lovely to be here I love the energy in
this campus every time you walk into a
campus you feel amazing being here I’ve
always dreamt of passing out of a campus
like this eventually someday I will
achieve that I just want to start by
taking a vote on how many people in this
audience are looking to be entrepreneurs
okay that’s a lot of people so by the
time I finish this talk I want to again
do the count and want to see still how
many people want to continue to be
entrepreneurs okay where is it all begin
right it all begins with an idea and
this idea could be borne out of anywhere
some people might get it during their
usual routine that they’re doing some
people might get it while they are
driving the point is that it can happen
to you at any point in time if you go
back to history and see how a simple act
of an apple falling from a tree led to
the basic laws of physics it was just an
idea
that Newton had the thing that this
Apple was falling from the tree and he
just applied the laws of physics to it
and boom there was something that was
born what I’m gonna try and do is that
I’m gonna give you some anecdotes to how
we went about doing this and you know
how you can achieve this going forward
through my experiences
getting at something from an idea stage
to an execution stage we were three
friends just passed out of management
school holidaying in South Africa and on
a drive trip we just heard this radio
jingle which said that hey you know what
you want to buy tickets log on to this
website and something in our brain just
kind of thick that was the Eureka moment
we said that look in India we’ve got a
problem at that point in time you know
you had no access to buying tickets
online you had to walk up to a cinema
buy those tickets there you had
absolutely no information whether the
tickets were gonna be available so we
just figured out that if we had to apply
this idea to the movie industry in India
things we would be able to solve a
problem for people having said that the
first stage obviously is you know I da
ting and then beyond this is the most
tricky part which is the ability to take
risks any person who is not willing to
put everything behind that idea that he
has he’s not gonna make it to the next
stage
when we’ve thought about this concept
and came back home and tried to convince
people that we wanted to execute
something like this in India everybody
told us no it’s gonna be too difficult
you know the cinema honor said we don’t
need you during the weekends I’ll give
you inventory during the weekdays the
government said that the laws don’t
allow you to do that but the problem was
then we were all doing our existing day
jobs and we’re just moonlighting this as
a project until one fine day we just
decided that look if we have to succeed
we’re gonna have to give in
percent that’s when you know one of my
business partners decided that he was
gonna quit his job and the two of us
followed after that so the point is that
unless and until you’re not willing to
risk everything behind that idea you
will not be able to reach the end stage
you’ve gone beyond the idea stage
decided that I’m gonna put everything
behind that is where you have to create
a plan you would then have to figure out
what is the market size what is the
demand and what is the supply for the
product or the services that you are
looking to offer and after that is where
you would come up with this plan which
could be small which could be big it
just depends on your aspirations when
the first plan that was made by us was
you won’t believe it it was a plan which
required two million rupees not no two
million dollars two million rupees but
then soon we realized that you know if
you had to make something big over here
we would have had to get more money
which means we’d have to go to investors
at that point in time then that plan
became 20 million rupees so it’s very
difficult to estimate what those needs
are going to be at that point in time
when you’re looking to execute something
but just stay focused and make sure that
you’re reaching out to the right people
and taking the right advice at that
point in time just to give you a
ballpark number that today the money
that we have raised is over six billion
rupees so it just starts small but you
got to create that plan you got to have
small steps in terms of you know what is
my first milestone what is my second
milestone what is my third milestone and
eventually have an end goal once you’ve
done that what you need is also a proof
of concept
whatever that you’ve been talking about
you need to
execute it in uncontrolled environment
once that proof of concept is ready is
when you’re willing to move up to the
next stage which is scaling up your
company this in my mind is the most
difficult part of running or for an
entrepreneur because so far what you’ve
been doing is that you’ve been operating
in a very controlled environment now all
of a sudden you’re out there where you
have to face the real world so what
works sometimes in a controlled
environment is very different than what
the reality is some businesses are
fortunate enough where you know word of
mouth spreads within three months the
idea is out there it goes viral and
there are companies who will take more
than ten to fifteen years to reach that
same and an end goal so the whole eye
part of entrepreneurship
I would say this is one of the most most
difficult and challenging part of
setting up an enterprise while you’re
