The saint and the entrepreneur

The saint and the entrepreneur
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1) Prelude
2) Definition of an entrepreneur
3) Evaluating your resource
4) Hey? What is my team doing?
5) The importance of Communication
6) Get a good mentor…..
7) The personal and the family issues
8) Where is the capital and where is my investor?
9) How stingy I have to be
10) The saint entrepreneur

This book has been written to address the plight of young entrepreneurs who want to start up a company but do not know how to go about it. Here are the frequent questions which bother a potential entrepreneur.

I have an idea. Other than that I am clueless about opening up a company. So what do i do? Where do I go from here? What kind of team should I build up to take the company on the right path? How do I ensure that my chances of success are high.

The initial period is spent in searching the answers to the above questions. In order to answer these questions, it is critical to know the expectation of a would-be entrepreneur.

For most of them it is doing the below when they start their company:-
Creating a multi million dollar company with a global presence

They have very little capital but make up for the lack of capital with their enthusiasm and courage. They are not afraid to believe in their ideas and execute them. The only hindrance and the stumbling block is how to begin the journey.

So what kind of an approach would pay the maximum dividends and would benefit these people?

As such there is no hard and fast rule as to how a company can succeed. Hearing how others have gone on with their company is always a beneficial experience but circumstances and variables change and what clicked for one company may not click for another one.

I personally have observed that many entrepreneurs do not chronicle the initial stages of their company. By the time they write their books and recount their success stories, difficulties experienced in the later stages of the company dwarf out the original startup problems faced by them. As a result, their accounts tend to focus on second stage problems and many a times do not focus on the crucial starting stages which may make or break the company.

Here is a different take. This book has been written while I continued to search different ways to run the company. Infact this book tries to address some crucial issues such as the lack of capital and how they play an important role in deciding the company’s success.

In addition to this, the level of preparedness needed to go ahead is also discussed. And last but not the least, what constitutes a resource and do you have enough resources to get the company done? Where do you look out for advice?

The purpose of the book is to make people lean towards entrepreneurship and help them start at a young age so that the enterprises they form will be bigger and stronger.
Everything has an advantage if you start early. I believe that the best time to start a company is in college when you can inspire other people by leadership and have little to lose.

When you do the company at a young age, many people are willing to help you. You are also free of the ego and the arrogance and the feeling of awe that take you down once you join a big company (not necessarily true.) At a young age, you are flexible, modest and are willing to ask people for their help. In addition you are relatively burden free and can afford to take the risk. Moreover you have the necessary technical guidance, manpower to leverage on, plenty of free time to research your idea and the guts to take on the world.

The above attitude entirely depends on the outlook of the person. There is no doubt that working in an industry will give you the much needed experience and confidence but if you ensure that the approach to the task at hand is balanced and treaded with caution and meticulous research, you can nevertheless succeed at a young age.

In the entire book, I have followed a rudimentary question and answer approach. I have followed this approach because running a company is mainly finding answers to questions which hinder the development of the company.

Chapter 1 – Definition of an entrepreneur
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Everything has a beginning. And there is no exception to this rule. A company also has its beginning in the minds of an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur initiates the beginning of a long journey where many critical decisions are made and executed.

How would you define an entrepreneur?

Hmmmmm….

If you have read the above sentence, you will probably comment –

“I know who an entrepreneur is. He is the insane guy who never loses hope and continues to stick to an idea even if it does not make any sense.”

The above view is not exactly false. The success of a company is determined by how steadfast the entrepreneur is and the risk taking ability which he has. He has an unflinching faith and devotion to the idea and charts a well defined path for the company.
An entrepreneur with a vision finally manages to fast track the company on to a rapid growth path which eventually leads to success. An entrepreneur is not only a leader but also identifies other leaders

Though the role played by an entrepreneur is significant, the entrepreneur alone is not responsible for the success of the company. There are also other factors that play a crucial role in the success of the company.

Team is one of the most critical aspects next to the entrepreneur himself and the entrepreneur also plays a crucial role in the team building process. The entrepreneur manages to build such a strong team– be it on the strength of the idea or his own strength.

