NOVEMBER 2010
VOL 4 / ISSUE 2 / NOVEMBER 10
DARE
`50
Entrepreneur of the Month
Vandana Luthra CEO, VLCC
50 BUSINESSES UNDER 50 LAKH
STRATEGY
Startups & The Web TECHCORNER
Enterprise Security INNOVATION
Path-breaking innovations from across India 86 pages including cover
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Nov 2010 VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2
Cover Story: 50 Businesses under 50 lakh 28 School for recruiters: Help to Hire 28 Just desserts 29 Toys on rent 29 Food Information and Logistics 30 Landscape solutions 30 Online retail store for Eco-friendly products 31 Online shoe retailing business 31 Medical facilities under one roof 32 Food website with automated calorie calculator
26 33
32 Nursery School Decor
49 Employee Rewards Platform
33 Manufacturing LED Lights
52 Out of the box media platform
33 Cake decorating business
52 Animation Studio
36 A library that home-delivers!
53 Education Tourism
36 One Stop Bonsai Business
53 Selling Insurance Salvage
37 Online Art Gallery
54 Trading Medical Oxygen Cylinders
37 Barter Exchange
55 Frozen Yogurt Chain
38 Dog Beauty Parlour
55 Niche Cuisine Restaurant
38 Employability Training
55 Job Aptitude Testing Services
40 Breeding Exotic Pets
55 Karaoke Platform/ Bar
40 Vending Machines 41 Paragliding School 41 Cakes for Allergies and 118 Restrictions 44 Fresh and Healthy 44 Online gaming business 45 Foreign Language School 45 Consumer driven For-profit Social Enterprise
55 Manufacturing Holograms 55 Manufacturing Wigs 56 Day Spa 56 Cane business 56 Luxury Boats 56 Engineering Plastics 56 Heritage tourism 57 Western Musical Instruments
48 Plug-n-Play cum Virtual Office
57 Medical Tourism guide agency
48 Organized Rickshaw with VAS
57 Manufacturing female condoms
49 Business Incubator
57 Manufacturing Water purifiers
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BOARD OF ADVISORS N R Narayanamurthy
Chief Mentor, Infosys
Kanwal Rekhi
Chairman, TiE
Romesh Wadhwani
Chairman & President, Wadhwani Foundation
Gururaj ‘Desh’ Deshpande Saurabh Srivastava
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Chairman & MD, Biocon
R Gopalakrishnan
Executive Director, Tata Sons
Philip Anderson
Professor of Entrepreneurship, INSEAD
Abraham Mathew Prashanth Hebbar
President Senior Editor
ANALYSTS Binesh Kutty Nimesh Sharma Sharmila Das Shinjini Ganguli Shradha Mohanty OPERATIONS Ajay Dhoundiyal Prasanna Srivastava Debabrata T Joshi VIjay Rana Anil John
Tech Corner
Product Manager Product Manager Manager Events Design Photography
SALES & MARKETING MA Jaideep Associate VP Mario Gabriel National Sales Manager Yogesh Bhosle West Ankur Kalia North Manas Mishra South Kingshuk Sircar South-East Asia
PRINT & CIRCULATION SERVICES Rachna Garga VP T Srirengan GM, Print Services Sudhir Arora Senior Manager Circulation Sarita Shridhar Assistant Manager, Reader Service
Printed and published by Pradeep Gupta. Owner, CyberMedia (India) Ltd. Printed at International Print-O-Pack Limited, B-204-206, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi-20 Published from D-74, Panchsheel Enclave, New Delhi-17. Editor: Krishna Kumar. Distributors in India: Mirchandani & Co., Mumbai. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission. BANGALORE 205, 2nd Floor, # 73, Shree Complex, St.Johns Road, Tel: 43412333 CHENNAI 5B, 6th Floor, Gemini Parsn Apts, 599 Mount Road, Tel: 28221712 KOLKATA 23/54, Gariahat Road, Ground Floor, Near South City College, Tel: 65250117 MUMBAI Road No 16, D 7/1 MIDC, Andheri (East) Tel: 42082222 DELHI D-74 Panchsheel Enclave Tel: 41751234 PUNE Flat No. 9, F Block, Popular Heights 3 Koregaon Park Tel: 65000996 SECUNDERABAD #5,6 1st Floor, Srinath Commercial Complex, SD Road. Tel: 27841970 SINGAPORE 1, North Bridge Road, # 14-03 High Street Center Tel: +65-63369142
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• Innovative Root Canal Machine • Converging TV • Low Cost Thermal Printer • Cabinet Computer • The New Age Sensors
Chairman, Sycamore Networks
Chairman, Indian Venture Capital Association
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw
Innovation
60 Enterprise Security Strategies
Entrepreneur of the Month Vandana Luthra is the guiding force behind VLCC — India’s leading slimming, beauty and fitness brand. VLCC has today achieved iconic status in the wellness space well beyond the Indian frontiers.
Insight 34 Human Resources: Of Genuises and the Rest By Vikas Verma 46 Leadership: The Business Leader of Today By Vimarsh Bajpai 50 Bootstrapping: Celebrating the First Year of Success By Manik Kinra Strategy 18 Startup: The Art of Keeping the Cashflow Balanced By Vijay Anand 39 Worklife: The Dilemmas of Entrepreneurs By Anurag Batra 42 Worklife: Startups & the Web By Rajaram Rajendran
By Anil Chopra
65 Enterprise Solutions: Enterprise Security: PCQuest users' Choice Awards
Others 12 Exchange 17 Feedback 72 Statistics: Private Equity / Venture Capital Investments
74 Unwindings Event 70 Headstart: Startup Saturday sparks the spirit of Entrepreneurship
68 Intellectual dishonesty Congenital or Congenial? By Dr. Hrishikesh Damle NEN
CORPORATE OFFICE Cyber House, B-35, Sec 32, Gurgaon, NCR Delhi-122001 Tel: 0124-4822222, Fax: 2380694
58 Startup: Take your Employees Along For the Translation
82 The E Week
86 pages including cover
By Srikala Bhashyam
Impact
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FROM THE EDITOR
Livelihood or passion Hard work is the common thread connecting the two By Prashanth Hebbar
re there two distinct approaches to entrepreneurship? Let’s see. Consider a person new to a city with the only skill to draft legal documents. He has to find a livelihood. He gravitates to the local court complex. Borrows money and sets up a cheap computer and a printer in a corner of a shop for a miniscule rent. Makes his living typsetting neat documents for litigants and lawyers. He opens his shop sharp at 9 in the morning and closes way past 9 in the evening. In a few years, he buys a shop of his own. He has set up many computers and printers and added other facilities. Through sheer dint of hardwork and showing up day in and day out, rain or shine, our draftsman has graduated from a mere livelihood seeking professional to an entrepreneur. In a couple of decades, our draftsman has set up a BPO which handles drafting legal document and digital archiving for international legal houses. He is now a celebrated public personality. Let’s take another case. A group of students who are passionate about automobiles get together to develop a solar-powered single seater car. Through encouragement from their college and a local industry they win a national award and go on to make a mark in the international contest.
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Encouraged by their achievements and the response they receive globally, the group decides to pursue it as their life's passion. They set up a company to build low cost solar-powered rowers for use in tough terrains such as mines and desert operations. Venture capitalists make a beeline to their door to invest in their venture. In a few years, the company is bought out by a leading automobile manufacturer. The group of four breaks up to pursue different interests. Couple of them regroup to start a new venture, this time, aiming at space exploration. Others decide to step away from entrepreneurism and do stuff they “always wanted to do.” There definitely appears to be two distinct approaches. One a low-key, ordinary livelihood seeker rising up the din of ordinariness. The other one driven by passion, excellence and ingenuity building stuff a society wouldn’t have imagined before. The common thread though is hard work. Check our ‘50 Businesses Under 50 lakh’ feature and you will realize how easy it is to put together ideas but tough to execute. We Dare you to start.
Fifty exciting and economically feasible business ideas for entrepreneurs who dare to be one
Interact with me on Twitter @phebbar DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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EXCHANGE
MARKET PLACE
• partners • mentoring • funding • guidance • advice • ideas...
Like to start an importexport business in the African continent I would like to start an importexport business in the African continent. I have stayed there for 26 months and have a good knowledge of the East African region. I have products in mind that can be exported and would like to import some handicrafts and export them all over the world. I am looking for some angel funding and some expert guidance as well. - Nayan Shah Response I am interested in exporting spices. If this product suits you, you can contact me. - Vignesh
Men’s garment business requires partners We have a business in the men’s garment section that has very good growth potential. We are distributing our franchise across India. We are interested in contacting franchisers as well as investors.. - Manish Response I am interested. Contact me. - Sahoo
Submit exchange requests at: website: http://www.dare.co.in/ marketplace.htm OR email: dare@cybermedia.co.in, OR SMS ‘DARE <your msg>’ to 56677 OR twitter.com/daretostartup
in rural India, from 2007. Now, I wish to scale up the project from around 100 children to a 1,000 children and youth by 2012. I am looking for investors, partners, and mentors for the project. - Dhirendra Pratap Singh Response I am a public health management professional working with a UK based organization in Mumbai. I have experience in project management (complete cycle from launch till evaluation) in education, public health, and disability sector. I would like to be associated with your venture in raising funds through online marketing and e-content management. Please share more details about the venture. - Shweta
Contacting SMEs to enter US market We are interested in contacting growing SMEs and large Indian companies looking to enter lucrative US markets. Innoversant Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is a multidisciplinary management consulting firm assisting international and domestic businesses, and economic development agencies. We are the official representatives of Fairfax County
Economic Development Authority (FCEDA), Virginia, USA. We assist growing Indian companies with their expansion/ entry into the US by locating them in Fairfax County, Virginia. We at FCEDA provide a wide array of information as well as free and confidential services to help Indian businesses locate or expand commercial operations in Fairfax County, US. The FCEDA promotes Fairfax County, Virginia, as a world-class center of commerce and trade and the technology hub of the East Coast. Every year, the FCEDA assists hundreds of companies with expansion or relocation needs. Due to the close proximity to Washington DC and the Dulles and Reagan airports, excellent access to the North American markets, a large cluster of technology companies in the county, and excellent business environment, Fairfax County is one of the best locations for growing Indian companies to set up their business in the US. In fact, Fairfax County was recently called “one of the great economic success stories of our time” by Time Magazine. - Siddharth Sarawgi Response We are the domestic suppliers of spices (red chilies) for the past 3 decades and now we wish to enter the international market. Can
Looking for LED dealers We are a Bangalore based LED bulb and LED tube light manufacturer for AC and DC in the best price availability and quantity. We are looking for dealers all over India. If interested contact us - Liora Electronic
Planning to scale up my social venture in the education sector DARE is one of the most encoring magazines I have ever read for entrepreneurs! I am a social entrepreneur and founder president of Milaan, an organization working for quality education and vocational training
at h s for an NGO th d n fu r fo g in k Loo es small business
elps rural poo
r set up
NGO Society. My adam Welfare em K th k E g i in at lp ag or by he er with Pr d of rural po 0 oo 00 5, ih I am a manag el er liv ov e ve th proving gh, we ha ou th s ly nt nd re works for im fu Cur enough businesses. do not have e e w th t nd bu set up small , fu lp n le who ca king for he op as pe ns r io fo at g ic in appl am look e projects. I hwal to initiate th - Sushil Gar projects. g to who is willin t professional -raising en nd Response em fu r ag fo an s health m proposal ic ng bl ti ri pu ents w a r fo am gn s I ill ing assi m mentation sk milar freelanc si of ne ge do offer her docu an ve ch ils for ex arketing. I ha contact deta eur and online m yo h is ease furn - Shweta in the past. Pl n. io informat
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EXCHANGE
MARKET PLACE
• partners • mentoring • funding • guidance • advice • ideas...
Submit exchange requests at: website: http://www.dare.co.in/ marketplace.htm OR email: dare@cybermedia.co.in, OR SMS ‘DARE <your msg>’ to 56677 OR twitter.com/daretostartup
you brief me on how this can go forward? - Vignesh
Have some prototypes of solar energy applications to implement
Available Funding for Seeking a mentor for a rural/agriculture sector service-related idea
I am an enthusiast of alternative energy sources and would like to use solar energy and be conservative. I have some prototypes of solar energy applications and would like to implement this in my home town and other places. My place of interest is domestic applications. I would like to get in touch with those who can give ideas of where and how I can get raw materials for these applications and also with what daily applications could be useful when replaced by this alternative source. - Pravin
I am looking for mentoring and guidance for implementing some of my ideas in the rural/ agricultural sector. It is a service-related idea with little bit of technology and strong alliance building. I can conceptualize and implement the whole idea, but I need somebody who can guide/help me in alliance building. Can somebody help me or professionally join with me to build a brand? - Sandip Response If Mr. Sandip is interested in developing an agri business, he can contact me via email. - Giri Kumar Could you please send me more details about your project?. -Saurabh Mohnot
Looking for a partner to merge a 5 year old IT placement consultancy having office in prime location We are a premium Bamboo We are a 5 year old premier IT placement consultancy based out of Gurgaon. We have strong clientele in and around Delhi NCR. We are looking for a financially strong partner who is interested in merging/ acquiring a running IT placement consultancy.. - Kumar Anuja
Response I am also an alternative energy source fanatic and would like to talk about this in greater details. You can mail me.. - Saurabh Patil
Looking to partner / work with start-ups I am a management graduate with engineering background and have more than 12 years of industry experience. I am looking forward to either being a partner in a startup or working along with them. I am also open to working with VC firms or management consultants that cater to start-ups and existing businesses. Interested parties can email me to take it further - Vaibhav
Sale/ purchase of insurance salvage We want to purchase and sell
Planning to start a business of making handmade paper using agri-waste I am looking for people who can provide me with information on starting a business of making handmade paper using agri-waste.. - Anantha Response I am also looking for a similar project, and I would appreciate it if you could share the details with me. If you are looking for someone to partner with, we can talk. - Nikhil
surplus, rejected, water effected, and damaged goods. If anyone wants to sell/ purchase, contact us - Lalitbhai Bagdai
Funding and Partner We are a start-up based in Mumbai in the space of paper waste management. We are looking for a partner who has a sales background as well as capital up to 10 lakhs. To discuss in detail please write to me or give me a call. -Chinmay Chopade
Mentoring required for new ideas I am a working professional aspiring to be an entrepreneur, basically on the lookout for new ideas. Just thought of these two ideas: 1) There are many upper middle class people who want to wear designer clothes but can’t afford them or have to hunt around for a good fashion designer. I was wondering if I could bring a few designers under one roof and provide affordable and customized designer wear for my target customers? Need some more ideas to refine this business model and some guidance on how I can go about this. 2) People spend exorbitant amounts of money on buying dresses and accessories for their wedding, most of which they never use again. Can I bring in a model where I can buy them and rent it out? Is this a viable plan?. - Unny Vidhya Response Nice to hear about your ideas, find my comments below: 1) Best way is to start a web portal that offers designers the ability to upload their products & designs and allows customers to view the portfolio. A virtual showroom like this will be very little in cost compared to offline business, have vital access from global visitors and designers, and will give opportunity to upcoming designers (contact fashion
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designing institution students). If you wish, I may help to establish one and sponsor a part of it too.:)[S2] 2) Surprised by your idea, as I had thought of this earlier as well; however, my occupancy never allowed me to do it. Yes! This is certainly a good idea, and the more I thought on it, the more I would prefer to put it on noncommercial basis. Are you interested in carrying it as social responsibility where we can get these wares donated from people and make available on rent (only cleaning charges or so) to those who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t afford it otherwise (like orphanages)? Do let me know if you would like to proceed with this. Best of Luck for your future plans! - Bhutkar Kapil
Marketing affiliates required I am looking for bloggers and website owners who claim strong traffic on their sites to partner with me as an affiliate. On my e-commerce website, one can personalize and order products online. I expect my affiliates to work on a pay per sale model where I will be sharing with my affiliates a fixed percentage of each sale coming from their sites.. - Wow Retails Pvt. Ltd
Play school looking for channel partner We have a play school/preschool concept with day-wise curriculum.
