Yesterday's CEO today's entrepreneur
The slowdown was just the kick-start that most of these dyed-in-the-wool corporate honchos needed to fulfill their dream of starting up on their own.
Print Edition: May 17, 2009
There is such a thing as a natural-born entrepreneur. But the accidental entrepreneur like me has to fall into the opportunity or be pushed into it.
— Gordon Moore, Co-founder & Chairman Emeritus, Intel Corporation
No two successful entrepreneurs follow the same path—which is most often an untried one—but, like Moore, many of them stumble into an opportunity. Or they are pushed into it, by circumstance or happenstance. The entrepreneurs that BT has lined up in this feature have been pushed into starting up, perhaps, by accident, but in circumstances that are totally different from those that graduating whizkids (like Moore) are confronted with. These men who have chosen to start up are doing so at a time when the economy is in the vice-like grip of a stinging slowdown—and a few of them may actually also be victims of the gloom. More significantly, these entrepreneurs aren’t exactly tender feet in the hurly-burly world of business. Rather, they’re all seasoned corporate honchos with decades of experience. They’ve also risen from the ranks and played a decisive role in building and nurturing marquee brands such as ICICI, Citi, Sony and Mudra.
Being associated with such big names has its advantages. But, perhaps, the biggest change is that they don’t have the backing of a large corporation now. They have to put their own money where their mouth is. And they have to build teams from scratch. What better way to do it than to begin at the home itself. Besides using their expansive apartments as their headquarters—at least temporarily—some of them are relying on synergies with their partners at home, their wives. Result? An IT veteran conjures up a biotechnology venture with more than a little inspiration from his spouse, who has her own genetic centre.
And there’s a former adman, who has built pretty much an original business model that leans heavily on his psychotherapist wife’s therapeutic talents. Along with wives, former colleagues are also being drafted in to constitute the core team. In one case, the inspiration for a start-up comes from the earlier job— so a former employer now has competition from a former employee! And there’s also an expatriate on this list, who has, in his over four years in India, learnt every trick in the book—and a few that you won’t find in any book—which he expects to come in handy when consulting foreign firms that are seeking to set up an Indian outpost.
The six men and their ventures in this feature are just a sampler of the action that’s playing out across the country. Other than the ones that we have chosen—Arpit Agarwal, Partho Dasgupta, Deepak Ghaisas, Chandradeep Mitra, Ravi Sharma and Sylvain Bilaine—there are other chief executives stepping out to start up. For instance, there’s Raju Venkatraman, a former Joint MD & COO of Firstsource Solutions, a business process outsourcing firm, who is pursuing a foray into rural healthcare. Then, there’s Ajay Relan, a former head of Citi’s private equity arm, who left in the middle of 2008 and who is now trying his hand at building his own private equity venture. The high-profile Kunal Dasgupta, till recently with Sony Entertainment, is also gearing up to go it alone, although he feels it is too premature to disclose what he has up his sleeve.
Clearly, downturns may be a time of reduced economic activity, but not for self-starting entrepreneurs, who’ve got business plans to write, office spaces to pick up (at mouth-watering rates) and teams to put together (by offering level-headed pay packets). And it’s not only high-flying honchos who have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. A clutch of youngsters— perhaps disillusioned by dwindling pay packets—is ploughing an entrepreneurial furrow (see Greenhorn Entrepreneurs). As are engineering and B-school graduates, who have realised that there’s little choice but to start up when the job market goes into hibernation (see Campus Interview? No Thanks!).
— Gordon Moore, Co-founder & Chairman Emeritus, Intel Corporation
No two successful entrepreneurs follow the same path—which is most often an untried one—but, like Moore, many of them stumble into an opportunity. Or they are pushed into it, by circumstance or happenstance. The entrepreneurs that BT has lined up in this feature have been pushed into starting up, perhaps, by accident, but in circumstances that are totally different from those that graduating whizkids (like Moore) are confronted with. These men who have chosen to start up are doing so at a time when the economy is in the vice-like grip of a stinging slowdown—and a few of them may actually also be victims of the gloom. More significantly, these entrepreneurs aren’t exactly tender feet in the hurly-burly world of business. Rather, they’re all seasoned corporate honchos with decades of experience. They’ve also risen from the ranks and played a decisive role in building and nurturing marquee brands such as ICICI, Citi, Sony and Mudra.
Being associated with such big names has its advantages. But, perhaps, the biggest change is that they don’t have the backing of a large corporation now. They have to put their own money where their mouth is. And they have to build teams from scratch. What better way to do it than to begin at the home itself. Besides using their expansive apartments as their headquarters—at least temporarily—some of them are relying on synergies with their partners at home, their wives. Result? An IT veteran conjures up a biotechnology venture with more than a little inspiration from his spouse, who has her own genetic centre.
And there’s a former adman, who has built pretty much an original business model that leans heavily on his psychotherapist wife’s therapeutic talents. Along with wives, former colleagues are also being drafted in to constitute the core team. In one case, the inspiration for a start-up comes from the earlier job— so a former employer now has competition from a former employee! And there’s also an expatriate on this list, who has, in his over four years in India, learnt every trick in the book—and a few that you won’t find in any book—which he expects to come in handy when consulting foreign firms that are seeking to set up an Indian outpost.
It’s time to take the plunge |
Clearly, downturns may be a time of reduced economic activity, but not for self-starting entrepreneurs, who’ve got business plans to write, office spaces to pick up (at mouth-watering rates) and teams to put together (by offering level-headed pay packets). And it’s not only high-flying honchos who have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. A clutch of youngsters— perhaps disillusioned by dwindling pay packets—is ploughing an entrepreneurial furrow (see Greenhorn Entrepreneurs). As are engineering and B-school graduates, who have realised that there’s little choice but to start up when the job market goes into hibernation (see Campus Interview? No Thanks!).