Peter Drucker -“A company is what one man cannot do”. I remember a friend of mine also used to quote this.

It is unrealistic if you solely expect the entrepreneur to do the job. A good supporting cast (which is what a solid team means) equally plays a vital role. In a core team, all the people should have the characteristics of a good entrepreneur and have the capacity to assume leadership roles.

Moreover this is true if team is young. Each of them has to make up for the experience which they lack and provide a combined focus. A combined group of leaders can weather the storm together.

From the word go, the team should believe that the job will be accomplished. And if the team really believes that the idea will succeed, they wont hesitate to take minor decisions like quitting their job. Such should be the belief of the team.

If you think – Come on. What I am gonna do without the evenings at the golf club? What about a new cell phone every month? I am gonna lose 500 dollars every month???

Hey man. Cut it out -You are speaking about your belief in a million dollar idea. Losing 10,000 dollars should not bother you.

Most of them who would make good entrepreneurs never take to entrepreneurship because they are attached to their smug and comfortable life. The rest of them are in so much awe of their existing company that they never believe that a similar organization on a smaller scale can be created.

An entrepreneur need not be an expert in an area to know that a venture will click. Rather it is the belief in the venture and the background work that counts. There are many potential entrepreneurs who never take up the path of entrepreneurship because of the belief that they do not have a concrete idea in their respective field.

This is partly due to the fact that people are trained to believe that they can do only what they have learnt. Many of them fail to realize that entrepreneurship if actively pursued can lead to success. It is true in order to overcome the drawbacks of starting in an unknown field, the necessary research has to be done. But this should not be a hiccup from preventing a sincere entrepreneur from following his dreams.

Even if we look at how many startup companies have expanded operation, we can find that they adapt to different situations and remain afloat. By the time the company is 1-2 years old, the vision of the entrepreneur changes according to the market tune and the company plays a completely different ball game (But this is not suggested. Stick to your original plan. The above is an example of how the entrepreneur is able to adapt). Infact if a person is narrow minded, he runs the risk of never freezing on an idea at all. And some people tend to specialize in fields where intense hardware capital is required to start a company. It is not that these people will be able to start a company. But they should keep an eye open and also be on the look out for opportunities which they are familiar with.

Let us track down what an entrepreneur finally brings to the table not only to the company but to the country.

What is the difference between a developed nation and a developing nation? Economists offer different explanations for the above - the country should be self sustaining, the per capita income should be above a certain level , the unemployment level should be low and various other factors…

Hmm… Accepted. But can’t we simply narrow it down to two or three causes???

A reduction of the above problem would reveal that a country being developed or undeveloped is simply the money which it has its disposal. If the country has a good capital inflow, it is doing great and is taking rapid strides towards becoming a developed country. But who are responsible for the capital inflow and cash flow????????

Entrepreneurs account for a significant portion of the cash flow.
These people form the backbone of a country and attract investments and capital. They rotate money, employ resources, import and export goods and services, upgrade their infrastructure and do many more things.

As I am writing this book, India and China are witnessing the same phenomena. The pool of entrepreneurs in these countries have grown and are experiencing increased investments and inflow of money. (I intend to carry on with this view and try to cover more countries as I keep on writing the book)

(Note there also other factors- But we are simply trying to narrow it down and see how much part an entrepreneur plays in the above equation – a biased view but nevertheless a major contributing factor)

Wow – The definition holds for developing countries. But what about developed countries?

It is no less different for developed countries. Infact most of the entrepreneurs operate out of US and Japan. The number of established businesses in US and Japan are directly a result of the efforts of past entrepreneurs. The developed nations have been there for such a long time that the number of established businesses in these country is very high.

It maybe that for a developed country, the contribution of a single entrepreneur may be negligible as it already has a number of established businesses but for a developing country, entrepreneurship is one of the main driving forces of the economy.

The above clearly shows that entrepreneurs are responsible for the flow of money. They are responsible for increased employment and increased revenues for governments in the form of taxes. In addition to this entrepreneurs feel obliged to give back something to the society when they are successful.