Paper bags manufacturing Now a days paper bags are in demand. I want to set up a paper bags manufacturing unit. I do not know anything about the business. I want to set it up as a cottage industry. I just want to manufacture the product and sell the product to a marketing agency. Can anybody give me some information on setting a paper bags manufacturing unit and marketing the product? I do not know marketing. Does any organization give training on this industry? - Venkateswarlu BM
We are looking for a channel partner to promote franchiser/ franchisee module. Those with 300-400 sq ft office space or who are ready to start a play school in Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai or Delhi can become our channel partner... - Sri. Periyaswamy Response We request you to visit our website www.kinderstand.com / www.everonn.com, or please do write to me for more details. -Devi, Everonn
Mentoring needed to start a food outlet in Bangalore I have been in touch with DARE from the first edition onwards. I am very impressed with the response I get even today from DARE. I would like to start a food outlet in Bangalore. I have a mastersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; degree in retail management from NIFT- Chennai and was always interested in food retail. I need some mentor or a person who is already in the business to guide me. I am doing
my side of the research. Please help me out with this. - Nandhakumar Response I, too, am interested in opening a cafe in Bangalore. Though I have no experience, I am quite keen to venture into this business and would be interested in partnering with you. Please let me know if you are interested, so that we may take this forward. - Sushma
How to get VC funding for organic food export Ours is a new private limited company exporting organic food and spices to USA and Europe. In a very short span of time we were able to get export orders from world famous companies and executed them successfully. More & more export orders are coming our way. We have our own cultivating facility which is also expanding very fast. We have funded the whole business from our own resources. We need funding for expansion of
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EXCHANGE
MARKET PLACE
• partners • mentoring • funding • guidance • advice • ideas...
our production base, execution of export orders in time, and to implement our new ideas. Contact us. - Sanjay Vishwakarma
Funding required for remote health care services I have a concept on remote health care services —an end-to-end health care delivery system for the developing world. I am looking for people who want to be a part of the core team and also angel funding to kick off the pilot. - Tarunesh Response I am into IT consulting and have 23 years of experience in IT, including 5 health care solutions. We can discuss it further on Skype. - Sushil Saxena Contact Me. - Sanjay Barkataki
Looking for a partner or associate with a passion for art I have a very unique idea that I have developed over years of thinking and research in the art field. I have also done most of the work on strategy, technology, logistics, branding, and finances. Also, there is very little competition in the market to face. What I need is a very enthusiastic partner/associate who has a great passion for art and who can take the entire business operations from here. Most of the tasks would be around: 1. Conducting offline marketing activities, and promoting products/ services to Hotels/ Restaurants/ Interior Designers/ Architects; explaining them the benefit and increasing sales; increasing brand presence and establishing it as a major player in this field. 2. Maintaining the online art store and arranging domestic logistics; keeping track of orders, customer requests and support, and other administrative work. I have even rented out an office in Pune to carry out the
Submit exchange requests at: website: http://www.dare.co.in/ marketplace.htm OR email: dare@cybermedia.co.in, OR SMS ‘DARE <your msg>’ to 56677 OR twitter.com/daretostartup
Planning to start a chain of crafts center in South Indian cities I have completed my education from VGSOM IIT Kharagpur, and I am working with an Indian retail organization as a marketing manager. I already have entrepreneurial experience in running an online T-shirt design firm. I have recently resigned from the services to pursue my interest in starting a crafts center in Chennai. I am planning to expand it further to other southern cities in due course. I am looking forward to pre-seed funds who would be interested in providing me with mentorship and funding. - Santosh Kumar S Response I am interested. Please send details as early as possible. - Sukrit Gupta, ABSOLUT ZERO, Delhi
operations and would prefer it if the associate/ partner is in Pune itself. If the proposal interests you, please feel free to contact me with more details about yourself. - Khinvasara, Anand Response Although art does interest me, I am not from Pune and neither do I have any formal training in the subject. Your proposition does sound interesting to me. Kindly mail me the specs, if you’re interested. - Sukrit Gupta, ABSOLUT ZERO, Delhi
Looking for marketing partners We are a wife-husband duo who has started a manufacturing unit of nonwoven bags. We have the latest bag making and printing plant and a capacity of 1 lakh bags a day. We are looking for marketing partners across India. The investment required is little and the returns will be very handsome. If all this interests you readers, please contact me. - Ritu Kapuria, Divine Bags
Rail Ticket & Mobile recharge agency I want to take an agency or ownership to sell railway tickets. I can sell 50 tickets daily because I am residing in Delhi University, North Campus area. Please contact
me as soon as possible. - Kamal Dewan, Jeevan Citizen & Travel Centre
Have a concept on rural health care and want to meet potential investors and team members I have a concept on Remote Healthcare Services – an end-toend health care delivery system for the developing world. I am looking for people who want to be a part of the core team and also angel funding to kick off the pilot. - Dr Sanjay Response This is Vinoth, founder of DoctorsandMedicines.com. I would like to discuss this in detail to understand it better. Please feel free to reach me anytime. - Vinoth Response I am based in Dubai but moving to India shortly. I have land in UP and near the Delhi capital region. I want to know what kind of large scale business is it, and what are the investments, requirements, and revenue model for this business. Please let me know at the earliest on my email or number. - Abhishek Prasad
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FEEDBACK
MARKET PLACE
website: www.dare.co.in, email: dare@cybermedia.co.in SMS: ‘DARE <your msg>’ to 56677 and twitter.com/daretostartup
Life begins at 60 Congratulations on your 3rd anniversary. I suggest that your website have the letters of readers on the main menu, and the eedition should be updated—as of now, only the Dec 2007 issue has a digital version. Also, there should be a search facility for articles and authors (including feedback letters). Furthermore, in reference to “For a franchisee, life begins at 60,” (Dare October 2010) professionals and employees in the private sector can get extension of service easily for up to 65 years. However, owing to family commitments, many people cannot enjoy the fruits of life, and only after retirement do they get to pursue their interests, fulfill desires like traveling around the world, do social work, socialize, and spend quality time in the company of loved ones and family members. They also have the option of teaching, studying, developing hidden talents or taking up hobbies like writing and photography. - Mahesh Kumar
Inspiring 50 SME Entrepreneurs Congratulations for picking such a beautiful theme for inspiring the SME sector in India. I would further urge you to start a panel of very successful and powerful people to mentor a selected group of MSME entrepreneurs to success.. - Amit Behera, Chairman Orissa Chamber of Small & Medium Enterprises
The Role of chaos in the life of an entreprenuer
That’s what keeps the wheels turning and makes life interesting and learning absolutely fun and engaging.
Inspiring 50 SME Entrepreneurs We are pleased to submit our nomination for the above as a competent contestant. Winning this recognition will help in boosting the morale and spirit of our entire team of Vasudhars at VASU.. - Divyang Shah, VASU Healthcare Pvt. Ltd
How foreigners view traffic jams in India? I live in a suburb of Mumbai city that is gifted with a cowshed on one of the busiest streets. It’s a pain because these animals on the road are quite a nuisance, and the roads are always filled with cowdung marks and mini traffic jams. Appreciate this post. Thanks for sharing. - Manish Ahuja
Will you marry an entrepreneur? Well, these situations are not uncommon. I remember watching a feature on Kapil Dev where he mentioned that when his wife
asked her family to marry Kapil, this is how the conversation with her grandfather went: Grandfather: What does the boy do? Romi: He plays. Grandfather: That’s okay. What does he do? (In Hindi, he asked: nahin, karta kya hai?) Moral of the story: Marriage is a tricky concept and the “Will you marry me?” question is even trickier.. - Vivek Kumar,
I don’t need the money now, I am bootstrapped! The government’s support to startup businesses is woefully lacking when it comes to bootstrapping. For example, if an entrepreneur wants to plough back business profits for expansion, there should be tax breaks and incentives provided to support and encourage it. In fact, this policy could be extended for all industries, and in no time we would be in the middle of another economic boom as businesses get incentivized to expand their operations. There wouldn’t be a need for external government stimulus measures, in that case. - Sujith Panikkar, Silverra Consulting
I happened to read your column on: The Role of chaos in the life of an entreprenuer and the quote - “In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order” is something I totally agree with. The whole evolution and cosmos is governed by chaos theory (order in choas or method to madness if u like) and there was and never will be set formulae or any defining factor or moment for anything. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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STRATEGY
STARTUP
The art of keeping the cashflow balanced 9 Ways to beat the Murphy’s Law of cashflow management
ash is king anyday in the role of an active enterprise. Time and time again you will come to realize as the company grows that among all the things that a company does, two things are most crucial – sales and managing cashflows. In the early stages of the company, just by sheer size or by the processes set within themselves, most of your clients would have a time window between the time you release the finished goods to the time they hand you a cheque – a bit of miscalculation here, depending on the size of the order could lead to crisis within a startup. To manage that, here are some tips to keep in mind:
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payment schedules. As a good strategy, it is good to ensure that no one client contributes to more than 20% of revenue into the company.
3. Always have a backup fund Unfortunately Murphy is always right and whatever can go wrong, will go wrong when you are trying to run a business. Just like you would manage personal finances, keep an emergency fund with a month or two of cash flow reserve that can be used in case of emergencies. You do require a bit of discipline to recover the money as soon as possible and replenish this fund – lest it starts to erode as well.
1. Set expectations early on In the early stages of a company, at times the teams compromise payment schedules and even the sales quote in an effort to win the deal. While this is not exact science or metric, keep an eye on how many such deals you close – while the first client might drive a hard bargain, unless you recover that amount you lost in your next client win, you are on a path to downward spiral. Keep an eye on that early on.
2. Manage the ratios As you start growng, never let one client contribute to the majority of the pie of revenues. Constantly find avenues to bring down that risk – especially if that client has a track record of not being regular in
4. Incentivize on-time payments As you start growing, it makes sense to incentivize your clients for payments on time – give them a discount, or a better pricing option – something valuable enough for them to seriously look at it and continue keeping that service from you. And vice versa, write it into your contract that should delays exceed beyond an acceptable limit, there will be some penalization that will be incurred. Be transparent when negotiating early on and explain your situation to them and the cost of the delay so that they empathize rather than feeling punished.
5. Qualify your clients There are financial instruments available in the
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This is an economy still being built by bankers and venture capitalists. Make some time to meet them
market today where you could do bill discounting and avail a significant amount of the receivable, but such efforts do not work unless the client is willing to directly interact with a financial institution to settle the dues – and a proprietory firm or one without professional management might not be comfortable with that concept. Ensure that atleast some of your clients come from this space, to offset your risk partially.
Vijay Anand
are treating you, do see if you can add a positive experience in that process.
8. Don’t be afraid to say No. Time and time again you will come across certain customers whom you would be sure would have payment problems, but in an effort to meet sales deadlines and to show higher billing, the sales team might be driven to close them. Make a stand to say no to such clients – no matter who they are.
6. Pass it on It’s unfortunate, but the vicious cycle continues. Everyone in a value chain in a way is going through the delay in payments that at times it makes sense to build a relationship with your vendor so that you can pass on the credit period of your clients onto them. If you are able to keep your timelines in terms of payments they shouldn’t have a problem – after all the very definition of cashflow is to bring in as much of the receivables as possible and release as little as the outflow as possible.
9. Know your Banker It worries me at times to note the amount of time that entrepreneurs spend in networking events trying to impress venture capitalists that they forget who the real heroes really are. This is an economy which is still being built by Bankers than Venture Capitalists. Take the time and effort to meet with your banker periodically and maintain a good relationship. They really can make the difference in between being in a hard place vs that peace of mind when something does go wrong.
