With my friend NDot!!! Next two days is going to be knowledge sharing, experience sharing, motivation, entrepreneurship et more…
Tag: entrepreneurship
What is SOHO?
It’s never too late to be an entrepreneur!!!
The teen aged Entrepreneurs from Madurai
Last week got a call from my sales folks that a 13 year old CEO from Madurai wanted to meet me… Get impressed by this kids approach and immediately gave them an appointment the next day…
Since his father was busy that day, he was not in a position to make it to office… I didn’t want to disappoint the kid and went to a nice-cream shop near to his house…
He came along with his 15 year old co-founder and they gave a brief intro about them and their ataWAB.COM venture… Frankly got startled to see the way they projected, the vision and clarity they have…
I asked them to come with the expectations on me, swami & cogzidel… The next day kids came with their 14 year old co-founder and the list…
The list goes like this;
– Hosting Support
– Gadgets to review
– Infrastructure
– Mentoring
Without a moment to think we agreed to help these kids and be a part of their success…
Would be glad if you can go thru ataWAB.com and pass your feedback…
Last to First: S.Anand Nataraj, Syed, Abshiek & Swami…
Roshan & Anand
This is how we brainstormed at IBACO…
My First Entrepreneurship Venture
I always had flair for entrepreneurship from my childhood days… My first entrepreneurship ride started when I was 12… I use to breed fish during my school days and sell them during summer vacation…
I brought 3 big paint barrels and bread fish… Mostly I bread White Molly, Red Molly and Black Molly… Total investment came to less than Rs.30…
By the time my exams were over there were 100’s of fish on each breed… I sold a pair for Re.2 and fish plants for Re1 and ended up making around 1500 bucks which was a big money for a the investment…
The next year I started breeding Fighter(A breed known for fighting)which breeds by laying eggs Rs.10… I experimented by cross breeding fishes…
- White Molly + Black Molly gave me Chocolate Molly & White Molly with black dots…
- Red Molly + Black Molly gave me Red Molly with Black Tail…
This time with lot of variety and by starting the breeding process a bit early, my revenue increased to Rs.6000/- the next year…
Finally I had to abandon this venture owing to my mothers pressure… But this was the foundation to my entrepreneurship and this experience helped me to perceive as an entrepreneur at a later stage…
My Business Ventures and Failed Venture Lessons
I started as a freelance at the age if 18 and evolved as an entrepreneur from the age of 20… In last 13 years I’ve had my hand on couple of ventures…
FreeLancer: Between 1998 – 2000 I’ve been a freelance and I’ve been into web design and manpower consultancy…
Agriya: This was my first entrepreneurship venture… Agriya was a Web Services company… I learned the nuances of entrepreneurship… I’ve been a part of this company for 8 years and it was a #success…
Distributor Of a Pharma Product: Invested in this venture to help my friend and I had no earlier experience on the domain… This venture was a #failure…
People Justice: Invested and Operated a fortnightly Tamil Magazine which is into investigative journalism… Learned the nuances of the business where I came to know the types of printing, selecting paper, networking with journalist, editorial, layout design, proof reading and distribution…This venture can also be considered #failure… But still we occasionally keep releasing the issue…
Real Estate Venture: Tried my hands on Real Estate which has created a lot of millions in India… Unfortunately this venture is also a #failure…
Cogzidel Technologies: Cogzidel is a Web, Mobile & Social Media services company… I’m a part of this company for last four and half years…
Cogzidel Consultancy Services: CCS is an accounting and business services company… I’m a part of this company for last four and half years…
In all my #failed ventures I was an investor and I invested to help a friend of mine to settle down… Though I learned from those ventures my main take away is;
– Don’t invest if there is no investment from other partner…
– Don’t invest until the person requesting investment does a business plan and show you some commitment…
– Make tough things in written (agreement) and especially make exit difficult for the person…
– Never invest to help someone… If they give-up you loose your money and the purpose of gesture gets defeated…
Program on Entrepreneurship
XIME, one of the premier Business Schools in Bangalore holding AICTE’s top accreditation and Business India’s A++ rating in its latest survey, is pleased to announce its 11th training programme in Entrepreneurship Development from April 04 to 30, 2011.
This programme is backed by XIME’s considerable wealth of experience in the teaching of Entrepreneurship over the years by some of XIME’s faculty and also consultants to SMEs.. It will be run at the attractive XIME campus in the heart of the Electronics City of Bangalore.
The diverse aspects of the programme will be covered through sessions at XIME for four weeks followed by a week of Business plan preparation and mentoring.
The broad spectrum of subjects to be covered in the first four weeks will include computer training, followed by lectures on various topics in Entrepreneurship, functional areas of Business, and Key Managerial Skills. The lectures will be interactive in nature and designed to ensure active participation by the trainees. Considerable emphasis will be given on opportunity identification and business plan preparation.
