I shift to?These questions are commonplace –especially once people start working. So we want to address this first at the post graduation level and then move to even more impactful level – under graduate and then Pre-University.
    In an education driven society like ours, it’s very important for people to make the right decisions about where they want to be, so that they can deliver the best and not be unhappy about where they are, or the decisions they made.
    Swaroop: One of the reasons why we got into this space is that I am personally very passionate about education.
    I have also seen a lot of heart burn with my own batch mates in MBA who honestly felt very lost!We took the job we got out of campus. But somehow the ability to say this is what is important for me, this is the kind of person I am and this is what I want to choose is lacking even in the best Institutes – We want to reduce that heart burn.May be say after 5 years of working post MBA, how do you ensure that you are doing the right thing? How do you ensure you are happy?
    Thesearenot easy questions to answer! And each one has his own questions and must find his own answers. We are trying to use different ways to get students to think and make them ask themselves these questions – we provide a platform for them to make the right choice. This was the primary reason we started this venture.
    We alsorealize that sometime it’s too late at the MBA level to take these decisions – Probably they are better off beingmusicians. But that is the question we will answer later. Given that fact that you are doing a MBA, how do we help them to make better choice?
    Sachi: It was pretty clear about how you went about starting it. 
    You are targeting the PG section of the education system, and you also realize that most of the career choices are made at the +2 levels.How are you addressing that at the movement?
    Swaroop: We are not addressing that at the moment, because we need to learn a lot in that space.
    The approach would be slightly different because we still are in a society that promotes engineering because it give a job that pays Rs. 25,000/- or promotes being a doctor. What about being a physicist or mathematician or an artist or a star. While there is increase consciousness that people can have different kinds of career choices, we still are not mature enough to accept some of these things. We have to still figure out a way to address this problem.
    There is a sufficient heart burn in MBA world itself for us to address the problem and establish ourselves as a provider of quality career services or career guidance and then we will work at scaling it to other sections of education.
    Vivek: Primarily post graduation is one venuewhere you are not left with many choices– a PhD or a job. So there are very few things that you can have to choose from after post graduation,and that is where we are saying what choices they have made; learnmore about these people and then probably move to under graduation and others.
    Sachi: What is your vision for Edu-next?
    Swaroop: The first,I really want Edu-next to be a respected name in the space as – providers of quality career servicesand career guidance/ counseling. We have some challenges I would like to address.
    Firstly there is always a distribution in terms of quality of students. Our challenge is to understand this difference in inputs and be able to cater to the difference needs that different kinds of student have. If you take a tier one B-school and comparing with a tier four B-school, the expectations from the course, what is available after the course are so different. We cannot apply the same logic everywhere. So for us able to figure out how to suggest the correct thing for a person is one challenge that I would like to address, and that would go a long way in building our reputation.
    The second thing is we are inherently a very people driven business. The biggest problem is how do you scale something like this? Can you build enough tools and bring in enough technology so that sitting out of one city in India we are able to reach a large population. How do you start adapting to different contexts – I don’t even want to restrict it to India, how do you address somebody in US or Brazil or NewZealand?We want to make it a very large forum for people to come and get this service. That is what I am really looking at from the ‘B’ school angle.As far as rest is concerned it is still work in progress, we will keep you posted.
    Sachi: This question is not directly related to edu-next but would love to ask you – What motivated you to be entrepreneurs?
    Vivek: I will be very candid about this. Soon after Engineering, it is a lot of multi pronged peer pressure that you see. Friends went on to do M.S, went on to do MBA and other things – some studied Mathematics, some stuck to their own domain and completed their masters and somebody else doing PhD and othersstuck to their own job. The people in the job would slog it out from 9 to 5 and go out on weekends – Even I went through the same things straight of college. We worked hard and but still like everybody else who has hungry to do more, especially from a college like ours. We had to do something more to satisfy – Probably do much more than what we are doing at present.
    MBA? M.S? I asked all these questions to myself and I could not answer most of them well – after a post graduation what next?And given the personal choices that I have made such as where I want to stay, what I want to do and amongst other things, it was not an easy decision to make. Entrepreneurship was also a buzz word during an early 2000, and is even now. We just dabbled with few things – trying to do that, trying to do this. It was more experimental, not knowing where the journey will go.
    Being a first generation entrepreneur, it is not very easy to push yourselfto quit your job or do something of your own. Soon I started enjoying the process and not knowing where I to go, itself was fun. You can push yourself that much harder in not in terms of effort but in terms of how much we can take? How many things you can give up?