Entrepreneurship is an act which is practiced not only for personal and monetary gains. In developing countries, it is the satisfaction of seeing you create jobs, adding value to
lives of people, training and educating them, meeting and fulfilling social obligations, indirectly supporting charity acts that keeps you going. Power, money and fame are only corollaries that are an added incentive. But ultimately it is the impact on other people and their lives and how you have helped them that finally gives you the supreme satisfaction.

As to the question – Am I ready to become an entrepreneur? You have to ask yourself whether you have done the below
1) Have you been proactive and expanded your contacts circle outside your company
2) Consistenly in touch with a prospective team who may be able to help you out

The roots of entrepreneurship start with being proactive. You should be active in pursuing your contacts and not be in awe of your immediate boss. Experience does not help you in becoming a successful entrepreneur (this book is supposed to promote young entrepreneurs – that is why we are highlighting what a young person misses) – being proactive and dynamic does.

When do you know that the time has come to begin business.???

The answer is when you know that you can manage the two transitions below

1) I can manage myself and take on the world
2) I can take care of the guys who are going to depend on me.

The first is the easiest decision an entrepreneur can make. The second is the critical aspect and if you chose a flexible team, you will buy the necessary time to grow and ultimately take care of it.

There are many things to concentrate on while doing the company – market research, technical, general management, operations, marketing and sales. If you have a good team, you can worry less about team management and concentrate on other activities.

For an entrepreneur, there can no other better beginning than a combined team working selflessly towards the growth of the company.

An entrepreneur is one who manages all that – technical, managerial and the marketing part.


Chapter -2---Evaluating your resource.
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Team building is an important step in building up your company. As in my case, sometimes you would have so much faith in the company that you would be the first one to hang out your neck and take the risk. You would feel that you can inspire your team to take the leap later on.

This is potentially a dangerous way of doing the company. It simply means that you don’t have a solid team. Ultimately it ends up is a situation where you are not completely in synch with the person. A person who is out of the company will never truly realize the challenges which the company is facing. His mind will be bent somewhere else and the decision making ability will be limited. His focus is elsewhere and he is just a help to the company. The same applies for the entrepreneur. A team which is not fully formed is the first worry of the entrepreneur and half of his time is spent in trying to get the people in groove.

Funda one

“Get your team ready so that you don’t have to worry about who is in and who is out when you do your company. There are other things to worry about when you are doing the company”

Analyse these aspects in the partner you are looking for

1) Why do you believe that your partner will be a valuable asset
2) Is he proactive when you are not there?
3) What is his ability to inspire others in your absence
4) Does he have the courage to say – I can take a lion by its tail…
5) You can judge his passion for the idea by the way in which he speaks about the idea and tries to convince other people to take up to the idea.
6) Does he know what a stake means and understand the notion of capital??

Grade the answers to the above question:-
If you are not getting any consistent replies for the above, then you probably do not have a solid partner. Part time people never understand the root causes of the problem and hence do not contribute to solving problems at all.

It is better to start a company with all the possible resources operating on a full time note.
When everyone takes a risk – It is a do or die situation. And people tend to do the maximum when such a situation exists

I am not saying that a part time member is not dedicated towards the idea. But that he may not be able to play a vital part in the growth of the company. Maximum productivity may be limited due to the heavy demand placed on their shoulder to meet dual needs.

A good idea would be to have 3-4 full time people in and others as part time people. In this way you are maximizing resources working on a project.

An young entrepreneur knows what he wants to achieve and is ready to sacrifice his short time income for the company. But the trouble brews when he has to manage other people in the company. It takes a little time for the income to come in and the first step which he takes towards managing other’s paycheck is the critical part. It generally helps if the team waits patiently for a single year for the income to come and the expenses to stabilize.
Most of the quantum leap in growth is made in the initial 5 years of a company and as much money invested and saved will yield high dividends.