1. Entrepreneurship Competencies
2. I.T Tools & Solutions in Small Business Management
3. Business Opportunity Identification
4. Development of Detailed Project Report
5. Complimentary Skills Development
6. Key functional areas
7. Liaisoning with Promotional Agencies
8. Mentor Programme
There will be a number of experience sharing sessions on successes and failures in small enterprise management.
Interested people can contact Mr.Venkatesh (09845020538 or venkat@xime.org). For more details plz visit: http://www.xime.org/edp.asp
Fear Supersedes Passion
In recent times I’m approached by lots of youngsters who have zeal for entrepreneurship… They have wonderful ideas and some even have good execution plan… But what is common with all the folks is the dreaded word “Fear of Failure”… They approach me asking me to help them in execution… In simple terms it is their idea where is I’ve to;
- Invest in project…
- Create, Build & manage a team…
- Manage and align all the stakeholders…
- Market it to end user…
What all I can get in return is their support from outside… Meaning they wont quit their job & they will keep giving their thoughts… They quit and join me when everything is set and company comes to a comfortable position…
In simple words they want some third person to take the risk and they will share the benefits once the project is a success… If it fails they don’t have anything to loose other than some time they spend on meetings & fringe jobs they do…
The reasons they have for not quitting their job immediately is;
- They have commitments (at the age of 24 & they assume they will be out of commitment at 34)…
- They have to gain some expertise & experience…
- They don’t have sufficient capital…
For all those gentleman I’ve a simple answer… I’m not stupid… If your Fear Supersedes your Passion it your problem… I’ve no obligation to baby sit you for your success…
All I can tell is you are not an entrepreneur material because you don’t have traits such as;
- Guts
- Enjoying Failures
- Fire in your A$$
Finally I’m sure you can’t become an entrepreneur until you change your attitude…
Chilled out for the day & a day of co-incidence
I’ve decided to take some break form my normal work and do something interesting. That is when I got a message in FaceBook from a person whom I befriended last week in the bus. He was telling me that he wanted to become an entrepreneur and wanted to spend sometime with me to understand / get some of my thoughts on Entrepreneurship. I though that would be the best thing to take a break.
Before getting ready I got another message in FaceBook from a Student. He was asking my thoughts on MBA. This guy has just completed his Under Graduation and wants to pursue his MBA immediately. He said he has not attended any campus interview to continue his studies and also his parents wants him to have a Post Graduation before he going to Job. I recommended him to work for 2 – 3 years before doing a MBA. I’ve shared as must as example as possible. But it is upto the boy to take my point and to convince his parents.
Then I was going through the success story of Mr.Ganapathy of Dosa Plaza which raised my energy. Please go through this link to read about his story “Once penniless in Mumbai, now a crorepati!”
Only then I remembered about the Success Story of another person whom I read a month back and contacted him immediately. I was glad to get a polite response form him and most probably I’d be meeting him tomorrow.
Then I picked my bus mate and spent good time with him. We were sharing our thoughts, plans and ideas. It was mutual learning and infact he had good network of friends who would be of good help for me in my business. So, it was worth the time to spend with him.
Finally when I was about to close the day I got a SMS from a new visitor to my blog;
I have come across your blog by accident. im a sri lankan tamil living in uk.keep da inspiring work sir.god bless .raj ramanan
and immediately he called me. That was very motivating and I was happy that people recognize the small success I’ve made and not it is time to work hard to sustain the success.
10 years of Entrepreneurship & 2 Years for Cogzidel
September has become a special month in my Life as it is during this month that I started my career and that too as an entrepreneur. I still remember it was during September 2000 I started my first company in a Ganesh Temple in Besant Nagar during Ganesh Chadurthi. Then I didn’t know I’d have crossed soo many hurdles & would be blogging about it today.
Also my second venture Cogzidel was started during september 2 years back and again I cant believe it has been 2 years. I can still remember both the days afresh.
It was a wonderful journey which was a mix of;
- Excitement
- Learning
- Experience
- Betraying
- Managing Cruelty
- Criticism
- Appreciation
- Recougnization
It took me 10 years in life to understand only half what entrepreneurship is and I’m still learning. Now I’ve a past to show people about my performance. But time to redraw my future & this is how I want my future to be positioned or I want to be or I want to do;
- Become an Angel Investor
- Become a Business Mentor
- Become a professor on Entrepreneurship
- Experiment / Research on Entrepreneurship like
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Holding and scaling an Entity
- Forming a Company with Crowd Funding
- Run a Public Limited Company
Just understood where my heart is and slowly moving towards the direction of my passion. Finally on this day I’d like to thank all my friends, relatives & my associates who have helped me reach where I’m today.
I wish 2020 will have a lot more to Share than now.
AnandNataraj 