7. Lead by Example Quite a few of the organizations that I have been part of, have this financial policy to release the vendor payments at the earliest possible – at the latest within a week, in some cases the very same day. The quality of relationships in such scenarios is definitely something which makes the process more enjoyable. No matter how your customers
Vijay Anand is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of Proto.in, and the Vice President (Incubation) at IIT's RTBI. He tweets at @vijayanands. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Vijay Anand'. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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INNOVATION
SECTOR
Innovative Root Canal Machine Twenty-one year old, Pune-born, final year student of Dentistry at Mahatma Gandhi Vidyamandir Dental College, Nashik, Sameer Jain has invented a root canal obturating machine which has the potential to make root canal treatment failure proof. Typically, a root canal obturating machine is used for filling the root canal of a tooth after the removal of the infected tooth pulp. This machine named Magik, is more advantageous than a normal root canal treatment in several ways. It is economical, decrease the time of treatment ten-fold, can be performed by any dentist and applies technology that guarantees prevention from re-infection (tooth can last for more than 10 years) http://www.technologyreview.in/biomedicine/26227/
Converging TV NextBiT Computing, a startup product development company, has announced a major breakthrough in the set-top box that can stream music, movies, photos, games, social media updates, and other content to TV. Also known as TVeeBox, it allows the user to access browser, cloud PC, YouTube, Facebook, BitTorrent, Twitter, Flickr, and many more applications directly on the TV screen. The TVeeBox also features a videophone application, allowing users to make and receive video calls in high definition. The start-up has its office in Chennai and Bangalore. http://www.technologyreview.in/computing/25949/
Low Cost Thermal Printer A Bangalore based startup, Evolute Systems, has developed a multifunction thermal printer called Impress. Mainly developed for use in rural parts of India, the Impress operates on a rechargeable View of a functioning unit of 1500 mAh lithium-ion bat- the Impress tery that enables the device to produce up to 2,500 charge slips of five centimeters each on a full charge of three to four hours. The device doesn’t use ink but gives an impression of an ink print. The technology is now commonly used in banking, ticketing, and for various other business needs, such as ATM statement slips, shop coupons, bus tickets, and more. http://www.technologyreview.in/computing/26228/
COMPLETE PACKAGE The TVeeBox set-top box provides users the experience of entertainment, communication, and computing on a TV, simultaneously.
Cabinet Computer T. Bhargavi, a 32-year-old homemaker-turned-entrepreneur, has invented a machine that can function like a computer and yet can be packed neatly in a briefcase. This daily tussle with cleaning the room with the computer motivated Bhargavi to build a computer which can be neatly packed into a cabinet. Also known as Cabtop, it has a unique design of an all-in-one PC unit. The design is such that all PC parts have been accommodated, including addon cards and speakers. The monitor is fitted in a moveable cabinet so that it can be rotated up to 45 degrees angle. http://w w w.technologyreview.in/computing/25721/ BOX FIT Bhargavi showcases India’s first cabinet computer.
TIGHT SEAL Sameer Jain tests Magik on an extracted tooth.
The New Age Sensors Instrumentation Scientific Technologies (InSci), a startup in Bangalore, has developed optical fiber sensing technology for structural health monitoring. It can be used in any industrial or civil structure to monitor various external stimuli such as changes in pressure, strain, or temperature. The safety-driven technology has wide scope for implementation globally in sectors such as aerospace, transportation, marine, oil and gas, materials testing, and chemical sensing. This system will be able to alert the authorities well before the onset of failure, thus preventing loss of life and capital. http://www.technologyreview.in/business/25469/ Content generated from
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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH
Vandana Luthra 22 NOVEMBER 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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Vandana Luthra made her entrepreneurial debut in 1989 by opening India’s first Transformation Center in New Delhi, which seamlessly married dietary and lifestyle modification-based scientific slimming programs with cutting edge skin and hair treatments. As Founder and Mentor, she is the guiding force behind VLCC — India’s leading slimming, beauty and fitness brand. VLCC has today achieved iconic status in the wellness space well beyond the Indian frontiers. By Shinjini Ganguli
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hat was it like to start your enterprise back in late 1980’s when women entrepreneurs were very much a rarity?
I come from a service-class background with no business links, and no inherited wealth to achieve what I have achieved. When I started VLCC, my younger daughter was only three. Life suddenly changed from being a housewife to being a professional. It was a delicate balancing act.
Could you throw some light on the scope that existed in the market back then and the current scope? VLCC was conceptualized in an age when customers had only two options. One was the mom and pop parlors that provided the usual services and other the five star salons. We have worked painstakingly to help this industry be recognized as an organized sector industry; setting quality standards, benchmarking services and customer satisfaction while employing top-of-the-line technology & applications. Our endeavours have been towards placing the Indian fitness and beauty industry
at par with those of the most advanced countries internationally. Today VLCC has evolved as a reference point for the wellness industry in India. Currently, the Wellness industry is estimated at around 11,000 crores (INR) and expected to grow at a rate of 30- 35%. It is heartening to see many international players entering the Indian market, however there are challenges that need to be addressed, with the biggest challenges being that the sector is yet to be given an industry status, and the other, the lack of quality control. We are hopeful that policy makers will soon address these issues and there will be no looking back for this industry.
What were the challenges that you faced in the initial stages? As a woman entrepreneur, the challenge during the initial years was that of perception. The time I started work, there were few women entrepreneurs and people looked down upon you, and didn’t take you seriously. At some level, a business enterprise started by a woman was looked at as an extension of her hobby. I
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ENTREPRENEUR OF THE MONTH needed to be twice as persistent and assertive to convince people at large that what I had doing was a viable product concept. There was also this whole issue of whether what had been created was a sustainable business model, capable of being scaled up or not. Since the concept was new and not well-known, procuring finance to further the business was a problem. But then it all worked out well at the end.
What did it take to bring VLCC where it stands today? We have always delivered on our brand promise. It took a lot of hard work and dedication by my VLCC family, and of course, the support of our patrons who helped us go from strength to strength.
Did you experience any failed ventures before you hit the jackpot with VLCC? I started with our first VLCC Centre to deliver slimming, skin and hair solutions in Safdarjung Enclave in New Delhi in 1989 and since then, there has been no looking back. It is, indeed, most gratifying that today, while we continue to operate from Safdarjang Enclave, VLCC is also present in 225 locations across 90 cities in India. The response has been overwhelming and today VLCC has more than 10 million satisfied customers who stand testimony to it.
Off shoot business opportunities in your business industry? VLCC is in related businesses within the wellness domain and we constantly explore opportunities to expand in this space. The Spa space is currently very promising. We already have four VLCC Day Spas with more in the pipeline. We will also be getting into the Medi-spa business very soon. VLCC, a ‘Superbrand’, serves as an umbrella brand for all its affiliated businesses including: • VLCC Personal Care • VLCC Day Spa • VLCC Institute • VLCC Nutri- Diet Clinic
VLCC Personal Care leverages the group’s strong research capability to manufacture over 100 solutionoriented skin-care, hair-care and body care products The VLCC Day Spa in Mumbai, Delhi and Gurgaon offer a tranquil escape from hectic city life through its relaxation and therapeutic offerings, which is dedicated to the art of wellness for the mind, body and soul The VLCC Institute of Beauty & Nutrition is India’s first comprehensive vocational training academy of its kind that offers professional and vocational courses in beauty, health, nutrition and management VLCC Nutri- Diet Clinic, VLCC newest venture in health and weight management aims to give customized diet plans to tackle various health and weight related problems
With a plethora of names coming up in the same line of business as yours, how do you deal with such competition? Competition is always healthy and I am happy that we have many other players coming in to explore this space. I hope that the brands coming in will help organize the industry further in terms of quality standards and benchmarking. Talking of VLCC per se, if you see the canvas of our business operations, there is no other company with presence across so many verticals in the wellness domain. We have not only survived all competition, but are also seeing good growth year on year, and that is because we do not compromise on quality of service. We have seen instances where clients go to a competing brand offering ‘cheaper’ services, but they do return when they realize the difference in the quality standards and the results of treatments.
What are your future plans with regards to expansion? VLCC currently has a presence in nearly 225 locations across over 90 cities in India, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Nepal. Over the next two years we expect to be present in all the GCC countries, including Kuwait
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VLCC is also present in 225 locations across 90 cities in India, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Nepal, with centers in Kuwait, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to also open in the next two months
in India and will also be further expanding our products business.
Are the products offered by VLCC also manufactured in-house? Yes, these are manufactured at our WHO—GMP certified manufacturing facilities in Haridwar and Dehradun.
Can you tell us a bit about what goes into R&D and designing of products? VLCC has a large research & development team which has qualified professional who have a name in the industry. Every product that enters the market from house of VLCC is created after extensive research; the ingredients used, the combination of each ingredient and there effect is well researched. I remain a part of these research, and many a times myself use these products before they enter the market.
How important is innovation for your business? and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as also some other countries in the MENA region, including Egypt. In addition, Bangladesh and Srilanka are scheduled to be inaugurated in the next two months. On the domestic front we will continue our geographic penetration, largely through the franchisee route (currently over 90% of our VLCC Centres are currently companyowned and managed). We will also be expanding our chain of day spas and will also be moving very soon into the Medi-Spa space.
Innovation is key to the survival of any business. Today’s consumer is very aware of his options and is continuously looking for value for money. It is important to keep innovating to provide the consumer with the best.
How has your business benefited from the association with US based Pritikin? The association with Pritikin will begin to deliver with the opening of the first day medi-spas, scheduled for later this year.
What new business verticals does VLCC plan to get into?
Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
VLCC Nutri Diet Clinic, our newest venture in health and weight management, aims to give customized diet plans to tackle various health and weight related problems. In the coming months, we will launch Medi-spas
We expect to be more than triple our current size with a much larger international footprint, while continuing to retain our current status as the most preferred wellness brand in India.
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OPPORTUNITY
COVER STORY
Starting a business begins with deciding what service or product to sell By Shradha Mohanty, Sharmila Das & Nimesh Sharma with Shinjini Ganguli eciding what business to start can be a difficult problem. Most people who want to start a business are by this simple question: what business to start? Many people take years to arrive at an answer. Some look at existing businesses and decide what to do. Others do extensive research before zeroing in on their venture. In the process of decision making, some peo-
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ple may drop the idea of starting a business. Yet, every time we see a successful entrepreneur who having started on a modest scale is now embarking upon expansion. He could be your neighborhood friend whom you meet on your morning walks or your former colleague. Those who took the decision to start a business and stayed with it for some time, most often
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The society which has seen the benefits of entrepreneurism hasn’t yet built a common pool of wisdom around entrepreneurship like it has done in the case of education or building a career
end up looking at their first expansion within couple of years. That is when most wannabe entrepreneurs shift in their chairs uncomfortably, thinking of how he or she could have also started a venture. We are not sermonizing that one should take decisions as quickly on a line of business and start it as soon as possible. We realize that this is a universal problem people face. Instead, we want to show you some of the businesses which were started with a modest budget. Today, most of them are looking at their next stage of growth cycle. If you haven’t made up your mind on a business, do not worry for help is around. Even as middle class India, which is shrugging off its primary aspiration of getting into a job in the government, PSU or an MNC, is now looking to embrace entrepreneurship, there is a huge awareness gap that is proving to be a roadblock. From imaginary business genes to assumed funding scarcity, hundreds of myths bandy together to cripple the young-turk who dreams big. The society which has seen the benefits of entrepreneurism hasn’t yet built a common pool of wisdom around entrepreneurship like it has
done in the case of education or building a career. Under such circumstances, we need to look deep inside the business domain and look for examples which can inspire us. Though we come across accidental entrepreneurs, people who started off without any planning and succeeded because they had no choice but to succeed, at some point in time every entrepreneur comes to a junction where need to slow down, think and act. Here are a few basic questions every entrepreneur can answer for himself.
How much cash can you mobilize? Though all great businesses were founded with meager initial funding, the entrepreneurs themselves were highly resourceful. Sit back and find out ways you can mobilize funds and you will be surprised at your own resourcefulness. The trick is in not to tap into your resources at the first chance. Keep it alive for the rainy day.
What difference can you make to society? While doing business if you can generate large scale employment is
a noble cause. Not all businesses by nature will be manpower intensive. In such cases, you could stand for being quality conscious. Identify what you need to be known as early in the game and work towards it.
What kind of a life do you visualize you will lead 10 years from now after the startup? If you are living the same life that you are living now, then there is no incentive in starting a business. The fundamental factor that drives us to start a business is to make money, lots of them and then the thought of becoming famous. Visualize what you want to be. Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet technology, says that "if I could do research in communication and invent things, you could too." Here are 50 business opportunities, seen through the eyes of 50 different entrepreneurs who spoke to us on how and why they chose that particular venture. Through these pages, our entrepreneurs are telling you, “If we could do it, you too can.” Turn the next few pages with care for your dreams maybe just unfolding. Have fun. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
School for recruiters: Help to Hire ith an estimated annual demand of 70-80,000 recruitment professionals, people with specialized skills to help business organizations meet their staffing needs, your “school for recruiters” is unlikely to run out of customers—unless you get the recipe wrong. Include in your programme: employer branding, manpower planning, candidate assessment, fraud detection, online and offline business networking and resume building.
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Is this for me Yes, if you are passionate about “people,” have an aptitude for HR management in general and are well connected in corporate circles. You need to be able to find teachers with relevant skills and at least 7-8 years of experience
in the recruitment business to start off.
Insight “Trained professional recruiters can help business organizations efficiently address their number one concern: finding the right people. Recruiters can set up their own consultancies too.” Vipul Prakash, Elixir School of Recruitment.
`40-45 Lakh Investment
1-2 years Avg. Break even
30-40%* Margin (*Note: Assuming two six-monthly batches of 100 students each with an annual fee of Rs 15000 per student)
How was it done Elixir School of Recruitment started in 2006, to train recruiters in consultancies and companies’ HR departments.
Just desserts ou can manufacture ice cream and sell it in your own ice cream parlours or distribute it to different business verticals, like hotels and restaurants. You sell your product to distributors and, thus, to end users.
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Is this for me A dairy technology course is best, but not the only way; a graduation degree is enough.
Insight "Lack of quality raw material is shrinking the ice cream business in India even though consumption rate has increased over the years," Mukund Kamath, Owner of Ideal Ice Cream.
How it was done S. Prabhakar Kamath, the founder of Ideal Ice Cream in Mangalore, used to deal in tailoring material and firecrackers. He wanted a more stable business, so he learnt the art of ice cream making, experimenting with techniques at home. He launched Ideal Ice Cream Parlour on Market Road in Mangalore on May 1, 1975,
`8-10 Lakh Investment
3 years Avg. Break even
10% Margin
with 14 flavours. At present, the legacy of producing quality ice cream is in the hands of Mukund Kamath, son of S. Prabhakar Kamath.