As far as our company was concerned, we were a bunch of people who had done our BE and on the lookout for an opportunity which will change our lives forever. Inshort the average day to day techies who believe that they can be the seed of a great idea. As everyone would know by now, technical people tend to fail because they tend to lose focus on critical issues such as management and are generally weak in contacts – both of which are needed for a strong company.

Technical people tend to be shortsighted. And especially if a company is being formed by technical guys, most of them are concerned with the product features or the offering they have. As the person who is heading the company, it is the entrepreneur’s responsibility to find likeminded and similar guys and focus them on the right path. Nowadays it has become a trend for entrepreneurs to expect windfall profits the minute they start a company.

The core team is also not willing to participate unless they continue to draw the existing salary. Infact if you analyze closely you will find that most of the people who draw a specified salary spend only a fraction of the amount they earn and expect more from the company. The rest is only to meet the comfort level which they are used to.

Everyone will be starting companies if they are able to do the above and there would be no reason for anyone to work if there is no risk in entrepreneurship.

The core members of the team should not be born out of brainwashing. When you are crippled, they must be able to act and deliver. Each one should have the capacity to say –

Hey guys. I can manage it. I can hire the people to get the company done.

The main reason why many youngsters fail is they don’t have the above attitude. The above reason explains why managerial people with experience succeed. Their long years at the office have given them the wisdom to deal with situations. If you have the right guy who understands these finer aspects and can deal with the above, you can go ahead with the idea. I see no reason why a technical person who pays attention to the fundamentals of management should be unable to succeed.

As long as you make since efforts to accumulate the skills which a management guy has, it should not be a problem. A management degree will surely help but should not come in the way.

The roles of a team members in a startup can sometimes be blurred. People in their enthusiasm tend to get involved in marketing and contacts and areas outside their expertise. This is a good time. But at the same time to ensure that each team member is productive, it would be better to establish ownership areas.

Everyone knows that in order to run a successful company, you need the capital and the contacts

At the same time, everyone does not have the capital or the background to make it successful but still nurture the ambition to start up a company.


Chapter 3-Hey man.. What is my team doing

You have started the company. You have don’e the groundwork on the product offering and the service of the product and are making progress. Down the road you are looking at clients and revenues. But your expectations become more and more high and you are becoming ambitious and eager to execute more plans.

To beat the competition, you have to stay ahead. To ensure this, you have to make sure that your team comes up with innovative ideas and also that new features and offerings are completed. Frequent appraisals and feedback loops will ensure comfort level for a startup environment.

To evaluate your team, it is necessary that you frequently hold meetings and share opinions. Be prepared to do a critical analysis. Make it clear to the team members that they are doing a good job and take steps to motivate and appreciate them.

But at the same time, there is nothing like a critical analysis which can help the team to improve the quality of the offering.



Communication

Communication plays an important role in the growth of a company. Communication in a startup assumes two shapes

1) Internal communication – Communication within the company
2) External communication – Communication with prospective clients, customers and partners


Let us analyse these two in detail

Internal communication

Internal communication plays an important role in the growth of the company. You do not know when you will get a breakthrough contact. It is imperative that the entire core team is constantly in touch with one another and accessible at a short notice to inform each other about latest developments.

You do not know when you may have to solve a critical bug or showcase the product in a new limelight to a prospective customer. You always need a team which can work on the above aspects. Also the contact which may bring a breakthrough is often achieved if you constantly meet people and emphasise the team strength.

What people doubt in a young entrepreneur is the ability to lead and deliver on the promise? So it makes sense to showcase your full strength


External communication

If you have an internal communication system in place, you will be able to address the needs of external customers and partners.

A startup company usually does not have the resources to afford a dedicated team towards marketing. Many of them pay little attention to building up a strong marketing and sales team. This is a critical blunder which may adversely affect the company.

Make sure that there is an effective communicator who acts as a liaison between the company and its clients. The more effective the liaison, the more effective the company will be in marketing and sales.

Looking back, I believe that if a tech company shows as much interest in building up a strong marketing and sales team as they did in building the tech team, the success ratio will improve dramatically.