doing all of this you’re gonna face a
lot of adversities there gonna be a lot
of failures and whenever I talk to any
entrepreneur I tell him then failure is
your first step to success because
unless and until you haven’t failed you
will not be able to succeed I mean
that’s my personal belief just reconnect
this to how we went about it when we
walked in to a venture capitalist in the
year 1999 the very first guy who we
walked in got us a check of half a
million dollars the next two years were
very easy like I said you know you’re
just say
biess it’s proof of concept that you’re
trying to establish but then there was
the reality of 2002 where the dot-com
world just went bust and from being 150
people having offices in six locations
we went down to being four people three
of us who were co-founders and an office
boy and we had to rebuild everything
from scratch all over again so you would
in the journey failure is something that
is evident and you have to take that in
your stride not get demoralized by what
is going on the along the way you know
you will have you will face a lot of
adversities I want to quote two examples
in here
there was the global financial crisis
that was going on in the year 2008-2009
any prudent company at that point in
time was basically retrenching people
making sure that they were cutting down
costs now I look at adversity as an
opportunity we did not want to retrench
any people so what did we do we took a
vote among all the people and said that
hey look everybody needs to take a 20%
cut and everybody agreed to that
when we will when we started the
business it was a person answering the
phone and you know booking tickets we
figure out that technology could solve
this problem and we could build an IVR
system which could replace that person
so we became more efficient now in doing
all of this by the time you get out of
the crisis you actually come out as
winners because now when you’re scaling
up your business you actually don’t need
you people you don’t need to go out and
hire people because all you have to do
is that correct that pay scale again and
you have gone ahead of everybody at
least five times so you’re not
rebuilding from scratch again
the second big example that I wanna
quote here is the fact where our
business was not allowed to charge a fee
and that was the way we earned our the
revenue for the company so what did we
do we thought about alternative ways of
making money so instead of charging the
convenience fee we figured out that you
know let’s try and figure out that if we
can incorporate advertising within our
services then we would be able to earn
the revenue and at the same time we can
charge convenience fee where it was
possible when we were able to convince
the government about the service that we
were giving and come out winners now we
have a dual revenue stream where we were
charging the customers a convenience fee
and we were able to earn from
what you need to do is in the journey of
being an entrepreneur you have to
persist with your idea you have to
believe in it like I said the life cycle
of businesses is very difficult to
estimate there are companies who have
gone and got valued in multiples of
billions in less than a year and I mean
that’s possible but that is something is
probably one in a million chance but the
life cycle of any company that needs
start from scratch to I would say a
phase where there is a steady revenue
stream is anywhere between ten to
fifteen years that’s how long it takes
to build a company so during this time
you will have to persevere you have to
stay focused having said that once
you’ve reached a particular level where
the company’s at a steady state you
would have to innovate I would say you
have to stay ahead of the curve
companies who don’t do it eventually die
out there’s a famous company that all of
you know died out which was in
photography was taken over by a mobile
phone company who themselves did not
stay ahead of the curve and then there
was another smartphone companies that
came in and eventually took away market
share from them so when you build
enterprise it’s very very important to
just make sure that you’re staying ahead
of the curve whatever that is if that’s
a product if there is a service that you
are trying to get out to the market you
have to
continuously innovate and make sure that
you’re ahead of the curve now having
done all of this it takes a lot of
effort a lot of effort like I said 10 15
years and in after doing all of that the
chances of success for any enterprise is
probably about 10 percent right so 90%
of enterprise feel for various reasons I
mean you know you could be early for the
market maybe your product was not
acceptable by the customer what you
thought what you were giving out a
service but luck does play a very very
important part in achieving the end
objective or or creating any enterprise
that you’re looking out to achieve as a
ending thought I want to leave behind
this saying by Swami Vivekananda says
that you know just take up this idea
focus on it make this integral part of
you and that’s how you will be able to
ultimately succeed and what is not
written in here and what I haven’t said
in my presentation is the fact that if
you love something and you believe that
that is something that is so important
for you that’s when you will be able to
achieve success so do what you love
enjoy it thank you very much [Applause]