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Toys on rent appy kids. Happier parents. These are the people you are going to deal with in the toy rental business everyday. Set up a website through which parents can access your repository of toys and subscribe to it as well. Facilitate delivery of the toys at the customers’ doorstep after confirming bookings on the website. This way the parents are able to provide the kids a wide variety of toys, some of which might be expensive, to the meet their child’s ever changing demands. Subscription charges from the customers. Income can also be generated through franchisees.
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Is this for me Knowledge of the brands of toys you want to include in your library - Good people skills - Interest in children
Insight "It is imperative to identify your target market here and make a detailed customer profile in this business. That way we know that here in Bangalore, areas around IT hubs and other apartment centric residential areas form a large portion of our customer base," Shilpa Prasad, Rentoys. Major existing players in the space: Rentoys, toys-on-rent, toysforrent.
How it was done
`5-6 Lakh Investment
1.5-2 years Avg. Break even
NA Margin
The idea was put into action by Neeta Verma who saw the need for providing safe, durable and clean toys to children and at the same time make it a less expensive affair for the parents. What sets rentoys from apart from other similar services is that they only deal with branded toys in their toy library - Funskool, Fisher Price, Tomy, Lamaze etc.
Food Information and Logistics here is a huge demand for webavailable information for restaurants around several cities in the country. Become an end-toend food service provider by starting your own website and acquiring a logistics team. You would basically be catering to all the customer needs: detailed information of restaurants, food ratings and reviews, bookings and reservations, buffet reviews and most importantly food delivery.
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identify our market by finding out the restaurants who were interested in us. We talked to a lot of them to know if they are interested in outsourcing their logistics to reduce their effort. And we hit gold in the fine dining industry,” Sheldon D’Souza, TastyKhana.
How it was done TastyKhana evolved to become a huge success, even though the entrepreneurs behind the idea did not
Is this for me Strong marketing skills to convince restaurants Acquiring a strong local logistics team Tech knowledge to start the website
Insight “At TastyKhana we were able to
`10-15 Lakh Investment
3-4 years Avg. Break even
70% Margin
have any food related background, because of the keen interest they took in organizing parties and lunches during their corporate lives. It started as an information site which gave listings of restaurants around the city and over time it grew over time to become an end-to-end food service provider by starting delivery services from its associated restaurants to its customers. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Landscape solutions s a landscape irrigation business owner, you irrigate a certain area of land within the stipulated time period according to your client’s horticulture plan.
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the required materials are available on time and the area ready to place the irrigation line," Siddharth Rai, Owner of Ficus Landscape.
How it was done Is this for me Technical knowledge of designing and calculating water flow, water friction rate, pipe line size, pump capacity, route of water line, location of control gate valves, selection of irrigation devices like sprinklers, micro sprinklers, drip lines and dripper nozzles will help.
Insight "Coordination with landscape consultants/companies is necessary to capture the irrigation market. Before signing a contract, check if
The idea of spending life amidst greenery drove Siddharth Rai to launch Ficus Landscape in 1993. He started with a plant nursery. In 1993, an IPCL (Indian Pet-
`6-7 Lakh Investment
3-12 months Avg. Break even
25% Margin
rochemicals Corp. Ltd) official came to his nursery to buy plants, and later offered him the execution of IPCL’s landscape project. Ficus Landscape now provides complete landscape solutions, including horticulture, irrigation and lighting plans, along with drainage systems.
Online retail store for Eco-friendly products n online retail store of Ecofriendly products is a viable business option for people who want to pay back to the society and earn for their livelihood. You can source the merchandise from rural areas or can tie up with several NGO’s to have your product line.
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Is this for me A person with sound internet marketing, web designing skill can start this venture or else a competent team of web marketing professionals, designers may start the venture.
Insight "Today, we have the choice to shape our tomorrow. Every product that we buy has a story to tell. By buying
products that tell a green and good story we choose a future that is green and good for all of us," Aparna Bhatnagar, Green & Good Store.
How it was done Aparna Bhatnagar, the founder of Green & Good Store worked in different NGOs, Seva Mandir and her voluntary services made her realize that there were many NGOs, green entrepreneurs, artisans who make
`6-7 Lakh Investment
3-5 years Avg. Break even
20% Margin
amazing, high quality products and the sale of these products is an important source of fundraising for them. However, they find it difficult to market their product due to financial and geographical constraints. She felt that by incorporating these products, that have a positive environmental and social impact, into the daily lives of people, she could make difference. She started trying to change the way she lived, the way she shopped. It was tough as there was little information on what these products were, their impact and where one could find them.
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Online shoe retailing business everaging the internet penetration in India one can start online shoe retailing business. The business runs through distributors, inventory team, shipment team etc. In a online shoe store, one can sell thousands of pairs of shoes which otherwise in a showroom may need hundred square feet area in a prime location.
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Is this for me Two skills are required- experience in Retail and good knowledge of internet technology. No specific qualification is required.
Insight “Online shoe shopping is a very popular concept around the world. In USA, 13% of the total sales of footwear come from online sales. In a country like India, internet is the
only way a brand can reach 10, 000 cities and towns of the country. Our strength is variety and service. Any order placed get shipped in 3 hours, and 80% of the time, we are able to deliver within 24 hours,” Manmohan Agrawal, Bigshoebazaar.
How it was done Bigshoebazaar was founded by four people- Manmohan Agrawal, Danish Ahmed, Nitin Agrawal and Rajul Jain in the year 2008. This online
`35-50 Lakh Investment
2-3 years Avg. Break even
8-10% Margin
shoe store sells more than 85 brands and over 25,000 designs. After pioneering and establishing in e-retailing of shoes (www.bigshoebazaar. com), the company has recently forayed in the wholesale cash and carry segment (www.bigshoebazaar.net). Beside these, Bigshoebazaar also has six multi brand footwear stores across the country.
Medical facilities under one roof business of providing medical facilities in faster and convenient way. The facilities may include fixing up appointment with doctors, arranging ambulance and other transportation facilities for patients living alone or living in the outskirt of the city.
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Is this for me One does not have to be a doctor or nurse but experience in the healthcare sector will be an added advantage.
Insight "With the increasing trend of corporate culture & growth of healthcare facilities in India, there will be a greater role for services and intermediaries who facilitate efficient distribution and easier access to
these services. In the next 3-5 years, I expect to see a lot more innovation and interesting business models emerging in the healthcare services space," Nitin Mathur, Founder & Business Head-HealthPA.
How it was done In India a large number of people remain under-served due to lack of awareness about medical issues & facilities, or lack of easy access
`15-20 Lakh Investment
6-8 months Avg. Break even
30% Margin
to medical care. This is especially for people from smaller towns and cities, who often need to travel to a larger city for medical treatment. This is where HealthPA, or Health Personal Assistant steps in. Started in the year 2009, their roving health counselors, and information centers take the information and access to advanced health facilities directly to the doorsteps of people in need of this service. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Food website with automated calorie calculator common food website with recipes, videos and blogs on food with uncommon features like automated calorie calculator and converter has the potentiality to gain market shortly. The calorie calculator and converter is a tool resembling excel, where users input his diet (broken up into items and quantity) and it would convert the same in calorie. This tool should also work the other way around.
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the courage to pursue them.” I believe one should dream big and then live up to turning dreams into reality,” Sumit Goyal-Founder & CEO FoodandNightlife.com.
How it was done Sumit Goyal, Founder and CEO of FoodandNightlife wanted to use his knowledge of food industry. His trips to foreign countries also in-
Is this for me No specific qualification required. But food related course will surely help.
Insight Walt Disney once said, “All our dreams can come true, if we have
`5-10 Lakh Investment
3 months - 1 year Avg. Break even
30% Margin
spired him to launch a food website, because outside India, every country has a food magazine. India did not have that and to capitalize this gap he launched FoodandNightlife in the year 2009. It covers all kinds of food and nightlife related business. Food and Nightlife magazine is a sister concern of Mr. Goyal’s FoodandNightlife website and it was launched in September 2009.
Nursery School Decor he good number of nursery schools in our surrounding area inspires to start a nursery decor business. The growth potential of the business is good as there are host of nursery schools coming up, both branded and non-branded. A nursery decor business owner gets quotation from the client and accordingly works to meet the client’s expectation of designing a nursery school within the specified period.
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should maintain the good work and keep a close eye on the aesthetic element of the business involved. Meeting customers demand should be one’s utmost priority and one should achieve this by keeping a close eye on the assigned project," Anwar Ali, Baba Interior.
How it was done Anwar Ali, founder and owner of Baba Interior founded the company in 2009. He started his career as an
Is this for me A course in interior designing always helps but a self made person can step into the business if they have experience of working with established interior houses.
Insight "A nursery decor business owner
`5-6 Lakh Investment
1-3 years Avg. Break even
25% Margin
electrician, then he moved from this profession and become a plumber and finally worked with a interior designer company. His experience in all the mentioned areas motivated him to have his own interior decorating company with a focus on nursery school interior designing. The interior design company provides its services to real estate buildings, offices, luxury home, casual cafe and restaurants.
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Manufacturing LED Lights hen the whole world awakes into the consciousness of producing energy efficient devices and equipments, manufacturing LED decorative lights could be doable business option for many. The business requires setting up a small manufacturing unit and for that one does not need very high-end machines.
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Is this for me Good product knowledge along with good knowledge of physics, geometry helps. In addition, people with technological bent of mind with an inclination to research and development can come to explore the business opportunity.
Insight
overcome by hard work. Hard work has no substitute," Rajesh Purohit, Lucifer Lights.
How it was done Rajesh Purohit, Owner and CEO of Lucifer Lights noticed LED has a vast potential in India due to power shortage and high electricity costs. LED for domestic lighting is a hot business area. To tap this potential market of energy efficient lights,
`10 Lakh Investment
3 years Avg. Break even
15% Margin
"Hurdle named finance can be easily
Rajesh brought Lucifer Lights into existence in 2008. The product can be used for lighting up homes and offices. The product is a cluster of LEDs and the fixtures are manufactured with reflectors required to hold this cluster and illuminate an area. In terms of energy efficiency, the product consumes 75% less power than CFLs, and 90% less power than incandescent lamps.
Cake decorating business n India, there are hundreds of cake shops those make and sell cakes. Here, the business idea is different from them. Cake decorating business owner is a person who himself is an expert in cake decorating and may run his business solely or in collaboration with cake shops. In the latter case, revenue generated can get shared between the cake shop owner and cake decorating business owner.
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The skills Expertise requires knowing all the nitty-gritties of cake making and decorating. This expertise can be gathered from a professional course or by working with noted chefs.
Insight “The business is rewarding and satisfying too. One should come
into this business if s/he feels the urge,” Abhishek Trehan, Celebration Cakes & Flowers.
How it was done Manjit Trehan a retired professional was the man behind Celebration Cakes & Flowers. He started the cake decorating and making shop in the year 2009. Abhishek kumar, son of Trehen is the successor of the cake business who started his career in a domestic call center. At the office parties he used to wonder how
`5-6 Lakh Investment
3 years Avg. Break even
20% Margin
people get amazed by the beauty of decorating cakes. He worked on the idea of cake decorating business and started working with one of his friend who owns a cake shop. After some time he acquired the essential skill required to run a cake decorating and making business and joined his father’s business. Mr. Kumar believes cake is the most important part of any party celebration and so they choose the name of his business as Celebration Cakes & Flowers. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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INSIGHT
HUMAN RESOURCES
Of Geniuses and the rest First impressions should be good but has to be backed up with continuous performance By Vikas Verma er name was Ratna and she was full of energy, bubbly, cheerful and very friendly with children. Just the kind of person we were looking for to manage the first store of ‘The Colour Factory’. We had launched the first Colour Factory (TCF) store in Gurgaon about a couple of months previously and had been struggling to find the right person to be the store manager. And what’s more, she came recommended by the store manager of a kid’s apparel store in the same mall. Ratna’s first few days on the job with everything looking good and customers feeling happy filled us with a lot of hope.
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Hire for Attitude rather than Aptitude The hope though, was rather short lived. And therein, lay the biggest challenge that we faced as a startup company, and so do perhaps a number of other companies in a similar situation. Putting together a management team full of pas-
There are always more roles and jobs to do in the organization than you have the salary budget to hire people for all those roles
sion, committed & sharply focused on aligned goals, with commonality of vision and purpose is perhaps one of the bigger challenges facing entrepreneurs. For us, the “Ratna” episode was a real gem of a learning opportunity. It started innocuously enough with Ratna missing a couple of days work, coming in late to work or going missing during part of the day and slowly built up into not managing customers’ demands well, or taking an initiative to innovate either to serve customer needs or ways to upgrade sales. In short, she had the aptitude but was woefully short on attitude. Soon, we were spending more time at the store along with Ratna to save the frag-
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ile and as yet evolving relationships with our customers. The lesson here is rather simple and obvious. I can build aptitude, skills and ability through specific training regimen, even in the short term but building attitude hardened by contrary behavior over the years is a much much tougher nut to crack. So, if you have a choice to make go for attitude any day over aptitude.
Clarity of Job role & skills matching We thought we were very clear on the job profile for the position of the store manager while recruiting Ratna, but it was immediately clear to us thereafter, that we had not detailed out the profile requirements enough. Processes apart, entrepreneurs often eschew the use of psychometric and profiling tools for recruitment purposes. In the hands of experts, these tools can be quite effective in matching skills to a specific job profile. The most effective way to use these assessment tools is to list out in detail the qualities required for the position as also the activities that would be required to be done by the incumbent. These two lists would also help in creating clarity for the job profile as well.