    You generally compare yourself with peers who after MBA buying cars left right and center, Going to the Dalal Street and getting their pay packages. You are still stuck between a Volvo bus and a BMTC normal bus or even an auto rickshaw because you cannot afford to.So this is a hard decision to make. But that is what probably is the right choice! You know once you have made the right choice.I think you will have to experiment a little, not everyone is sure what they want to do unless they try different things. So I started doing whatever I have to do being my own.
    Swaroop: I am a crazy control freak!  I cannot work for any one. Money is an obvious issue, we will all make money eventually. A very close friend of mine says “we will all die rich”. I have immense faith in his statement. So money is a motivator, as is the immense wealth to be created as part of running your own business but I think the greatest kick is that “I decide what happens to my company, my fortunes”. That is the primary reason why I started off on my own. Opportunity wiseI didn’t have any problem; I could have gotten any job I wanted but that wasn’t what I was looking for.
    Sachi: In your journey of entrepreneurship, what are the learning that you havethis far?
    Vivek: I would like to keep it extremely crisp– In terms of the learning, know what you are trying to do, have the right people with you, stay in touch with all your friends especially entrepreneurs who have taken the off-beat route, because they are the one who can talk with and probably you can relate to. It is extremely important to prioritize as an entrepreneur.
    Swaroop: It is ok to not know really where you are headed to and you will figure out along the way. The most important thing is to ensure that working with people who are right for you. There are certain kind of people whom you can work with and certain kind of people you cannot!From personal experience I can tell you that it is very important to choose your team right. It is a good team that can pull off anything.
    The other thing is you have to build good will along the way. It is very difficult especially when you have graduated from a top tier Institute.You tend to come with this baggage of entitlement, I am from here, and I have to be given this. Very quickly I have learnt that unless you have something of value and you can prove it, nobody is going to give a damn that you are from certain Institute, or you have gotten a certain degree. It’s humbling in that sense and I am better off now. I am very happy I got rid of my excess baggage that all good institutes put on to you when you graduate and that’s been the best learning so far.
    Sachi: What is your message for aspiring entrepreneur?
     
    Swaroop: Like they say, the fastest way to solve a problem is right through it.Unless you get in, you are never going to solve the problem.I know lot of people who sit at the dinner table and say, I have got this brilliant idea, I have got the excel sheets, I have got the ppt, I know the VC and all that – but you just frustrate yourself out! Sitting with all the plans and complaining about how corporate life is not or you.
    But If you are not goingto jump in and do it, it’s not going to happen. You have to have reasonable plans etc all that jazz would be there,but the tipping point is to say, I am going to get out tomorrow, I am going do this for a while and make sure it works.
    We have tried this part time and it doesn’t really work.We have to do it full time and give it what is due. And at least I realize, the faster you get in, the easier it is – because, as you get older, fatter and slower and richer, entrepreneurship becomes more and more difficult. It is like trek to Manasa sorovar. It is best done when you are fifteen. We could possibly do it only by 30. Anything later you might succumb to heart attack, so do it quickly.
     Vivek: I have two things,
    One – If you have worked in a corporate set up before, and learnt to de-jargonize. Big organizations jargonize to prove their worth! Keep it simple.
    Second- Do not fall into the trap of theory of entrepreneurship. If you have a good idea and you think you can pull it off and if you can prove to yourself that you can do it – Forget the scaling, forget everything else. I mean, how would it grow? Will it become a billion dollars business? All such similar questions – probably a hundred of them. The first starting point is you need to be convinced about the idea itself. These points might have been studied, but don’t go by the book at times, do it yourself. It is ok to go off the book that you can always come back and join later on.
    Sachi: Thank you Swaroop and Vivek for this wonderful interview.

  • Entrepreneur Interview – Transitainment Ventures

    Sachi: Thanks Nithin for accepting to come down here, for this interview. I would like to begin the interview with a brief background about you and then explain about what you company – Transitainment does.
    Nithin: I am basically a computer engineer, Graduated from NITK Suratkal in 2007, and I worked for some time in product R&D with National Instruments. Post that I completed my MBA from IIM Bangalore. It was after the MBA that I decided to start something on my own. Right now I am running a start up called ‘Transitainmenet Ventures’. We are focused on the travelling consumer. A lot of people now are spending an increasingly large amount of time commuting to work and they are really not doing anything during that time. So we thought of accessing this customer while they are travelling and do interesting things around it.