this campus every time you walk into a
campus you feel amazing being here I’ve
always dreamt of passing out of a campus
like this eventually someday I will
achieve that I just want to start by
taking a vote on how many people in this
audience are looking to be entrepreneurs
okay that’s a lot of people so by the
time I finish this talk I want to again
do the count and want to see still how
many people want to continue to be
entrepreneurs okay where is it all begin
right it all begins with an idea and
this idea could be borne out of anywhere
some people might get it during their
usual routine that they’re doing some
people might get it while they are
driving the point is that it can happen
to you at any point in time if you go
back to history and see how a simple act
of an apple falling from a tree led to
the basic laws of physics it was just an
idea
that Newton had the thing that this
Apple was falling from the tree and he
just applied the laws of physics to it
and boom there was something that was
born what I’m gonna try and do is that
I’m gonna give you some anecdotes to how
we went about doing this and you know
how you can achieve this going forward
through my experiences
getting at something from an idea stage
to an execution stage we were three
friends just passed out of management
school holidaying in South Africa and on
a drive trip we just heard this radio
jingle which said that hey you know what
you want to buy tickets log on to this
website and something in our brain just
kind of thick that was the Eureka moment
we said that look in India we’ve got a
problem at that point in time you know
you had no access to buying tickets
online you had to walk up to a cinema
buy those tickets there you had
absolutely no information whether the
tickets were gonna be available so we
just figured out that if we had to apply
this idea to the movie industry in India
things we would be able to solve a
problem for people having said that the
first stage obviously is you know I da
ting and then beyond this is the most
tricky part which is the ability to take
risks any person who is not willing to
put everything behind that idea that he
has he’s not gonna make it to the next
stage
when we’ve thought about this concept
and came back home and tried to convince
people that we wanted to execute
something like this in India everybody
told us no it’s gonna be too difficult
you know the cinema honor said we don’t
need you during the weekends I’ll give
you inventory during the weekdays the
government said that the laws don’t
allow you to do that but the problem was
then we were all doing our existing day
jobs and we’re just moonlighting this as
a project until one fine day we just
decided that look if we have to succeed
we’re gonna have to give in
percent that’s when you know one of my
business partners decided that he was
gonna quit his job and the two of us
followed after that so the point is that
unless and until you’re not willing to
risk everything behind that idea you
will not be able to reach the end stage
you’ve gone beyond the idea stage
decided that I’m gonna put everything
behind that is where you have to create
a plan you would then have to figure out
what is the market size what is the
demand and what is the supply for the
product or the services that you are
looking to offer and after that is where
you would come up with this plan which
could be small which could be big it
just depends on your aspirations when
the first plan that was made by us was
you won’t believe it it was a plan which
required two million rupees not no two
million dollars two million rupees but
then soon we realized that you know if
you had to make something big over here
we would have had to get more money
which means we’d have to go to investors
at that point in time then that plan
became 20 million rupees so it’s very
difficult to estimate what those needs
are going to be at that point in time
when you’re looking to execute something
but just stay focused and make sure that
you’re reaching out to the right people
and taking the right advice at that
point in time just to give you a
ballpark number that today the money
that we have raised is over six billion
rupees so it just starts small but you
got to create that plan you got to have
small steps in terms of you know what is
my first milestone what is my second
milestone what is my third milestone and
eventually have an end goal once you’ve
done that what you need is also a proof
of concept
whatever that you’ve been talking about
you need to
execute it in uncontrolled environment
once that proof of concept is ready is
when you’re willing to move up to the
next stage which is scaling up your
company this in my mind is the most
difficult part of running or for an
entrepreneur because so far what you’ve
been doing is that you’ve been operating
in a very controlled environment now all
of a sudden you’re out there where you
have to face the real world so what
works sometimes in a controlled
environment is very different than what
the reality is some businesses are
fortunate enough where you know word of
mouth spreads within three months the
idea is out there it goes viral and
there are companies who will take more
than ten to fifteen years to reach that
same and an end goal so the whole eye
part of entrepreneurship
I would say this is one of the most most
difficult and challenging part of
setting up an enterprise while you’re
doing all of this you’re gonna face a