Multi-skilling and not just multi-tasking A beneficial fall-out of the “Ratna” episode was that we had to go back to the drawing board for recruitment. In the meantime, word that we had spread amongst our retail network, led Bhaichung to walk in through the doors of the Gurgaon TCF one evening. He had been referred to us by one of my colleagues from an earlier company. (And that, by the way, is a great way to recruit people. Half hour into the conversation with Bhaichung and I could intuitively tell that he was our man. His steady presence at each stage of TCF’s journey over the last few years bears testimony to the accuracy of my intuition
Processes apart, entrepreneurs often eschew the use of psychometric and profiling tools for recruitment purposes that evening. Lesson learnt – at times intuition works better than the most sophisticated assessment and recruitment tools, so don’t discount it. Bhaichung brought a rare ability to not just multi-task but also multiskill that energized all around him and helped us meet another challenge that entrepreneurs face routinely in the start up phase. There are always more roles and jobs to do in the organization than you have the salary budget to hire people for all those roles. So, you had Bhaichung looking after not just the customers at the store, but also creating marketing promos, developing new product ideas, sales training of newer staff and even interacting with vendors for supplies apart from managing events and corporate activity. In short, Bhaichung treats the company as his own business and brings in a rare fresh zeal of intrapreneurship. And believe me, this kind of attitude can be quite contagious – and spread it did to Sandeep, the Operations Manager and even to our accountant Arun, who both began to actively seek additional work and responsibility outside their domains. Create Entrepreneurs like yourself – Why have employees when you can have partners? Obvious, isn’t it? And yet so many of us miss it! An employee will go home and thoughts about the company and work would normally be left behind at the office but a partner or an owner of the business will continue working and thinking about the business long after the clock has struck 5. Will an employee lie awake
in bed thinking about the ways in which to recover service levels with lapsed or dissatisfied customers? Probably not. It’s a rare employee who will be “paranoid” about the business as Andy Grove of Intel put it, and who will therefore pursue the path to perfection relentlessly. Bhaichung is one such employeepartner who is always paranoid about the health of the business. He is one such person who has never drawn boundaries at work in regard to what is his responsibility and what is not. If something to be done is in the best interests of the company then he considers it his responsibility and gets right down to it. Where does Bhaichung’s sense of ownership come from? Bhaichung has never owned a single share in the company. The source of an employee’s sense of ownership is never derived from the ESOPs that he gets, necessary though they may be. This sense of ownership can only derive itself from the empowering environment that the entrepreneur is able to create within the organization, his ability to ignite the passion and gain deep commitment of his employee-partners. So, what does an entrepreneur have to do to find more Bhaichungs than Ratnas? Well simply put, he needs to identify and then hire for the right attitude, create HR processes and have a clear and well defined job description in place, and keep that aside the moment a Bhaichung comes on board. Foster an enabling and empowering culture that allows employees to chart their path, take responsibility for scripting their growth path and ownership for success of their initiatives. Executed with an optimum balance of the head and the heart, this is sure to help the entrepreneur create a passionate committed team of Bhaichungs, who have clarity of vision and commonality of purpose and willingness to meet all challenges that an entrepreneurial start up venture must face in its initial journey. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
A library that home-delivers! tart an online book rental library that delivers books to the customers’ doorstep. It is convenient way for book lovers to get a hand on their favorite books, some of which might be expensive, during these rushed times and schedules, by just ordering from the website and returning it back after finishing it.
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Is this for me Software skills to setup web applications to support library Knowledge of books/ people who will help you choose books for the library
Insight "This kind of online book rental library business can also work in tier2 cities. I think there is a huge de-
mand there, because availability of books does become an issue for the readers in those places," Manish Kumar, Co-Founder, FriendsOfBooks.
How it was done According to Manish Kumar, India has a non-existent public library system. He and Arti Jain saw this as an opportunity to cater to book lovers anywhere in the country. The customer gets to choose from the website and hence saves time
`10 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
40-45% Margin
and money on traveling and purchasing the book. Initially, they started as a library and within a year they upgraded to become an online bookstore.
One Stop Bonsai Business
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here is a huge market for bonsai today. There is a constraint in space for people who want to set up their own garden at home. With the development of bonsai, they are now able to buy a variety of such small plants which they can easily maintain on their rooftop gardens or inside their houses. Hence, you can start your own bonsai manufacturing and gifting set up. The revenue model depends on the way one markets it. Now a days, florists can form a significant part of your customer base, as they include bonsai products in their gifting service.
Is this for me - Patience and passion in gardening - Creativity - Stock of old bonsai trees to sell
- Knowledge of bonsai in case of entirely new business
Insight “Along with selling bonsai, one should also make sure they sell other accessories in the store like ceramic trays, copper wires, mesh, moss, peat soil, gravel etc. One needs be a complete solution provider in not just selling bonsai but making sure that people come back to know how
to maintain their bonsai and keep it alive,” Veena Nanda, Bonsai Expert.
How it was done
`1.5-2 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
upto 50% Margin
Veena Nanda who has been working in bonsai for the last 25 years, says there is a huge market for appreciating bonsai today. More and more people are appreciating the art. In her ‘Sunshine Bonsai Workshop’ she teaches people the art and also sells her works of art.
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Online Art Gallery ith the upswing in the art market in India since the slowdown, online art galleries are picking up. Signalling the space where entrepreneurs can jump in and reap benefits. Online galleries don’t require extensive expenditure and are easier to maintain. The other incentive being the connoisseur in you will never be away from stimulating colourful agents. Additionally, it can also provide many apsipiring artistes with a platform to sell their work.
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as long as 10 long years to establish one,” Ashok Nayak, Ashok Art Gallery.
How it was done After finishing his degree in fine arts from BKCAC in Orissa, Ashok Nayak came to Delhi in search of buyers of his art. However, the galleries in the city turned out to be biased towards their native artistes. Disappointed, Nayak along with seven other co-artistes set out to
Is this for me Ability to identify and select saleable art.
Insight “It is one thing to buy and sell artwork and it is another to establish a gallery. Sometimes it may take
`30-40 Lakh Investment
3 months - 1 year Avg. Break even
25% Margin
launch a gallery of his own “Ashok Art Gallery” in the year 2003. It was soon followed by an online version. They used to send images to people which gave them the idea of starting online gallery. “We profile the paintings on our websites which the art connoissuers can view on request in our display rooms,” says Ashok. The website is used for profiling the paintings where buyers can do the initial screening and once they choose a artwork, they can come and see it in the display rooms.
Barter Exchange ou start an online and broker driven physical exchange. Companies become members of your exchange and offer goods/services, which are valued in ‘Barter Credits’. Other members can get these goods/services in lieu of their own goods/services, without spending any cash. You get 5-10% of the volumes of the ensuing trades. Members of your barter exchange pay you 5-10% of the value of the trade volume on every trade, just like in a share market.
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Is this for me You need practical knowledge of how and what businesses trade with each other, technical expertise to run an online exchange, a solid business development and brokers’ team, and high quality branding collaterals.
Insight "Use of better technology will build credibility and transparency for you among your clients, which will be important in your obtaining an edge," Rohit Mahajan, Ormita India.
How it was done Rohit Mahajan bought the India operating licence from Ormita Commerce Network, and after a year of
`30-40 Lakh Investment
3-6 months Avg. Break even
25-40% Margin
homework, launched his exchange in April 2010 with a big office. In six months, he already has 800-odd members, including some top media companies. He plans to expand further using the franchise route. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Dog Beauty Parlour ou provide beauty services for dogs (grooming, massage, skin treatments, cures for minor ailments, beauty packages, etc.). You can get Rs 200-3,000 per session, depending on the service. With four million pet dogs in India, potential industry revenue is Rs 100 crore annually.
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How it was done After completing a veterinary science course, an MBA, a pet grooming course from Bangkok and two professional stints, Aradhana Pandey started a pet shop, dog clinic and dog parlour simultaneously in 2002 in Rohini (North Delhi) – the first such centre in Delhi.
Is this for me You need a degree in veterinary science and/or a dog grooming course (available only outside India). You must love dogs and have the expertise to handle them.
Insight “You should enter the dog grooming profession only if you have a passion for dogs, not just for profits. It’s a tiring and difficult job,” Aradhana Pandey, Doggy World.
`15-20 Lakh Investment
1-3 years Avg. Break even
50% Margin
Employability Training ore than 75 percent of Indian graduates are unemployable because their education is theoretical. You can offer young graduates, vocational training so that they start being efficient in a job from Day One. Training can include various vocations, soft skills, industry awareness, technical courses with certificates, etc. through means including online Learning Management Systems (LMS).
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Is this for me If you want to or can help the youth gain skills and be employable immediately as they graduate, this is for you. You need industry experience, which you can translate as a trainer into concrete learning.
Insight “There are lot of people offering similar services, but it is quality that makes the difference and establishes credibility among colleges and students,” Pranav Bhatia, ZigEdu Learning Solutions.
How it was done After a long stint in education industry including setting up a Public Limited Company in education for
`20-30 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
30-40% Margin
a large business group, and while being an Art of Living teacher, Bhatia decided to strike out on his own. His friends and he sensed a disconnect between fresh graduates and company expectations of them and set up Employability Skills division (Urban Vidya) under Bhatia’s newly set-up company, ZIGEDU Learning Solutions.
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STRATEGY
WORKLIFE
The dilemmas of an entrepreneur Cash vs. Kind, Capital vs. Mentorship, Financial Contribution vs. Nonfinancial Contribution “Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as
Anurag Batra
everyone else and thinking something different” - Albert Szent-Györgyi hen entrepreneurs start their own business, they, apart from having an idea, and passion, and a dream, need capital. At least they think they only need capital, and the rest of the skills will be hired or outsourced. Do they think that the new venture will need more than capital and ideas? Do they value nonfinancial contribution? Do they put a financial value on nonfinancial contribution? Are they seeking mentorship? Is mentoring a rewarding exercise and do start-up entrepreneurs put a value on it? John Crosby said, “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” The reason I talk of mentoring is because every week a lot of young, energetic entrepreneurs come and talk to me and say they need mentoring. In fact, last week itself, a young, dynamic lady (who, incidentally, had the same alma mater as me, but she was much junior) came to me and sought my mentoring to power two ideas in the media domain. She asked me, “Anurag, do you mentor people?” Without waiting for my answer, she said, “I would like you to mentor me.” I started thinking of mentoring as a serious endeavor. My mind was reminded of what Winston Churchill had said: “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”I am a media entrepreneur, and I, myself, seek guidance, advice, and mentoring from larger entrepreneurs in the media in India. I thought it was time for me to say thank you and pay back. In fact, in zest, I keep saying that one must say thank you with a checkbook and sorry with a checkbook. I was reminded of this comical, yet very deep statement. As an entrepreneur, I was asking myself if there is a financial value to my mentoring, and if yes, how should the young entrepreneur who is receiving it pay me back. Should he or she pay me by giving equity in the business? If yes, how much equity is fair?
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This thinking brought me to a larger question: Do start-up entrepreneurs value nonfinancial contributions in their business? I started thinking about marketing and advertising costs to build a brand and immediately thought of Times Private Treaties (TPT). BCCL’s ad-for-equity business model has changed the way it does its business of bartering ad space for a stake in a client company. For one, the company has started taking a percentage of cash and the balance in equity. The BCCL and TPT’s core team works like a mentoring unit to the company management or entrepreneur to create value for all shareholders including themselves. This is an interesting and innovative way to monetize a nonfinancial asset and entrepreneurs value it. My reading is that more and more start-up entrepreneurs are realizing the value of mentoring and will increasingly ascribe financial value to the mentoring contribution. My belief in mentoring can be summed up by what Ruth Whitman said (the only assumption being that entrepreneurship is an art): “In every art beginners must start with models of those who have practiced the same art before them. And it is not only a matter of looking at the drawings, paintings, musical compositions, and poems that have been and are being created; it is a matter of being drawn into the individual work of art, of realizing that it has been made by a real human being, and trying to discover the secret of its creation.” Anurag Batra is real life, first-generation entrepreneur who is Much Below Average (MBA) from the prestigious Management Development Institute, MDI. When he is not busy writing such columns, he can be reached at anuragbatrayo@gmail.com. Anurag is the founder and editor-in-chief of exchange4media group which includes exchange4media.com. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Anurag Batra'. Disclaimer: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Breeding Exotic Pets he business of breeding exotic pets today has largely improved. Most of the exotic birds and animals breed very well in captivity. To get into the business, you should start small with a few birds and animals that are not very expensive. That way you can assess what kind of animals you want to breed and scale up to more expensive animals. One can make profits through sales. However, another important means of income is though exchanging animals with other breeders, negotiating and trading off prices to level it out thus adding a variety to your repository to attract customers.
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Is this for me Passionate about animals Need to have the right infrastructure
for the kind of pets you are breeding Knowledge in medicine and veterinary science gives you the edge
Insight “Today you will find people dealing with exotic species of dogs, persian cats, rabits, guinea pigs and hamsters. Out of these rabbits have a big commercial market,” Gulab Abdul Wahab, Wetpets.
How was it done
`3-5 Lakh Investment
1-1.5 years Avg. Break even
40-50% Margin
Wetpets has been into breeding exotic birds and fishes for the last 20 years. Gulab says that his family has been into breeding exotic pets for last three-four generations mostly because of the love they share for animals.
Vending Machines business that allows you to deal with anything from prepacked beverages, snacks, newspapers to mobile talk-time recharges, tickets etc. Vending machines are definitely one of the easiest ways to make money where all the owner has to do is choose the right location. Economic growth, development of cities, lifestyle and eating & drinking habits have opened a huge market for these machines caters to peoples’ needs directly. Mostly the revenue comes from sale of the products in the machine. Advertising also has some scope in the setting up of the machine. It can be done by displaying products in the front-glass machines or by putting ads on the machines themselves.
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Is this for me
Insight
A good idea of the location where you intend to set up the vending machine.
“Approximately 12-15% of the potential market for vending machines has only been tapped till now in India. So, a huge market is still untapped,” Pulin Dani, Plus Beverages.
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Paragliding School es, it is true that you can set up a paragliding school with a budget of Rs 50 lakh. Unlike the common belief, that such business requires huge investments, it can be started with a moderate investment but with high commitment. Passion is the most important ingredient to achieve success in this business. A paragliding school can offer a slew of packages and services like paragliding courses, rides, tandem paragliding, weekend flying trips, paragliding holiday packages, corporate offsite and outbound getaways, etc.