    Sachi: You just told you “decided” to start off, was it that you all of a sudden decided to start off or you always nurtured the aspiration to start off?
     
    Nithin: I think everyone in India has an aspiration to start a business of their own. Rather than a question of “If”, Its more a question of “when?” A lot of people have reason that this is not probably the right time to start; I will do it later, when I have some money and  when I am more secure etc… My reason was very simple. At this point of time I really don’t have a lot of personal commitment and the hunger is there. Also India is growing market now with tremendous opportunities everywhere. Very soon get a lot of these opportunity will get closed up. Right now there is a lot more room to do funky things. You go a decade later and I think the number of opportunities would be much considerably less than now. I maybe wrong, but I guess if it helps me keep my mind clear, so be it.
    Sachi: I understand that you started off from a personal angle of saying it is ‘NOW’. How did you team receive this? How did you go about forming your team that way? 
    Nithin: When I started really? The idea hit me in a bus. When I was just going around in a bus, I was really bored and I saw the other 50 people in the bus were just staring into the blue sky. I said there is something here.
    Then, we thought “OK, In that case, What can we do around it?” and we discussed it out. But then the current team that we have now is different than the team we started off with. Lots of things happen and the team kind of evolves over a period of time. Right now, what we have is a well evolved team I would say. It had come together in a process of time. The team I don’t think happens one day or overnight – It never does. A lot of conflicts of interests happen and it needs to mature after sometime, interests have to align. So it takes some time, for us I think it took about six month to eight months. That is when the team actually came together
    Sachi: So how did the team actually evolve?
    Nithin: There were three guys actually to start off with. There was me, and there were two other people from IIMB. When this idea came in they also got interested and they said there were some people whom they knew who could pitch in. Then we started working for some time and technology was kind of evolving. As the technology evolved, what I did was I got a lot of people with whom I worked with, I went to my school with and went to my college with to informal chats about the idea, during lunch, dinner etc..I wasn’t asking if they would join. I was just getting their inputs. You kind of involve people, they also evaluate your idea, and you also get comfortable with them. So this is kind of how we evolved.
    As I said everyone has an aspiration to be a part of something exciting, It is just a question of finding the match. So more you can talk and more you kind of work with people, the more chances that you hit the right people . That’s exactly what we did.
    Sachi: Fine, That’s one part of it the puzzle, So the next one is the money part it.  I understand that your business is an extremely different kind of business – in terms of it being extremely innovative, So I see that money would be a challenge. So how did you go about fixing the money aspect of it?
    Nithin:  Money… humm…I have a belief that early stage business in India, the early stage finance ecosystem in India is not very well developed.
    I think it’s got be the interest rate arbitrage. In the US, it’s a 4% reign, or it’s really a 0% reign and in India it’s a 10% reign. All these banks and VCs etc have access to capital from the developed nation, where the expectation of returns is very low. When it comes to India, even if you put the capital in a risk free bond you get 10%. So what happens here is that you have access to alternate lower risk investments, where the VC industry can actually make money from. So the money that actually trickles down to early stage start ups, which are really high risk high returns kind of a game, is very low. So there are very few players around. It is more or less the incubation centers in the IIMs, IITs etc and some small funds that are around. So we are kind of working with a few people right now. I don’t think the change will happen immediately in India, it will take some time.
    Sachi: With the Money aspect taken care of let me get to the consumer aspect of it. Could you talk about the end consumer of your platform and the intermediary that comes in your business? How did you about acquiring in that? 
    Nithin: That I think we had much less problem here because the  need was there. When you are travelling you are really stressed out and really wanted do something.
    But in our business, you will have to build partnership in multiple places. But that it was much simpler than what we thought it would be. You go and tell a story, the value proportion, in a simple crisp manner.
    But the real deal in this start up is not getting the one customer, it is really getting the entire partnership going together. You go and sell to one guy one story, to another guy another story and third guy another story. But the only person who knows the entire story is you and you got to put it together in a manner that everyone is happy, that is when the value is created.
    Sachi: Ok, So that covers the 3 portions of any of business you can think off – the money, the people and the paying customer. Let’s get to saying what the biggest challenge is that you faced in the way you formed the business. Being around 10 months old what are the big challenges you have faced?
