What was the problem you were grappling with?
There are certain instances where you would think multi-fold before taking a decision. During our IPO, I was in a similar sort of dilemma. I wanted to have expert advice on whether to expand into hospitality as a vertical or invest more in the amusement park.
How did you approach it?
I still feel the advice that I had got at that point helped me big time. If we had diversified at that stage, we would be starting in a new field from scratch. That means achieving mastery in that field would have taken much longer and resulted in delayed returns on investments.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
The best advice I got is from the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell... [The advice] is to achieve mastery over something, one needs to put in a large amount of time, [say] about 10,000 hours. It is something that I have constantly echoed to myself and tried to inculcate in my life.
How effective was it in resolving the problem?
I immediately got the answer to my dilemma. We were already in the amusement park sector for 12-plus years, and we had achieved some level of mastery in the field. I had to focus on that and put in all my efforts to go ahead. That led to our plans to build more parks in Hyderabad and Chennai and the successful IPO eventually.