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Is this for me One should be skilled in paragliding.
Insight “If you have the right product and the right customer, it makes things easy,” Sanjay Rao, Nirvana Adventures.
How it was done It all started back in 1996, when Sanjay Rao felt the breeze between his wings for the first time. Along with a few paraglider pilots who
`40-50 Lakh Investment
5-6 years Avg. Break even
25% Margin
were looking for an appropriate place to paraglide near Mumbai, when Sanjay paraglided in the hills of Kamshet, he just knoew what hewanted to do for the rest of his life. Nirvana Adventures is over a decade old now. Started with an investment capital of Rs 5 lakh, today, it is doing mighty well.
Cakes for Allergies and Restrictions n India the fashion of customised cakes for allergies and restrictions is fast catching up as in the West where it is an established practice. With the constant surge in the number of health conscious people, an immense opportunity has opened up in this space.
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How it was done After working with top notch names like Four Seasons Hotel in California and Singapore and a slew of upmarket bakeries in the states, Kishi Arora came back to India three years back and started Foodaholics, a speciality cake shop. Started with a startup investment of Rs 50,000 and
Is this for me Culinary skills with knowledge of allergies.
Insight "Desserts can symbolize enjoying the good things of life – indulgence, overindulgence, festivity, temptation, reward, and excitement. So come, become a Foodaholic," Kishi Arora, Foodaholics.
`50 Thousand Investment
6 months Avg. Break even
70% Margin
a floor in her house, she broke even in as much as three weeks time! Foodaholics promises a 360-degree offering – be it technical food consulting with a trained chef on board, or be it perfectly executed desserts from various countries. It also special customised cakes for its cutomers with allergy problems and restrictions. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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STRATEGY
WORKLIFE
Start-ups & the web Get online. Or not.
o, you’re starting a business. Awesome! Now let’s talk about Internet. It would be really nice if you can ignore it and focus on the business. Unfortunately, but not sadly, you can’t. Let me/us walk you through all the things you can do there.
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Website Ah, the all important, all powerful, everything-at-theclick-of-your-mouse source of information. We will not spend much time on this right now, but if you really need to know and have time to waste, you could read my article in the previous issue.
E-mails Even if you do not have a website up, do try to get a URL registered. This is cheap (you can get one for usually around 10-20 dollars), but effective. In other words, info@yourcompany.com gives much more of an impression and credibility than yourcompany@ gmail.com. Once you get your domain registered, (hundreds of places on the web do that, but make sure you select a good one that will not go out of business soon. The trouble with small time re-sellers is that they register your domain and vanish one day. And there goes your domain with them) there are free and easy tools from Google that let you use the same Gmail, but in your domain. Just like Gmail, it’s simple to manage. There, you have your company e-mail set up.
Social media Time to join the bandwagon. Now, what exactly do we do here? No one knows for sure. Some say that it’s for exposure, some say it gets new customers, some say it’s for keeping in touch with old customers, or for announcements, invites, so on and so forth.
Yes, you can have a Facebook page. Yes, you will invite everyone you know who has ever used a mouse to join the group. And yes, they will join, either because they are interested in your service/product, or they like you, or they simply cannot say no to you. But the question is, then what? Now, every page out there that has thousands of “likes” is not equally effective. And really, there’s not much of a strategy here; but do make sure you don’t end up being just another “liked” page among your users. Twitter. Fast. Good. Unfollow, just like follow, is only a click away. Tweet about interesting things, the
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Social media for the sake of social media is not only ineffective but also an unforgivable waste of time for you and your customers alike
Rajaram Rajendran
about your business through this than a television commercial. Make sure you select websites that are more targeted towards your customers. That way, you’ll reach more of your people by spending less.
E-mail blasts I’m not a big fan of this, but I’ve heard success stories. Even if you do decide to send one out, make sure you do it with less copy and are as direct, simple, and pleasing as possible. I personally hate receiving bulk e-mails that have lots and lots of text to read before I find out what it is about. In most cases, my mouse cursor goes directly to the delete button, or the email itself goes to the spam folder without bothering me much.
Newsletters Considering they are chosen by people and not sent down your throat like the previous bulk e-mailers, they are a good option to keep people up-to-date with your business.
Search Engine Optimization competition, overall innovation in your domain, and other interesting things. Be nice to your followers. Don’t brag often. Digg, del.icio.us, and the other million sites out there—what do we do with them? Social media is effective. But be sure of what you want to achieve with that and how it helps your business. Social media for the sake of social media is not only ineffective but also an unforgivable waste of time for you and your customers alike.
Portals / Banner ads Not a bad idea; sometimes more people get to know
This really depends on the type of business and the target customers. But yes, it can yield results. Again, you can read my rants on this in my article Your Perfect Website in the October 2010 issue. We shall continue with this. All the best with your start-up!
The writer is an entrepreneur, designer, digital artist, wannabe musician and a jack of all, who thinks black & white photography is very cool. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Rajaram Rajendran'. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Fresh and Healthy ith people increasingly growing health conscious, business of fresh salad has emerged as a lucrative business option. The target customer could be anyone, especially office goers who don’t have many options when at office and more often than not have to settle for greasy, fatty food. Finding the right location is the most crucial challenge in this business. The other challenge often faced by entrepreneurs is logistics.
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Is this for me A degree in hotel management or experience in a multi-cuisine restaurant helps in setting up this venture.
Insight “Earlier people weren’t very health conscious which is why we had to
limit ourselves to posh localities only,” Ranjan Agarwal, Salad Chef.
How it was done Salad Chef, a fresh salad store, was launched by two brothers, Sanjay and Ranjan Agarwal and a friend Rakesh Brahmi in the year 1993. Sanjay, a chef at Taj and Ranjan, a
`7.5 - 24 Lakh* Investment
5-6 years Avg. Break even
25% Margin (*Note: Food court model (100 sq ft) – 7.5 lakh and Standalone store- 20-24 lakh).
food technologist started this venture with the aim to provide fresh and healthy food to their customers. Their business saw a slow start as people weren’t very health conscious back then; however, the scenario is changing for good and their venture is scaling new heights.
Online Gaming Business he online gaming business seems to be the flavour of the era. Individuals love to indulge in gaming activities after the day's work and have fun. The online gaming business owner will have a website to launch his own gaming software. Otherwise, one just can make the gaming software and sell them to distributors. In the both the cases, the profit potential is huge.
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Is this for me The business owner needs to be any one or all of the three-a good game designer, artist or programmer. But these are not necessary skills. One can start the business by hiring these professionals.
Insight “The future is in global games for global audiences. Games that the
world plays - on the web and mobile and across nationalities and geographies,” Alok Kejriwal, CEO & Cofounder Games2win.com.
How it was done Alok Kejriwal, the founder & CEO of games2win (an online gaming company) can be best described as a serial entrepreneur. His previous start up - Mobile2win was acquired by The Walt Disney Company (China division) and Norwest
`50 Lakh Investment
3-4 years Avg. Break even
50% Margin
Venture Partners (India division). games2win India is his fourth new media venture and is among global top 20 online games company as per comScore. Alok launched games2win in the year 2005. g2w operates portals such as games2win. com, gangofgamers.com and chimpoo.com. It also owns the world’s 2nd largest in-game ad network www.inviziads.com.
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Foreign Language School ou teach the popular foreign languages like Spanish, German, French, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Italian to students by setting up an institute, where there is focus on practical aspects of language to ensure the job-readiness of the students after they pass out. A lot of activities like reading, writing, listening, and speaking drills; role plays; karaoke singing; festival celebrations to give a more cultural feel; word games and dialogue writing etc. are involved. Students pay you on per language course basis, wherein a course could be of 3/ 6/ 12 months, depending on what level is it teaching (there are approx 6 levels). There is a premium attached as good trainers don’t come easy and cheap, and besides the job
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opportunities for students after the course are well-paying.
Is this for me If you have interest in learning and teaching about other languages and cultures to others and have a broad outlook of international culture and music, you are in right direction. Besides, it would be good if you have contacts in
`1-10 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
20-30% Margin
Insight "Apart from European languages, there has been a major shift towards East Asian languages in the last five to ten years," Purnima Garg, Director, The Chinese Language Institute (CLI).
Consumer driven For-profit Social Enterprise ou develop a low-cost innovative product for poor or lower middle class or a product of strategic importance to human life, and sell it at low-cost to the target market, resulting into a revolutionary change in their standard of living, economically, socially, hygienically, physically or mentally (for the differently- abled) etc. You turn profits through volumes.
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needs to be visionary in achieving short term and long term business objectives.
Insight “D.light customers have reported that children’s study time has increased by a factor of 2-4 times after purchasing the solar lantern. In addition, each kerosene lantern no longer used, removes 0.5 to 1 ton of carbon emission from the atmo-
sphere,” Sam Goldman, D.light.
Other Major Players Green Digital, Invention Labs etc.
Is this for me
How it was done
You need to be passionate about solving a particular problem of the masses and have a solution as well, which may need to be disruptive / innovative in terms of technology, price, distribution, etc. People / companies involved in this business
D.light venture began in a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 2007 and moved to New Delhi (India), started in 2008 as an Indian consumer products company selling solar lanterns to people without access to reliable electricity.
`10 Lakh - 1 Crore Investment
Depend on R&D Time Avg. Break even* *Profit could be good enough, but the measuring rod here should be the number of lives impacted.
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INSIGHT
LEADERSHIP
The Business Leader of Today If you are the sun, moon, and star of your enterprise, it is time to rework on your leadership style By Vimarsh Bajpai he early 1980s in India was a colorful era of black-andwhite television, and one of the shows that beamed across TV sets was Star Trek, the science fiction series that was originally telecast in the US and parts of Canada between 1966 and 1969. The series, set in the 23rd Century, was about the voyages of a starship, the USS Enterprise, which was led by Captain James T Kirk, the commanding officer. His team comprised, among others, of Mr. Spock, the first officer; Leonard McCoy, the chief medical officer; and Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer. While on its mission to explore a new
T
The leader of today has to learn to listen and ask, rather than just say what to do and how to do it. He has to be more receptive to the thoughts of others and have his ears close to the ground
life and new civilizations, Captain Kirk encountered situations that required instant decision making, apt delegation of work, and realistic goal setting, which is much like the business leaders of today who run either their own enterprises or are part of leadership teams in the organizations they work. Captain Kirk’s work was made arduous because of the sudden challenges that his team would encounter from an invisible power, sometimes threatening the survival of the starship itself— a stark similarity with the recession in the West, and the resultant economic slowdown in India in the past few
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years. The situation called for industry leaders, particularly those heading start-ups and SMEs, to show immense courage and charisma to keep their enterprises afloat. Captain Kirk’s leadership style, and those of the subsequent captains of the Starship Enterprise, has for years been the subject of study. Parallels have been drawn between their negotiation techniques and information gathering process with those of the leaders and managers in organizations. The leader of today’s world however, has changed dramatically since the time the fictitious starship ventured the space. It has been over 40 years since the series was written and telecast across the world with innumerable sequels. While many of the past lessons on leadership are still relevant, new models have been explored to meet the growing demand for leaders. The problems today are far too many and more complex because of the global interconnects between economies. The workforce is now multicultural, and companies work around-theclock to meet demands of ever-de-
For the leader of today, the problems are far too many because of the global interconnect between economies
manding customers. The Internet has helped make islands of communities whose members share their ideas and ideals openly. Today, you have no place to hide if you deliver services that do not meet customer expectations, and if your products come wrapped in colorful packing but fail to meet the needs of your customers. With so much changing around us, how can the companies and leaders of today continue to resist the much-needed change? The leaders of the past were supposed to know more than their subordinates, and Marshall Goldsmith, one of the world’s leading executive coaches, calls it the apprentice model. The one who headed the enterprise or
a business unit was almost next to God, and those who reported to him were expected to learn from him and grow. But today’s leaders, says Goldsmith, manage knowledge workers who know more than their bosses. Therefore, the leader of today has to learn to listen and ask, rather than just say what to do and how to do it. The leader has to be more receptive to the thoughts of others and have his ears close to the ground. It is a good sign that more business leaders are flocking on Twitter to directly connect with their customers and stakeholders. This is the dawn of new-age leadership that emanates from the desire to make a real difference to the community. Running a business today is more dynamic than ever as all departments are organically interdependent and complement the growth of the organization. One inefficient department could drag the organization down a few notches. This makes it all the more important for a leader to hire key people who are brighter than him; those who have clear vision and can dole out fresh ideas and solutions without fear or hesitation. The new-age leader looks for potential intrapreneurs to join his organization, not just mere employees. Intrapreneurs are free thinkers who perform best when motivated to try out new ideas on the ground. They are believers in a value system that is based on customer satisfaction, rather than plain profits. So, if you have assembled a group of nodders, drawing from P. G. Wodehouse’s short story The Nodder, symbolic of the “yes man” mentality, your enterprise could soon land into more trouble than that of Captain Kirk. Vimarsh Bajpai is an entrepreneur, a writer, and a content and communications consultant. As the founder of Samvad Sutra, he works with organizations and individuals to help them communicate better.
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Plug-n-Play cum Virtual Office ou get rented or owned premises, furnish it fully with infrastructure, furniture, accessories, equipment and services and then offer it to startups as ready-to-use office accommodation. Startups who need ready-tomove-in offices and services, but cant afford expensive business centers will be ready to take up such offices. The rates will depend on the city, location and other specs. But the returns are always excellent. What you must provide: a good address, with easy access to mailing, phone, fax, and courier services.
Y
Insight “Put all your efforts in marketing, quality and customer service being
obvious,” Audrey Moruzzi, Marks Business Center.
How it was done While Jay Thaker had additional space in his office to offer and so started Sutralite, his plug-n-play office in Mumbai, Audrey Moruzzi couldn’t find a cheaper office option
`3-50 Lakh Investment
6-12 months Avg. Break even
20-40% Margin
for her 3 people-startup in exports, other than expensive business centers. So, she started Marks Business Center, in south Delhi, to offer cheaper space to startups.