    Nithin: The first thing is that the wind blows in some direction right? Currently the wind is connectivity. You are on the Internet – everything is connected. Our business is kind of disconnecting it! Our business is to disconnect it and make it cheaper. Disconnect the content   purely from a delivery point of view and make it cheaper.
    The technology is not really not going with wind per say. We are challenging lot of thing. It will take a lot of time for people in the ecosystem to omprehend. It’s the same thing for everybody. When Flipkart started, people said that … e-commerce is dead etc, noone saw the larger story of what they were trying to do. There is a certain amount of conviction that you need, in your idea, in the thing you are doing.. Its also imp not be bogged by someone telling you that the story is not right. Because he/she is not supposed to understand the story, only you are, the complete story atleast. And if the story is that obvious people would’ve done it already .It is a nice dichotomy actually: “if there is an obvious business around, I don’t think there is business there, because someone has done it already.” and if there is no obvious business around, then lot people will oppose you. So the very fact that a lot of people are telling you and opposing you means that you see something that they don’t.  And if you see it, that’s where the value is. That is where the challenge really is, You have to be that convinced, you have to be head strong sometime, that stubborn sometimes, and tell that ‘NO’ this is there – kind of thing. You will finally find the partners it will just take time.
    Sachi: How are you going about the vision that created for your company? What is the vision, If may I ask you that way?
    Nithin: The vision is really is, we simply started with a need and vision is really not the technology. Our vision is still the need, that – “go and engage the travelling customers” that’s it. A person, who was travelling now is doing nothing – engage him. That will reduce the stress and it will make travel all the more comfortable and it’ll increase the quality of living. It will make money for everybody. That is the real value we are trying to create. In Technology we are doing multiple things. And I am pretty sure that technology will change. We cannot stick to one technology. We say stick to the customer and do whatever possible to engage the customer that’s it. That’s our motto.
    Sachi: That is pretty interesting. If I may ask you, what is your biggest inspiration to start off that way?
    Nithin: I really don’t think that’s hard! It’s Money really…  You know finally everyone wants to make a lots of money and retire early and all those things. that is always there. But then also things like working for your own. There is lot of fun in doing something, that actually challenges you that much.  It is extremely challenging and  mentally exhausting – this start ups. You are  fire fighting everywhere and at the same time fighting a lot of people… There is a natural high there.
    Sachi: What would you like to tell to any aspiring entrepreneurs? 
    Nithin:  “Stop aspiring start doing” that is the only way of starting anything – People can you tell you hundred different things. The fundamental thing about a start up is that you need to do something different. The moment you are following somebody you are doing something wrong. You are not doing justice to entrepreneurship. Just start and figure things along the way, its good fun.
    Sachi: Thank you Nithin for taking time for the interview thank a lot.

  • Interview – Plan my health – A student run venture @ NSRCEL IIMB

    Sachi: Good evening Sandeep and Abhay, thanks for coming on to this interview. This is the first in the series of entrepreneur interview that I intent to take. To begin with, I would like you to tell us a brief background about yourself and then follow it with giving us an update about your company.
    Abhay: Basically I completed my graduation from NITK Suratkal in 2008, then after that I have worked for a startup which is a start up funded by Accel partners. They are a team from IITs and IIM. One of the reasons I was working with them was to understand how businesses run and started from scratch. Basically my interest in working was my interest in entrepreneurship. I worked there for around three years and then I’ll started this, co-founded this venture called planmyhealth.com along with my colleague. This much is my background.
    Sandeep: Hi all, My name is Sandeep Raj, I am a Mechanical Engineer from  PSG Tech. and post which I worked in a company called Ashok Leyland – one of  Premier automobile manufacturers in India and then after that I am doing my post graduate programme in management now. I am in the second year right now. This is my resume background, and then to tell about more about me, so I have more passion about a lot of things. One of course is the organizing things that I did right from college. Post that after my engineering group of friends started an education start up, We went to some second tier engineering colleges, and taught some people there, and this motivated me that yes even we have a capacity to do something my own and entrepreneurship is not really an unknown region where no one can really enter into – I got such a feeling post that. And post that in IIM Bangalore, I was fortunate enough to be in one of the key organizing members of the Business Festival here, I mean it gave me a wide opportunity to interact with a lot of corporate people and new entrepreneurs, based on which I decided ki, if this is not the time, I wouldn’t get a better time to start up a company.  So I came across my friend and started up company together, and it’s been doing pretty well for the past 6 months. So this is a short background about me
    Sachi: Could you tell what your company does?
