As a youngster right out of engineering college, I joined Infosys, and that was the time I started reading about N.R. Narayana Murthy and others who had built something that every man dreams of building someday. Probably, that was the first time when thoughts of being an entrepreneur crossed my mind. However, coming from a non-business family background, doing MBA was a ‘safer’ and obvious choice.
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| Manik Kinra |
I decided to do an MBA from the Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, and that is where I met Sitash. In the past, Sitash had started a few non-commercial ventures and had always dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur. As part of our curriculum, we took this course in international entrepreneurship where we were supposed to build an idea into a business plan. When our plan was selected as one of the best, we knew what we needed to do after our MBA. However, due to various personal reasons, we decided to join our respective jobs, with Sitash joining Cognizant Business Consulting and I joining CSC in the UK.
However, we still had our idea running at the back of our minds. So, we started a pilot program for testing the business model and took it to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in Bangalore. TiE has this program called the TiE Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (EAP) where they select one or two companies every year and take them through an 18 months program. In 2008, we got selected for it and it was an early validation of our thought that solutions coming from a physically disconnected world can, indeed, serve real business needs.
We launched the company in October 2009, and since then we have grown rapidly, supporting over 165 brands across the globe with their marketing and advertising needs. Like any startup, we have had our share of fun, excitement, joy, pain, disappointments, and challenges, and I think if there are any more words associated with feelings in the English language, we definitely have felt all of them. From being considered a profession that was only for those who couldn’t find decent jobs, entrepreneurship in India today has gained a lot of respect in the last few years. There are so many great folks who are willing to mentor, advise, and interact with you and who respect you for what you are doing. That is one which is one of the biggest advantages of being an entrepreneur today. Although, sometimes there were times when we felt like putting up a board saying, “We have had enough of gyaan. Please help if you actually can.”
Seriously though, one important thing that we realized very quickly was that for an early-stage startup, mentoring was more important than funding. After the TiE EAP, we ensured that we had someone who had the expertise and in helping us with the setting up process. We had all the necessary passion, but industry knowledge was something that we were lacking in, and that is where Muki Regunathan, who has over 15 years of creative industry experience, helped us significantly. He also went ahead and funded Jade Magnet, which only added icing on the cake.
The past one year has also taught me some really interesting lessons — all that talk about being your own boss isn’t as true as it is made out to be. You end up listening to more people when you are an entrepreneur than when you are an employee. The glamour associated with being an entrepreneur is only a secondary result of high efforts and persistence stretched over a period of time, and moreover businesses are not just about revenues and margins. I recently read this quote on Twitter that said, “If you want to go fast, walk alone; if you want to go far, walk together.” For a model like ours, technology is important, but it is the people behind the platform who drive the entire business, and hence we have tried our best to ensure that we build good relationships and avail people power.
And then there is also the ugly part of it all when all your friends, family, etc. are going up the ladder in their corporate lives and you are still struggling. Yes, it sometimes makes things difficult and makes you wonder if it’s worth it, but then there is no better high than starting something from scratch and watching it grow to a stage where you see people using it, talking about it, and sometimes even showing it off.
Now when we look at some of our designs on roads or some of our digital work on various platforms, we feel proud of being entrepreneurs.
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