Organized Rickshaw with VAS rganize rickshaw pullers under a single banner, reengineer their vehicles and roll out a pre-paid city transport service. The new rickshaws can be loaded with cell-phone chargers, mobile re-charge coupons, first-aid kits, mineral water and newspapers among other goodies. It should be easy to enrol the pullers as the new deal assures them a steady income, security, insurance protection and a dignified life. The rickshaws if replaced by subsidized solar rickshaws will take the gruelling manual labour out of the business.
O
Is this for me This is for people who wish to engage in a business with a so-
cial purpose. If you feel strongly for the downtrodden and want to make a difference, then hop on to a rickshaw.
How it was done Insight “Believe in your ideas and the world will believe in you,” Irfan Alam, Samman Foundation.
`10 Lakh upwards Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
10-15% Margin
Rattling along in a rickshaw in his home-town Patna, Irfan could not get water. He studied the rickshaw economy and vowed to change their sorry plight. He designed a rickshaw that could stock items like mineral water and newspapers to be sold to the customers. The business, however, involved more than just that- it involved stirring hope in deadened hearts! He shared with the pullers an idea that promised to boost their incomes and also help them discover a life of Samman or dignity.
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Business Incubator tartups utilize your incubation facilities that include office space, office infrastructure, technology, mentoring, funding, salaries, etc. till they become self sustainable, in return for an equity stake to you in their startup. Only those startups will be incubated that successfully qualify after applying. You take a small equity stake (`3-10%) in the startup and/ or the startups pay you for the plug n play office space.
S
Is this for me You need to have industry contacts to get mentors, an office space to provide to startups, and very good experience in running and helping startups.
Insight “If you can ditch your Girl Friend for a date with an [Aspiring] Entrepreneur, you have it!” Mohit Bansal, L-Pad.
How it was done Having started an MBA course in entrepreneurship to help students, Mohit Bansal saw the need to help them in actually starting up, so al-
`10 Lakh - 1 Crore Investment
6 months - 5 years Avg. Break even
0-50% Margin
tered his model in Feb 2010 and started the incubator: L-Pad, having 13 acclaimed industry mentors, like Alok Mittal, and a plug n play office with seating capacity of 20 people.
Employee Rewards Platform ou offer unique rewards packages on technology platform (managed by your company) customised for mid- and largesized corporations for them to offer to their employees. The packages are in the form of exclusive discount deals on products and services. The business aims to create a marketplace where corporate employees get to enjoy extraordinary discounts and the merchants gain access to an excellent high volume sales channel for their products and services.
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Is this for me Positive attitude and resilience to bad news are the most important attributes for surviving and succeeding in this business. New ideas take time to get accepted,
especially if you are not spending a fortune to promote them! As for skills, this is all about sales. Sell the concept to the corporate and sell the idea to the merchants. Street smartness is a must.
Insight “Always pitch your idea at the decision maker. Beware of Gatekeepers,” Anshul Gupta, Privilege Corner.
How it was done
`30 Lakh upwards Investment
6-12 months Avg. Break even
25% approx. Margin
After his MBA from ISB, Anshul Gupta was with a very successful start-up in the online demand aggregation/ private sale model space. He understood that the model could be replicated in B2B settings and co-founded Privilege Corner. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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INSIGHT
BOOTSTRAPPING
Celebrating the first year of success! When you are starting as an entrepreneur, things are difficult but there is no better high than starting something from the scratch and watching it grow By Manik Kinra s 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. 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
A
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
The are a number of good people who are willing to mentor and advise you
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
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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
The glamour associated with being an entrepreneur is only a secondary result of high efforts and persistence stretched over a period of time
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. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Out of the box Media Platform ou create / buy media space for ads on unexplored spaces and sell them to clients: On-vehicle ads: You offer a one-stop solution (designing to printing) to clients for ads on vehicles used by the general public; you pay the vehicle owners from your commission. Ads on photocopy backs: You offer clients bulk ads – for schemes or discount coupons aimed at college students – behind photocopied study notes.
Y
the students. You must be methodical to run a multi-college operation.
Insight “You see problems and issues only when you deviate from your goals. Be focused and determined and you can achieve anything. Failure is a state of mind,” Raghu Khanna, Cashurdrive. “It is important to understand what the consumer/client wants. Efficiency on a daily basis is necessary here,” Harsh Narang, PhokatCopy.
Is this for me A. On-vehicle ads: You need high skills in car wrapping. You should be able to sell ad space on cars to B2C companies. B. Ads on photocopy backs: You must be good at sales. You need justright printing technology to ensure the ads are visible, but don’t disturb
A. `12-15 lakh, B. `4-5 lakh. Investment
A. 6-12 months, B. 1 year Avg. Break even
A. NA, B. 20-30% Margin
Raghu Khanna
Harsh Narang
How it was done Inspired by trucks stuck in traffic jams, Raghu Khanna started Cashurdrive in September 2008 with Rs 12-15 lakh. By April 2009, he broke even. Today, he wraps 300400 vehicles daily, with projects like CWG with him. Started by Harsh Narang in June 2009, PhokatCopy offers “free photocopies” to students, which are subsidised by revenue from ads behind each sheet.
Animation Studio enturing into an animation studio business is not restricted to an animator only. This business is equally viable for people who have not done any course in animation. The business will require having four/five computers, office space and a team of skilled professionals.
V
sourcing fever has gripped India. Global entertainment majors like Walt Disney, Imax, Warner Brothers and Sony are signing up contracts with Indian animation companies. So the Indian animation industry has more opportunity in its offing,” Anil Sharma, Vice President-Operations, AAG.
Is this for me Certification programs, degree, diploma in animation are the various courses available in the market to an aspiring animator but to own an animation studio, these qualifications are not required. But it is good to have knowledge of the industry and fondness of such work.
How it was done
`20-25 Lakh Investment
3-4 years Avg. Break even
Insight “India’s Animation sector is witnessing a major boom. A new out-
10-20% Margin
MD Gujrati started the Academy of Animation & Gaming (AAG) in the year 2007. He started AAG with the purpose of bridging the gap between the needs of the rapidly booming animation, gaming and visual special effects industry for skilled professionals who fulfill industry’s needs. AAG is also a reputed name in providing 3D, flash animation projects to its clients.
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Education Tourism ou offer very niche and highly valued educational courses (offshore training) to foreign students combined with customized holiday trips / excursions in India, charging them a combined amount with a premium attached.
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Is this for me Selfless customer focus and excellent HR skills are a must for a successful Offshore Training enterprise as you need world class trainers to offer an impeccable quality.
How it was done Koenig Solutions started in 1993 as a domestic training company, with a capital of Rs 1 crore. In the dot com bust Koenig decided to downsize and focus only on the profitable niches. Koenig saw an opportunity to make an extra buck by bundling hotel tariff in the course fee and making money on commission from the hotel (a miserly amount of Rs 200/- per day seemed likea princely sum to us in those days). The first
Insight "Persistence and focus eventually pays off. As per the 10,000 hour principle expounded by Malcolm Gladwell in his bestseller “Outliers”, 10,000 hours of practice is a prerequisite for great achievement,” Rohit Aggarwal.
`40-50 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
60% Margin
student came from UK in 2002. Being happy, he agreed to become our referral in UK. We started receiving more students inspite of ramshackle facilities, but gave students 1-on1 training and abundant attention of admin staff which saved a lot of money. Over the years, our facilities and computers are now state-ofthe-art. Koenig is now established as the leader in Offshore Training and other enterprises in South East Asia are following its foot-steps.
Selling Insurance Salvage ou can set up an independent salvage disposal company and help insurance agencies sell damaged goods accumulated with them during insurance claim process. You will primarily help in procuring buyers who make competitive bids for the goods. You will set up necessary infrastructure to advertise the sales, gather bids and submit them to the insurance company.
Y
cannot spend much on advertisement and has minimal personal resources. This fueled me to launch isalvageauction.com with the intention of making the salvage disposal system most transparent,” Naresh Tagotra, isalvageauction.com.
How it was done Naresh Tagotra started isalvageauction.com that provides free advertisement space and the sellers have all the control. The site acts as their
The skills Computer conversant with sound knowledge of general insurance claims. Domain knowledge gives the edge Specific qualification is not required.
Insight “As an independent surveyor, one
`5 Lakh Investment
4 years Avg. Break even
15-20% Margin
own space where their own details get listed and interested buyers can contact them here. In its model of working anyone (surveyor loss assessor, individual, corporate body, government department or insurance company) can sell the insurance salvage without outsourcing the service to third party agency. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
Trading Medical Oxygen Cylinders edical oxygen is used during surgery, intensive care treatment, inhalation therapy, etc. Apart from being used for treatment of hypoxia or hypoxemia, asthma, bronchitis, pulmonary edema, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Oxygen is typically supplied to hospitals through bulk liquid deliveries and these hospitals employ distribution points and cylinder trolleys for portable use of medical oxygen.
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producers. The standard color codes are then painted on the cylinder before it is delivered. The cost of cylinders depends on the size. On an average, a cylinder of 5L would cost around Rs 3,000 while a 47L cylinder would cost around Rs 6,000," Vijay Parikh, Al Can Exports Pvt Ltd
How it was done
The skills Good knowledge of handling the gas cylinders are required so that one can carry this business efficiently.
`1-5 Lakh Investment
1 year Avg. Break even
Insight "Our company produces cylinders after getting orders from oxygen
NA Margin
M/S Al-Can Exports Pvt. Ltd started its journey in the year1985, promoted by a technocrat Vijay K. Parikh. Mr. Parikh is one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of seamless Aluminum Bottles & Containers for packing Industries. Al-Can Exports thrives to provide quality product and prompt service.
SMS: â&#x20AC;&#x153;DARE <your comments, questions or suggestions>â&#x20AC;? to 56677 Email: dare@cybermedia.co.in Website: www.dare.co.in Follow us at:
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FROZEN YOGURT CHAIN
- Technical knowledge of various kinds of tests used
You offer site-made all-natural frozen yogurt selec-
in recruitment
tions with a selection of fresh fruits toppings such
- Technical expertise to develop software
as Blackberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, Dragon Fruit, Strawberries, Mango, Pineapple, Pomegranate
The players
and Kiwi with lots of dry toppings. The guest gets to
Aspiring Minds
create his/her selection to their liking. The skills Culinary skills and knowledge of recipes The players Cocoberry
KARAOKE PLATFORM/ BAR Karaoke is fast catching up as a culture in India and can be offered in many ways. You can have karaoke nights, have some kind of competition, give singers a platform to perform to get get them noticed for their career prospects. You can also set up a non-alcoholic karaoke bar which will basically have coffee and
NICHE CUISINE RESTAURANT You start a restaurant offering a niche regional cross-
snacks. This can be a huge hit among teetotalers, kids and family gatherings.
continental cuisine like Japanese, Thai, Mexican, Mughlai etc, having the best of ambiance, crowd, and
The skills
great food.
You should have good marketing skills and must be a music lover so that you include the best songs in your
The skills
repository.
- Knowledge of culinary skills - Cooks who are familiar with the cuisine
The players
- People skills as you need to help people get familiar-
There are no exclusive karaoke bars in India.
ized with the new cuisine The players Punjabi By Nature, Oh! Calcutta, Mainland China, Olive, Veda
MANUFACTURING HOLOGRAMS With industries and government waking up to piracy and counterfeits, the business of holograms has a promising future. The Indian hologram market is growing at 20 percent per annum and has more than
JOB APTITUDE TESTING SERVICES
40 players. Constant up gradation of technology and
When it come to recruiting right person for a job, a
sourcing of equipment are some of the things you
large number of organizations in India don’t have the
need to look out for in this business
rightmost procedures to judge whether the candidate even has an aptitude in that field or if he/she is just
The skills
struggling for a job. Very specialized job aptitude test-
Expertise to manufacture holograms with custom-
ing service can be a great service to those companies,
ised security features, Knowledge of where to out-
specially for ones that go for campus recruitments.
source from to reduce costs, very good selling skills
You develop a product, that can be customized for
required.
companies and can even conduct the exam on behalf of them in campuses.
The players Holoflex, Holostik India
The skills - Should be good at psychological profiling of people - Knowledge of HR needs of company
MANUFACTURING WIGS Indian hair is considered to be fine, lustrous and free DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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OPPORTUNITY
THE IDEA
from chemical treatments, making it suitable for
The players
manufacturing wigs. You can become a hair wig man-
Cane Boutique , Cane-line, The Next Shop
ufacturer or exporter and have customers throughout the globe, including celebrities! The hair exported can be either raw or processed/polished. The profit
LUXURY BOATS
margins are around 15% and 50% respectively.
Luxury yachts are sought after for their ability to offer fun and exclusive mobile lifestyle. While dealing with
The skills
importing and selling boats, to maintaining them at
Creativity to experiment with different kinds of hair
a price can be an expensive affair, there are several
designs
other opportunities available to you - manufacturing, training and placement of crew and staff, and charter
The players
services.
Savvy Wigs and Hair International. The skills Some experience in the hospitality industry gives
DAY SPA
you the edge, plus a sense of luxury, and technical
Rejuvenating one’ s mind, body and soul can be capi-
knowledge of boat manufacturing (in case of manu-
talized by venturing into a day spa business offering
facturing).
services like massage, facial, body facial, skin exfoliation etc. These offerings can further be subdivided
The players
and customized as per individual needs. Approxi-
West Coast Marine, Marine Solutions, Infinity yachts
mately, 50 lakh minimum investment without surgical equipments, would be required.
ENGINEERING PLASTICS
The skills
With new manufacturing technologies replacing
Qualification in this specific field and/or experience
older ones and cost-effectiveness becoming the
of working in a reputed spa would help. You need to
mantra of modern-day competitiveness, plastic is
hire skilled professionals in setting up the business
replacing various metals and is growing to become
which may be in shortage
a lucrative business. You can choose for which field you want to start your plastic business from a variety
The players
of options - automobiles, aircrafts, fiberglass boats,
Blue terra spa, Akasha Boutique Spa, Tattva etc
electrical and electronic items, medical equipment, and machinery.
CANE BUSINESS
The skills
Cane furniture today has managed to create a niche
Expertise in the particular domain where you want to
market for itself, thanks to the efforts put in by some
start your business.
big stores which manage to sell their products for anything from Rs 35,000 to several lakhs of rupees.