    Sandeep: Basically, we are into the online healthcare space. We started the company to provide full information on diagnostic to whoever accesses our website, but then slowly move on into a kind of home diagnostic delivery model. So what we basically do is, anyone in Bangalore can give us a call or book online, any kind of diagnostic test they want. What we do is, we send the phlebotomist to collect the blood samples to the person who has booked the service, when we offer a wide range of options to the customer as well.  Like, the customer can choose which lab he wants to give his blood samples to, and then once the blood samples is delivered to particular lab; we get back the report and give it to the particular patient whoever has asked for the service. There are two modes of operation right now, one is the corporate model and the other one is the apartment model. In the apartment model what we do is, we go there not on a week day but weekend or any public holiday so that many people are available, and then we do sufficient promotion for over a period spanning one week or two week and whoever wants to a preventive health care or regular diagnostic test can contact us. We then, we enable the diagnostic test to be done right at their doorsteps. This is the one of the core value in the offerings. In the corporate model we haven’t tried it out fully, what we plan to do is – offer a host of wellness packages to the corporate employees there.  What we want to do is not just to be the diagnostic provider there, we want to be on the lines of someone who can really take care of issue like employee wellness, the employee motivation, kind of have some target for them – health targets. We will be focusing more on the health goals of the companies, which is currently lacking, in the short survey by us in and around Bangalore. What we found out is that people give least importance to health. We would like to one of their health partner not just diagnostic partners and take up the entire health and well being of their employees – which we feel that taking care of health is the prime most importance and health comes before anything else. So we want to motivate employees through that route.
    Sachi: Something that I found interesting is that you both are Engineering background, why did you choose health care as your space?
    Abhay: Well with my past experience care, when I was working in the last start up, I got a chance to work in the diagnostic space especially, and we figures that is a space which is a little unstructured with respect to customer needs. The way the current services is delivered by diagnostic labs and the convenience that is provided to them, it is not very promising. That is one gap we observed, we studied in fact, did a survey, met people in hospitals, diagnostic labs and we figured. And we figured after doing this study that there is lot of issues which could be addresses, and diagonostic services could be made really smooth and structured. And ya we have definitely been able to achieve it to an extent. We are looking to make it better.
    Sachi: Another interesting thing is, You are from Surathkal and he is from PGS Tech which is more South right! How do you people get to meet people each other?
    Sandeep: Basically we got a chance to meet during our CAT coaching classes which was in Coimbatore. So, post that he moved on to Bangalore, and I also came to IIM Bangalore. We were constantly in touch and discussing few ideas about what could work out and what not? and then like basically the idea of starting a company as such and we never thought that we were going to be partners. Just wanted to tryout, just experiment something and then decide what to do later. I was always of the mentality that nothing be decided in the first step. It is always like dancing, In a dance, you take the first step; your partner takes the second step – that’s how you carry it forward. So we thought anything is a good learning experience, and it was evident from whatever has been my experience from under-graduation and post graduation. So trying out new is definitely going to be a new experience, which not most people would have an opportunity to try out. So then we thought based on our time commitments, like I had to manage my studies as well but Abhay was ready to work on it full time. Then we thought, if we are starting a company we have to be really serious about it, We are operating in a space which is very critical – health care. So not many would consider this – like if its pizza delivery if it’s half an hour late or one hour late, people are just going to do away with it. It needs kind of a permanent commitment from someone so I thought; Abhay would be a good match. Knowing him since past 2-3 years, I know he is quite sincere in whatever he does, so I thought this would be a good combination.
    To put in Sunil Hande’s words – who has been one of my biggest inspirers, What he said was – Whenever you are forming a team, the ideal size of the team should be two. Make sure that your functionalities or specialties don’t overlap with each other.  You choose a field in which, you choose a partner in who exactly complements whatever you have. In the sense that if you are good at marketing your other partner should be good at finance, or If you are good in the sales part, the delivery part the other one should be good in operations part and knowing the local flavor and things like that. So we thought we are a good combination and we have the potential to pull it through. So this was one of the main motivations.
    Sachi: The last part of its saying one complementing another, so let me ask you how you complement each other?
    Abhay:  With time we have been able to figure out as to what roles we would take going forward going forward. Right now, with respect to operations, I am taking care of the operations and Sandeep is taking care of marketing part of it. And in fact there has been lot of inputs with respect to, Sandeep’s acads and there has been guidance from IIM Bangalore also. The kind of academic inputs he has got from there and the kind of intellectual inputs from our side, our own studies, our own observations and execution of operational issues We together have been working on it, It has been going great.
