Entrepreneurship and the Marathon

Entrepreneurship and the Marathon

I know many people in their talks, essays and articles keep comparing entrepreneurship to running long distances or what we say marathons. Many a times I used to wonder why, I myself is a avid long distance runner – used to run 20kms and not I have sort of scaled down to 10, nevertheless long distance and I had an opportunity to do the same today too and this thought occurred to me again and I started drawing similarities.

I do three different kinds of runs depending on where I do or when I do. I do sometimes treadmill running, sometimes in a big ground where I run few rounds or sometimes I just run across the town. Even though all three are tough in their own ways I think there is a huge difference between them. Running long distances like any rigorous work, is as much physical as mental. One needs to be very strong physically as well as mentally. I have seen that in treadmill running there is always an option to stop when either your body or the mind says enough for now, excuses can be many and you are exactly where you started and hence generally exit option as I call, is right there and you stop many a times at the slightest of the fatigue or a hint to quit. Where as in circle running these tendencies are there but at an average of ½ the circle is what you need to run to get back to where you started whenever you feel like stopping. Again exit option is there to take whenever you want. Whereas across the town running does not throw this option and when you are doing this you don’t even get distracted nor you even look into the watch or anything, only thing you know is that you need to reach the destination and you don’t have an exit option waiting like in the other two options and still better, you don’t even have that exit option in your mind, all you think and know is the destination, period. I guess this is what I call the high performance entrepreneurship, you are so deep into it, you don’t have and don’t even consider any exit options and you just see the destination and run for it. While doing ofcourse you hit many occasions of downs and fatigues where you would have taken the exit option if you were tread milling but not in across the town run, that’s the beauty of it. You have just have to jump deep, deep enough so that you don’t have exit options other than reaching the destination and that way you don’t keep any exit options but the desired goal in the mind. A story comes to my mind wherein the attackers used to burn their boats after they cross the river and the only option is to win the war and return – killing all exit options other than the desired one. I guess this attribute is what makes an entrepreneur, the real high performance entrepreneur. It is very tough but that’s how the game is played. This recession will be a litmus test for the entrepreneurs especially of the emerging community I believe.

Andy Grover’s “Only the paranoid will survive” talks mainly about how deeply you are involved and is the final and the only measure of success or better word he uses is the survival. Even Bagchi in his book “The High performance Entrepreneur” talks about not to even think about the exit options. If you have a backup plan or an exit option, your mind tunes to it and it always takes the easy option.

Talking about Entrepreneurship remind me about the lecture I gave recently on “Entrepreneurship” in my Alma Mater, UVCE (University Visvesvariah College of engineering) which is part of Bangalore University, where I did my BE in Computer Science, way back in 1991 (Aug 1987 to Aug 1991). I was amazed by seeing that hunger, the energy and the enthusiasm in their eyes. The kind of exposure they have is unlimited. Our days entrepreneurs are well known for the IT services industry and I am sure the next gen entrepreneurs will answer the question of “Will there ever be an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google from India?” This question keeps popping to me always. I was recently giving a speech in California mainly about India and the opportunities we have over here and one of the questions that came up from the audience was that will we remain the IT Services guys or will there ever be an Apple or a Microsoft or a Google from India? Not sure whether I gave a convincing reply but that kept on lingering in my mind and I am sure the day is not too far and you never know, the recession might be a blessing in disguise in a way for us to huddle together and start working on revolutionary ideas, but after seeing those students I am sure the days are not too far.

 Digressing again, I feel there are lot of opportunities in India itself in a way which is making the west look in our direction. We at S7 Software, were considering on how to capitalize the growing Indian market and I picked up a book about Indian amrket in a US airport (always good to see the market in someone else’s perspective and then you add your own and the result should be something very close to what it is). The book title is “Riding the Indian Tiger” – seems a  reasonable good book and I am sure that those in the west you are planning to foray into India will find this book very resourceful and some of the facts he has put about India is really amazing and let me share the same with you all here:

 

·         30 to 40% of all India’s produce is lost in the supply chain (great opportunity here)

·         India has a total arable land area of 162 million hectares – 25% more than China

·         India is the second largest producer of Sugar case in the world and from sugarcane you get Ethanol – a vital element of the struggle against global warming

·         India is the largest producer of motorcycles in the world

·         India is the largest producer of milk in the world

·         Only five nations has population higher than UP

·         India is the fourth largest producer of soybeans in the world

·         High tech manufacturing, distribution and logistics, pharmaceutical and medical devices, financial services, education, renewable energy, agribusiness, fashion apparel, media and entertainment, hospitality and leisure, private health care etc are supposed to be the *hot areas* as far as verticals where there are lot of opportunities.

·         BTW, talking about hospitality and leisure industry, NYC is supposed to have more hotel rooms than currently exist in the entire country of India

 

Anyone getting any entrepreneur ideas to jump into these opportunities? J

 

Anyway, coming back to my across the town running, I did a 10km and clocked it within 50 minutes and for me that was very good rate and I thoroughly enjoyed it. You are exhausted but you feel so good at the end as if you scaled Mount Everest. Hopefully I will climb the Everest in my entrepreneurship climbing – irrespective of how tiring it is, I am sure the journey will be worthwhile and will be lot of fun and satisfying.