lot of adversities there gonna be a lot
of failures and whenever I talk to any
entrepreneur I tell him then failure is
your first step to success because
unless and until you haven’t failed you
will not be able to succeed I mean
that’s my personal belief just reconnect
this to how we went about it when we
walked in to a venture capitalist in the
year 1999 the very first guy who we
walked in got us a check of half a
million dollars the next two years were
very easy like I said you know you’re
just say
biess it’s proof of concept that you’re
trying to establish but then there was
the reality of 2002 where the dot-com
world just went bust and from being 150
people having offices in six locations
we went down to being four people three
of us who were co-founders and an office
boy and we had to rebuild everything
from scratch all over again so you would
in the journey failure is something that
is evident and you have to take that in
your stride not get demoralized by what
is going on the along the way you know
you will have you will face a lot of
adversities I want to quote two examples
in here
there was the global financial crisis
that was going on in the year 2008-2009
any prudent company at that point in
time was basically retrenching people
making sure that they were cutting down
costs now I look at adversity as an
opportunity we did not want to retrench
any people so what did we do we took a
vote among all the people and said that
hey look everybody needs to take a 20%
cut and everybody agreed to that
when we will when we started the
business it was a person answering the
phone and you know booking tickets we
figure out that technology could solve
this problem and we could build an IVR
system which could replace that person
so we became more efficient now in doing
all of this by the time you get out of
the crisis you actually come out as
winners because now when you’re scaling
up your business you actually don’t need
you people you don’t need to go out and
hire people because all you have to do
is that correct that pay scale again and
you have gone ahead of everybody at
least five times so you’re not
rebuilding from scratch again
the second big example that I wanna
quote here is the fact where our
business was not allowed to charge a fee
and that was the way we earned our the
revenue for the company so what did we
do we thought about alternative ways of
making money so instead of charging the
convenience fee we figured out that you
know let’s try and figure out that if we
can incorporate advertising within our
services then we would be able to earn
the revenue and at the same time we can
charge convenience fee where it was
possible when we were able to convince
the government about the service that we
were giving and come out winners now we
have a dual revenue stream where we were
charging the customers a convenience fee
and we were able to earn from
what you need to do is in the journey of
being an entrepreneur you have to
persist with your idea you have to
believe in it like I said the life cycle
of businesses is very difficult to
estimate there are companies who have
gone and got valued in multiples of
billions in less than a year and I mean
that’s possible but that is something is
probably one in a million chance but the
life cycle of any company that needs
start from scratch to I would say a
phase where there is a steady revenue
stream is anywhere between ten to
fifteen years that’s how long it takes
to build a company so during this time
you will have to persevere you have to
stay focused having said that once
you’ve reached a particular level where
the company’s at a steady state you
would have to innovate I would say you
have to stay ahead of the curve
companies who don’t do it eventually die
out there’s a famous company that all of
you know died out which was in
photography was taken over by a mobile
phone company who themselves did not
stay ahead of the curve and then there
was another smartphone companies that
came in and eventually took away market
share from them so when you build
enterprise it’s very very important to
just make sure that you’re staying ahead
of the curve whatever that is if that’s
a product if there is a service that you
are trying to get out to the market you
have to
continuously innovate and make sure that
you’re ahead of the curve now having
done all of this it takes a lot of
effort a lot of effort like I said 10 15
years and in after doing all of that the
chances of success for any enterprise is
probably about 10 percent right so 90%
of enterprise feel for various reasons I
mean you know you could be early for the
market maybe your product was not
acceptable by the customer what you
thought what you were giving out a
service but luck does play a very very
important part in achieving the end
objective or or creating any enterprise
that you’re looking out to achieve as a
ending thought I want to leave behind
this saying by Swami Vivekananda says
that you know just take up this idea
focus on it make this integral part of
you and that’s how you will be able to
ultimately succeed and what is not
written in here and what I haven’t said
in my presentation is the fact that if
you love something and you believe that
that is something that is so important
for you that’s when you will be able to
achieve success so do what you love
enjoy it thank you very much [Applause]
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