    Sandeep: Just to add to what Abhay has told Initially we were totally clueless about what is our role what is our part – I would come back to the point again – if you don’t know something just try it. Initially we started off our pilot operations in August, we were running around, I was missing classes so, but then I find it totally worthwhile an experience. I completely know my strengths right now. In the sense – it might be an over statement but I am pretty sure that compared to around six months back, I now know my strengths far better.
    Sachi: Could you tell us why to choose health care as a sector? 
    Sandeep: To tell about why did chose health care as a sector, basically I wanted to be a doctor but then I had to forego it due to academic reasons. I also realized that one of my main motivations was to offer convenience to the customer in which ever segment we operate. We were also closely evaluating some of the segment that were not tapped – examining things like education, retail and these had sufficient innovation there. But then, in the healthcare space we surprisingly found that in-spite of there being such a huge need, not much of innovations has happened or, service delivery improvement has been done.  We then thought this is a good segment for us to operate on, and considering the fact that India is a huge country and lot of people need health services – especially elderly people and others in real need. Right now, it might be fascinating to order something from flipkart, but when you realize it, it’s not really an important need. You can always go to the book shop and buy books that you are ordering interest of ordering it on flipkart. Whereas in health care, there are people who can’t even walk or, they don’t have caretakers. So for them we wanted to offer some service offering. May be it started off with a social mindset – let’s start with a service and then take it forward. And then we decided, since we were offering a service, let’s put a service charge and we were giving good businesses to labs and hospitals, then we said, we will get some commission from them and then it evolved as a business. So it is basically a stage from ground zero to level one I would say, And then based on continuous search for business opportunities as well as realizing the fact that there is a good need in this segment, Then we decided to get into healthcare.
    Sachi: What other sectors did u evaluate?
    Sandeep: Other businesses, ya like I was saying, one of important things for startup company is that you are making sure that you are not observed in the bigger picture. For example, If we are go and operate in a retail space of something there is always a possibility that some bigger retail payer is going to come to market or he is going to observe me. We don’t have cash also. But then, evaluating this business model what we found was we were not getting into any other person’s shoes, We are pretty much on our own. In the entire value chain of the entire health segment, you are just another value provider. None of the others saw us as a competitor or something. That way we thought, compared to other segment, where we could potentially cut the value chain and be a primary value chain provided, we now we operate as a secondary value chain provider, pretty much complementing all our stakeholders – that is the doctors, the clinics, patients
    Sachi: What is your message that you want to give to anybody who is aspiring to be entrepreneur?
    Abhay: The first thing I would like to suggest is to become an entrepreneur, you need a vision. That is the biggest motivation. If you have some dream to make it big, If you are really passionate about doing something of your own, It might not only be a financial dream but it might be a passion of doing things for yourself, and making a mark in life. Apart from that Once you are into the game, once you have started something and we are working on it, we need to be focused. And definitely you need good guidance, you need people around, whom able to guide you, mentor you well. Fortunately we have got support from NSRCEL mentors and we have been doing well on that front. Apart from that, commitment – where, you know what exact actually you are doing, and you are actually executing it.
    Sandeep: Yea, my message on lines of entrepreneur would be, one of my Professor quotes I would say. What Professor Want says is “If you want to start a something don’t just wait for the right idea, the right idea is never going to strike, at 3AM in the morning or at whatever time. So it’s always about trying out something, and then experimenting with it and improvising it. So I would say always go for it, even if you have 1% motivation to be an entrepreneur, just go for it. To be little contrary to what my partner said, you really need a vision or you really need a big dream – even if you have 1% inclination, even if some part of your body says, – “why am I not the right guy to try it out?” Just go on – hit the road.  It might even be the smallest of things, so you would have heard the story of Mr. Sharath from IIMA. He was a student of IIMA but then he still used to sell tea to his own classmates. How many of us have the motivation to do it? We would think there is an ego issue and all that, what he would have had in his mind are – he wants to try out things. It is the same message I want to say as well. Start off something small; never really say it is small. Whatever you might start of you never really know if it is a big idea that is coming off? So once you hit the field, you might be in a better position to judge if this is the right path for you? Or whether you can take it forward?
    Sachi: Thanks Sandeep, Thanks Abhay for your time.