The Entrepreneurship Post 2

In my second post I will concentrate on issues which surround entrepreneurs in the present age rather than the past.

Why should I think about entrepreneurship right now? I am in college and there is plenty of time in life to gain experience and maybe then think about opening a company ?

No , it’s the wrong way to think. Now that you are in a college you are surrounded by able and like-minded people and if you are in a top college you have superb opportunities for networking and finding out about the industry that you wish to target.
1. The initiative will die down with due time and the idea will fizzle out with the course of monotony. And at the age of 40 even if you become a successful investment banker you will look at these very years and say “What if”. Like Mr Satya Prabhakar,our college alumni who went on to open Crosswords a retail book store chain, said “Entrepreneurship will remain in your heart like a girl you never asked out in college”
2. Nobody is asking you to open a company right out of college, like Mr Gates or Mr. Brin did. But you should use these college years to gain exposure to this industry and be able to network with people , an opportunity you may never have again in your life.

I don’t think I need an MBA for being an entrepreneur, right ?

Yes you are right , you don’t ! But then you do not need a Phd to be a scientist do you ? After all what is there in a degree. If you can set your heart to do something there is nothing that can stop you. But this is how an MBA from a top institute or a specific degree in entrepreneurial studies might help you.
1. Networking – If you get an admission to a top college you will be mixing and working with top professionals and faculty who have acres of more experience than you and will be an ample opportunity to get mentored under them or just plain learn from them. Plus with a vast repertoire of contacts you will have gained they will come I very handy at every step of converting your idea to a venture.
2. Holistic Learning – There is no substitute to learning the basic tenets of a business/company. Experience can teach a lot but you will be in a better position to tackle problems if you have studied all aspects, HR, marketing and finance . Plus case study models and internships in companies will help acquire healthy experience so it will not be missing out on much.
3. If you gain admission to a top college , you will be exposed to an excellent peer which will bring out the best in you and who knows you might just bump into someone looking for the same thing in life as you –entrepreneurship. After all Mr. Brin did meet Mr. Page in the same university !
4. Most colleges themselves have excellent support for budding entrepreneurs and NSRCEL of IIMB is such an example. So there will be no lack of resources or guidance as such.

The Entrepreneurship Post 1

Whenever I have tried to talk to someone about entrpreneurship , ive always had the same reaction – the same “Too Fundu for me” face followed of course by utter disinterest. So this time around when I am writing in a blog , I’ll keep a question answer format. The questions are the most common ones which revolve around entrepreneurship in india. Please read the question , look away and think about it in your own terms and then read my opinion, I repeat, just my opinion. And I would be glad if you could add yours.
Why is that companies keep springing up in the West and not in India ? Why is entrepreneurship culture so highly developed there but not in India ?

At the outset I would like to say that it is not entirely true in the very modern age. Entreprenuership is catching is catching up fast in india and startups are sprouting up everywhere. There is a buzz about incubators and venture capitalists that is hard to miss.
So now we get back to why did we miss the bus during the dotcom revolution or the IT revolution etc.
1. West has always provided fantastic infrastructure and has always been ahead of us in “growth” and pure growth. For entrepreneurship to be a culture in a country, having access to the latest technology and knowhow is a must. An innovation will not remain so in a business venture unless it is sustained by state-of-the-art infrastructure.
2. We were not rich enough ! Simply put we did not have a flurry of venture capitalists and incubators or even the Government to fund us until the economic reforms of the early 90s came into place. Without the money an idea always remains just an idea.
3. The environment was not at all conducive. We had the License Raj and red-tapism that existed at every level. Just “opening a business” meant greasing the palms of politicians to bureaucrats(for permissions) to policemen to local ganglords( for operation). Very few businesses survived such harsh conditions with declining profit margins and if you had to open a company, with the import-export limits and taxes that we had, only the best of the best survived and became known as the Tatas and the Birlas.
4. The west had one of the best education centres of the world . With top colleges sprinkled like raisins on cupcakes, everyone had access to every kind of information which was pivotal to survival.
That’s it for now. More in my next post.