Manjunath M Gowda, S7 Software

 

Time is money so they say, Time is Respect, Time is Everything

I was in London couple of weeks back. This was my first London visit and fortunately had done enough home work (on the internet) and hence trying to figure out Tube (the Subway train) and the busses wasn’t a problem right from the moment I arrived there. I took a Saturday off and went to sightseeing in London in a guided tour; London is beautiful and I am very impressed with the public transport and how traveller friendly it is. What I was more impressed was the time sense the guide showed - let me share the experience. We were 23 in total, people all from various countries and various walks of life, and guide would explain the whole history behind a building, event etc and used to let loose us (for photo ops, refreshments etc) but used to say you have to come back at a given time, say quarter past 11 and he *meant* quarter past 11 and few people of course would not appear and he instead of either waiting or complaining about them, would clap for all those who came on time and would wait just for couple of minutes and used to say “I am sure they would have found something which is worthwhile than this and we moved on. Remember every loss of a tourist would cut into his tips at the end but still time is time for him and because of his attitude we saw everything in London what we had planned for the day, but we were 5 less when we finally reached the hotel back. This is how *time* works here and so in most developed countries.

 

Now let me fast compare this to few foreign delegations and group seminars I have attended in the past. There were times when we were told to meet at a given time in the lobby or at a given place and many a times there were guys from the local place/country, heads of local organizations over there etc also to be present at a given time and I always found that we were always late to a given time. At one instance in one of the delegations, we were all told to meet at sharp 8.30 in the morning and about 15 delegates were to be present from our side and another 3 from the hosting nation side. 8.30am came and went, those three were all there on time and guess how many we were on time from our side – just two of us :–( Sad indeed. Worse, most of the delegates were having breakfast over a long chat with no worry about being on time and still worse others who were done were just accompanying them, and worse than all, we two had to hear the murmur of about Indians time sense, in IST how “S” stands for stretchable etc etc from the local delegates and what a shame? And we are supposed to be the tomorrow’s Premji and Narayan Murthy’s!!!  No chance with this time management, I am sorry to be harsh but true in my opinion.

 

If we in the corporate world don’t fix this stretchable issue, everyone else will stretch our country and we  can never be a developed country: it was a shame on our part and worse we don’t even condemn this either - the attitude of “chalta hai” - people don’t seem to understand to respect and to value the time of those who came on time; remember time is not just money, but respect too and everything else and this stretchable is  a contagious disease and your employees will do the same and your whole organization will start following the same - meetings delayed, commitments delayed, promises delayed etc etc and the list goes on; think about it, fix it before it is too late otherwise we will all be too late as this is a very competitive global flat business world and one day it would have spread everywhere like cancer and before you know, our clients wont stretch but will skip us.

Manjunath M Gowda, S7 Software

EmergeOut Conclave: It is a Crime…………

(This  is about the EmergeOut conclave we had in the last week of September 2008, in Delhi)

(The whole blogging on emerge out is pretty stale now I guess as stale as talking about India’s win in Mohali – too stale nevertheless let me give my point of view!!)

The EmergeOut conclave was a great opportunity for us, the emerging companies, to come out understand what we need to learn from those who have been there and done that and also was a great networking opportunity too. I almost missed it but thanks to Avinash from NASCOM who literally forced me to come there and ofcourse my marketing manager Subodh told me how in the world I can miss it and thanks to both I was there and valued every moment I spent there.

Before people start thinking why the hell the topic reads like it, let me get to the point. The whole session started out with the key note address by Subbroto Bagchi talking about “breaking all rules” and as usual he gave a very impressive session but unfortunately it was a very short one – probably less than an hour I guess (or atleast it appeared so :–) ).

I really think it is a Crime to call Subbroto Bagchi for a Key Note address and give him just a slot of an hour or less L As I mentioned earlier his topic was about breaking the rules and I was hoping that he will break this law of time limit but to everyone’s disappointment he did not break that law. His oratory skills are so impressive, and his knowledge his so vast and his speech’s are worth every second and he has the capability to hold the entire audience’s attention. In this speech, I really liked his comparison (of entrepreneurship) to nature and to Salomon breeding habits  and his words of “learn from the nature” and “don’t try to increase the probability (of survival), just be the survivor”. I was first subjected to his session/speech by *force* when I joined WIPRO in 1997 after I returned for good from the US and from then on I always make it  a point to attend any function/seminar in Bangalore where Bagchi is speaking.

Those who have never sat through his speech, I recommend strongly to try once and don’t blame me for getting addicted after that J Those who have not read his book on entrepreneurship (The High performance Entrepreneur) you are missing something and my advice is start NOW ASAP. Especially if you an Indian Entrepreneur specially in the services industry – don’t ever miss it (buy it today on the way home).

Coming back to EmergeOut, I won’t be summarizing the whole event as there was live blogging going on while the event happened and also many other blogs have come on the same (NASSCOM Emerge website) site and they should give a pretty much detailed summary of the whole event. Personally as good as I felt, did feel that few things were missing. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting again Mali (C Mahalingam, VP HR at Symphony Services), Sanjay (Sanjay Anandaram, CEO JumpStart), KK (K Krishnakumar, CEO MindTree) who were all my mentors when we (S7 Software) got mentored a year back.

Anyway in my opinion I felt that EmergeOut should have covered on “Sales and Marketing” especially for emerging companies, and also about “Innovation”,  again with the emerging companies and specially services companies in with probably live examples of other Indian companies who have crossed the bridge. I would love to hear Avinash’s opinions on these two items.

Overall it was a great experience and I felt good of being there and I hope it will be an annual affair. Looking forward for the next one!!!

Manjunath M Gowda, S7 Software