The Hindu Business Line : Go on... and do it

C.K. Prahlad calls it "a treasure trove of perspective and advice", but Subroto Bagchi's book The High Performance Entrepreneur is more than that... it's a step-by-step description of the pains and pleasures associated with starting your own venture and very practical do's and don'ts for those professionals who dream to be successful entrepreneurs.

The single feature that elevates Bagchi's effort from the umpteen run-of-the-mill books on business building and management is that he is a highly skilled storyteller. And, he has a simple and easy style of writing that knocks the stuffing out of business or managerial jargon, enlarging the appeal of his narrative beyond the borders of business or corporatedom.

Another merit of the book is that the author lays out for the reader the personal, and often nerve-wracking, experiences — packed with anecdotes — that he and his colleagues went through while setting up the IT consulting and software services firm MindTree Consulting. Bagchi is a founder member and chief operating officer of the company.

Start-up Ups and downs

As he takes you through the ups and down that the founding team at MindTree (1999) went through, the whole experience emerges as an adventurous roller coaster, complete with rejections, humiliations, questions marks. Bagchi reminds you now and then that the dream start-up that you are contemplating is by no means going to be a cakewalk.

As you begin the journey with Bagchi, first of all he cautions aspiring entrepreneurs that they would have to forget, at least for some time, fancy office, business class travel, services of a secretary, high salary and great perks that they enjoyed in their last job. "Investor money is meant to bring in customers, build and deliver products and services and generate cash before you start leading a life of luxury. So being economical with your expenses becomes critical to success. Six years into MindTree, none of us fly business class — with the exception of Ashok (Soota, MindTree's CMD). All of us pick hotels at $50 or less on priceline.com whenever we travel overseas," he says.

Also, entrepreneurs have to be extremely disciplined, hard working and goal-oriented. Wipro's chairman Azim Premji, we are told, works an average of 80 hours a week. "The man measures and tracks the number of hours he works every week. He does not expect everyone in the organisation to work as hard as himself." But he stipulates that to be a member of his team a person must be "comfortable" working 60-70 hours a week. "But Premji never asks someone to change holiday plans, once these have been approved, never recalls someone on vacation."

At 62, Ashok Soota travelled 140 days a year, but this "does not mean he is a workaholic". His vacations are fixed at the beginning of the year and "these are non-negotiable" with at least one involving "a mountain trek or a snorkelling trip during which we do not contact him," says Bagchi.

The beginning

A difficult decision to make is what business to get into; but a great `aha' idea has to be matched with "solid implementation" too. "The genesis of high-performance entrepreneurship is often in sensing a larger opportunity, tucked within which could be an inventive thought," says the author, giving the example of V.G. Siddhartha. He discontinued his M.Com in Mysore, took a bus to Mumbai, and made money by trading in stocks. Eventually he returned to the family business of growing coffee "but was not happy with the size of their ambition." As coffee prices plummeted and many estates went out of business, Siddhartha started buying up such coffee estates but felt helpless at the fact that coffee growers had no say in the pricing of the commodity. After some number crunching he found that when coffee beans were transferred into cups of coffee, not only was the value-add tremendous but the seller also decided the price of a cup of coffee.

Against advice from his ad agency, he decided that the brew could be popularised among youngsters who like to "hang out in bright fun places where they could drink their choice of coffee, watch music videos, snack on a piece of cake and sandwich and check their e-mail". Thus in 1993 Café Coffee Day was born over the tagline: `A lot can happen over a cup of coffee'. Today the chain has 302 outlets in 65 cities and towns of India.

Another example he gives is of Captain G. Gopinath and his pioneering through Air Deccan the concept of budget airlines that is such a rage today.

A useful tip/insight that Bagchi gives those who dream of starting a great company is on the ability to cope with rudeness and rejection from people who would have waited for hours for a meeting with them in their earlier avatars at premier companies. Bagchi had to do this time and again, but he philosophised that this was his maker's way of showing him his place!

Resilience is important too; once again Bagchi gives the example of Wipro's Premji and his dilemma when IBM returned to India in 1990. As many of his managers joined IBM, attracted by the brand name and better salaries, Premji was advised to sell his computer hardware business. "How could his company survive the muscle of an IBM", he was asked. But Premji stood his ground and the rest is history.

Integrity is another trait that a great entrepreneur must have; pay your taxes right, don't lose sleep imagining the taxman's footsteps, and always get IT refunds, as the author has been getting, is the clear message, backed by solid examples as that of Infosys' Narayana Murthy, Wipro's Premji and MindTree's Soota.

An endearing feature of this book is Bagchi's ability to keep his reader hooked through interesting anecdotes, such as the one about how IBM founder Thomas Watson Sr saved his company from the brink of bankruptcy thanks to his wife bullying him into accompanying her to a social event. Here he was seated next to a middle-aged lady; in charge of the library system in New York City, she described to Watson how the whole system was in disarray and they found it impossible to manage their books. The next day he sold her five of the IBM accounting machines originally designed for banks, but which the banks were not able to buy during the Depression years.

"Until that moment, Watson had never thought of his computing devices as machines for tracking books. That one sale pulled IBM from the brink of bankruptcy," says the author.

Very obviously Bagchi is proud to belong to the IT industry and lists out the important lessons that this industry has for businesspersons, such as quality, knowledge, the right mindset, personal integrity, a hierarchy-free atmosphere, `audacious' goals, inclusiveness and austere leadership.

Bagchi has an interesting `last word' for his readers. Just as "you did not read a `how to' book before you fell in love" — though romance books might have helped — no entrepreneurs can achieve their goals by reading a book. "Remember, the actual experience is in the enactment. So, go on and do it."

Golden rules to get the "early customer"

Write to all your contacts without exception or expectations

Build a prototype... and keep building them, and show them off to all and sundry

Buy a database of prospective customers; send them documents on what you do

Call on your larger competitor's clients in person, ask if there is anything else that you could do; seek a small opportunity/project

Go back to people who disqualified you in earlier bidding; update them on the new and the different at your end

Keep your banker posted on what you do, ask for leads

Visit trade shows regularly

Seek alliances with industry leaders

Get membership of right industrial bodies

Write generic articles for the business press

Regularly brief industrial analysts on your work

Build a relationship with academic and research institutions

Co-locate your senior-most people where your customers are located

Brief the commercial attaches of embassies of countries you'd like to do business with

Nag your investors for business leads from heir other customers

Have a great Web site with adequate search optimisation

Seek alliance possibilities with large competitors

Build a personal relationship with select journalists tracking your industry

Make calls along with new salespersons

Speak to persons seated next to you in airplanes, business lounges, dentists' waiting rooms on what they do

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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