The players
It is developing as a trendy furniture and has huge
Finolex Industries Ltd. , Plastiblends India Ltd., AGA
prospects if you can pool in resources from the unor-
Group International
ganized sector to start your own business. The skills
HERITAGE TOURISM
Getting people from unorganized sector, to manu-
Heritage tourism contributes well over 60 percent
facture for you and managing them can be tedious.
to the overall share of tourists in India, both domes-
If you want to sell your own products, you need to
tic and foreigners. With greater awareness among
be creative.
entrepreneurs and tourists, demand for sightseeing
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heritage monuments in under-explored areas is ris-
The players
ing, be it tour operation, transport, restaurants, ho-
Travel India Company
tels, and airlines. The skills
MANUFACTURING FEMALE CONDOMS
Good marketing skills, historical knowledge of the
Manufacturing female condom has enormous business
particular heritage monuments, very good guides and
opportunity. The growing consciousness of using con-
reliable tie-ups.
doms to combat diseases like AIDS drives its growth potential. In India, there are a few companies that exist
The players
in this segment. The business would require a set up of
Apass India Leisure Solutions
manufacturing unit and selling the product to the end users. They are retailed through pharmacies, distributors, rural healthcare institutes, medical institutes etc
WESTERN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS Lucrative opportunities in manufacturing, exporting
The skills
and importing western musical instruments beckon
No specific qualification needed. However a good un-
entrepreneurs in this fast-growing segment. The ad-
derstanding of the industry and target group provides
vent of Fusion groups, rock bands, corporate bands,
an edge. Requires some technical advancement over
and mall culture have all pepped up the popularity
manufacturing of male condoms as its manufactur-
of western musical instruments especially in metros
ing is a more intricate process.
and big cities, majority of them being children and college goers.
The players HLL Lifecare, MedTech Pvt Ltd etc
The skills Knowledge of various brands of music instruments and technical knowledge of the instruments.
MANUFACTURING WATER PURIFIERS Water purifier business is the new trend catching up
The players
in India. Starting up a water purifier business is lucra-
Raj musicals, Musical escapades
tive and requires knowledge of the product. There are several kinds of purifiers in the market. Most popular types are RO (reverse osmosis) and UV (ultraviolet)
MEDICAL TOURISM GUIDE AGENCY
based. Besides these, there are simple candle filter
The flourishing medical tourism in India drives the
purifiers, softener plants, and water distilling plants
potential of embarking into a travel company that
(used only for commercial purposes). To venture into
provides complete package including healthcare ar-
this business one needs to set up a small manufactur-
rangements, stays in hotels, after-treatment stay etc to
ing unit with not so high end machines with an invest-
foreign patients. These agencies will act as a facilita-
ment of about Rs. 1 lakh - 4 lakhs. For the middle class
tor between patients and various hospitals, hotels and
market, this a price sensitive product.
tour companies. Besides, they also provide treatment advisory services to medical tourists. The patients will
The skills
choose different types of treatments, hospitals, pack-
Knowledge of manufacturing the water purifiers and/
ages and a convalescent holiday after their treatment.
or experience of working in the same.
The skills
The players
No specific qualification is essential but the industry
Eureka Forbes, Usha, Kent, Unilever, Bionics
knowledge helps. You need to market very well, as medical tourism in countries like Thailand and Bangkok pose threat to Indian medical tourism.
DISCLAIMER: Average break-even period and profitability margin given are estimates by Dare team.
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STRATEGY
STARTUP
Take your employees along for the transition Many consultants come with ready-made solutions which may not work for SMEs. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s for the Management to sit with consultants and customise the HR policies. hat is a bigger challenge for an enterprise-- is it organising funds for growth or acquiring talented hands for the business? Ask any entrepreneur and he would put his ďŹ ngers on the latter. More so because an SME does not enjoy the brand equity to create a bench and the tight liquidity position would never allow the luxury of extra hands. It is imperative for an enterprise to hold on to the talented pool as long as possbile. How does one achieve it? I came across an interesting story from an entrepreneur a few months ago. He is an auto component dealer who has been in the business for nearly a decade now. The business, as has been the case for many in this sector, has acquired size and at present, the turnover is in excess of Rs 10 crore. But what is more interesting is the employee story. The entrepreneur has managed to retain his first batch of recruits over the last decade. When I probed a little further, it was not surprising. His mantra for people management has been simple. Share and grow. In the initial years, he rewarded his employees on an annual basis through small increments and bonuses. Over the years, as the size of transactions got bigger, he decided to reward his staff in line with the growth. In fact, seven employees who have served the company for a decade were given keys to their brand new Maruti Alto cars!
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As recession is turning to be a thing of the past, it would be imperative for all enterprises to get back to the days of rewards to spruce up productivity. In the case of small companies, arriving at the reward is a challenging task. For instance, how should a company reward an employee who is a trusted hand over a well-qualified young employee who may not be a long term bet? More importantly, how does a company move from the days of adhoc incentive programme to a structured incentive model. Here are some tips for the transition: Prepare employees for the transition: While the turnover and profits can make a company big, it is the attitude which brings about the change. An organisation which believes in itself as a large organisation will find it easier to transform at a later date. So, irrespective of the size, put in practices which are akin to large companies. For instance, pay-hike on demand should be a strict no and fix a time frame for the same. It could be according to the financial year or calendar year or as per the career commencement period for employees. Put in place structured reward programmes: Every employee ďŹ nds it easier to perform when he is told his reward in advance. A kid will behave himself when he is tempted with a chocolate and a student will be willing to put in extra hours if he is promised a two-wheeler for a good academic
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While the turnover and profits can make a company big, it is the attitude of employees which brings about the change Srikala Bhashyam
performance! You can’t expect the trend to change when these boys turn men. Of course, an employer should make sure to keep the reward exciting in line with the changing periods. A little bit of innovation can do some good. Take the case of the earlier example. A Maruti car is surely a big carrot for an employee for his performance. Communicate the rewards and give time for the employees: One of the key factors for target achievement in large companies is the continuous monitoring of sales targets. Since employees are communicated well in advance, the goal is set. Smaller companies, on the other hand, end up doing more of post-mortem than forward looking. As the companies get bigger, there is a need for induction of competition and the best way to go about the same is to fix targets both at individual and organisational level. While employees have little to do with the organisation’s targets, the individual targets and their subsequent achievement can go a long way in recognition of performance. While the above points are well known and easily sustainable, the challenge for many companies relate to the starting point. It is not a bad idea to get a professional consultant to develop the entire process but the same needs to be customised keeping in mind the work ethos of a company.
An entrepreneur friend recently narrated an interesting story. The company, based in the industrial suburbs of Bangalore, hired a consultant to devise a fresh compensation package. After the package was announced, 20% of employees quit job since they were not happy. Another 20% demanded further hike as the new policy failed to reward loyalty. But many of them put in papers as the economy revived. My friend felt that the company could have done away with half attrition without actually hiring a consultant! Many consultants come with ready-made solutions which may not work for SMEs. It’s for the Management to sit with consultants and customise the HR policies. May be the entire process of transformation has to be done in phases, she points out. She has a point because transition is never a one-off affair.
Srikala Bhashyam is an investment consultant and runs her own consulting firm in Bangalore. She has been a regular columnist for the print and internet media on personal finance. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia.co.in with the subject line 'Srikala Bhashyam'. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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TECH CORNER
ENTERPRISE
Enterprise Security Strategies What would you do if you caught an employee stealing sensitive data from your organization? What kind of security threats give you nightmares? What should an ideal security policy have? By Anil Chopra • More than half of the CIOs we spoke to had a compliance policy in place. And half of those spent most of their time ensuring compliance. • Only 10% had fully outsourced their security management. • More than half admitted to a ‘little difficulty’ in convincing top management to invest in security solutions. • About half had low satisfaction levels with security vendors.
ecurity is a key area of concern for just about everyone nowadays because it’s not just about combating viruses and worms anymore. It’s also about establishing and enforcing a set of policies in the organization on how and what can the employees access. It’s also about ensuring that all critical company data is safe from prying eyes. A good security setup will always ensure that it’s based on the right set of technologies backed by strong policies. There has to be a proper balance between technologies and security policies. Even if you use the latest security technologies but don’t have strong policies to control its usage, your setup will suffer. Likewise, you may have strong policies, but unless there are technologies that will help you enforce them, all effort goes to waste.
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more than 50% of the CIOs we surveyed. While that may sound reassuring, the interesting point to note is that there are still areas that are more significant than security. One, of course, is the organization’s core business and the systems that support it. Business supporting systems, ERP, legal requirements, and business continuity are all areas that get higher priority over security. Add to that system uptime, maintaining low cost for data trans-
fers, and connectivity as a few others that you may want to place at a higher peg than security. These last two are also linked to the previous ones because what good is security if the systems themselves are not up? We’ve had discussions with many CIOs in the past where the most important concern had been ensuring that all the systems were up. In fact, this was one of the areas that gave most of them nightmares. What if they were sleeping and,
How important a concern is security in your organization, vis-à-vis other areas of IT?
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Which security issues are CIOs spending most of their time on?
in the middle of the night, a critical server or storage device went down? What if they were travelling on an important trip or were out of office and received an urgent call from office to return immediately because the ERP server had gone down? Speaking of nightmares, there are quite a few that security can also give to an IT manager or CIO, and God forbid if any of these outages are caused due to a security breach. Malicious software and viruses aside, what about threats from within like illegal access and system abuse? Or how about employees turning hostile and passing strategic business information to competition? These are all spine-chilling thoughts. Many of our respondents put these possibilities and more before us on threats from within. While the Internet has been a boon for everyone, it’s also brought in lots of concerns. Hacks during data transfer or bank account kidnapping through phishing are nothing new. They have been happening and will continue to happen. Most organizations just wish that it doesn’t happen to them. That’s enough material to keep everyone on their toes. The first point to consider while framing a security strategy is to analyze its rel-
evance with respect to other areas. One way is to do a direct correlation between various areas and the resulting financial and productivity losses if they were to go down.
Prioritize areas that need attention So what is it that keeps CIOs and security specialists on their toes? Where do they spend most of their time? All the ‘nightmares’ we just highlighted won’t go away through technology alone. Nor would they go away by merely establishing a set of policies. They will at best be minimized only if policies are enforced and complied with. So ensuring compliance and adherence to security policies was what kept a majority of our respondents the busiest. The next task that kept them very busy was combating external threats, followed by enforcing measures to prevent data theft and training employees on security. Surprisingly, combating phishing, spam, and zero-day attacks were not priority for the respondents. Possibly, the first two would automatically be minimized through proper training. A set of rules that can help employees identify spam or phishing mail from a genuine mail is not very
difficult to create. If a mail asks you to provide any personal information such as your bank account’s user id or password, it should obviously be ignored. Likewise, instead of trying to unsubscribe to spam mail, if a user just deletes it and informs the IT department, it’s good enough. Responding to a spam mail only confirms to the spammer that your email id is valid, which opens the gates for more spam to come in. Incidentally, social engineering attacks, for all their hype, didn’t seem to worry our respondents much. Guess that’s also taken care of through proper training. Once you’ve identified the areas that are important to your business, you need to identify the key things that need to be done within them. In security, for instance, identify the area that needs the maximum attention and similarly work out your priorities for the remaining tasks. Is combating virus and worm attacks a priority area? Most antivirus software is able to handle it, and your own IT staff would be adept at handling it. But ensuring that all antivirus packages are up-to-date with the latest definitions would be something you have to ensure. Likewise, you need to create a priority list for all tasks. DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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Has your organization ever suffered nancial losses due to a security attack?
Learning from downtime
Importance of policies
Security is taken pretty seriously by our respondents because there was hardly anybody whose organization had suffered any financial losses due to a security breach. However, we did get a few reports of productivity losses due to security threats. Most of these had to do with downtime, which went from a few hours to a few hundred hours. What’s important to note is not how much downtime has occurred, but what you should do about it so that it doesn’t happen again. One is to keep the production network isolated from the Internet. As most security threats enter via the Internet, this can actually work. But then if your organization relies on the Internet heavily, then you have to look at other measures. Another learning that emerged was that internal security threats can sometimes be more deadly than the external ones. This is indeed an important thing to keep in mind. A disgruntled employee could give strategic information to competition. It could even be done by an innocent employee, unknowingly. Both cases are equally dangerous and need to be tackled differently.
Like we mentioned above, internal threats are equally, if not more, dangerous than external ones. One way to combat them is by having the right set of policies. As Internet is where the maximum threats come in from, an Internet access policy is a must. A majority of our respondents had an Internet access policy in
place. As internal threats from employees are also significant, you need policies for using desktops, servers, and applications. These should govern how employees should use their desktops and what they can or can’t do on it. How should they access the servers and applications, and what should they not attempt to access. Detailed guidelines on these, along with proper training, are very important. So the next major set of respondents had policies for desktop, server, and application usage. Spam, phishing, and virus attacks come largely via email these days. While you do need antiphishing, antivirus, and antispam tools to combat them, you also need the right set of policies. Half your worries of threats coming via this channel will be gone if an email usage policy is put into effect. Around 76% of our respondents had one. Patch and update management, and network access control policies were up next. While these may not be something that require employee training, they are important. You need to define access policies so that you have control over who can access what on the
Security policies in place*
* Note: The values don’t add up to a 100% as most of the CIOs had multiple security policies
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What action does your organization take if an employee is caught stealing sensitive data or attempting to hack into a critical server?
network. Moreover, this needs to be done not only for people, but also for applications and services. Many threats can creep into the network through open ports and, therefore, need to be kept at bay. We have already done a story on patch and update management, and it threw up a lot of interesting facts. For instance, you must test all your patches on a test system before applying them to the production system. Interestingly, one policy that slightly more than half of the respondents had was for compliance. This is surprising because one would assume that just about everyone would have it. Possibly that’s why a majority of them are spending time on ensuring compliance and adherence to policies. Or is it that there’s no compliance policy in place, due to which unwarranted time is being spent on it? The latter can be dangerous and unproductive.
important. How frequently do you do it? Have you, on an average, fixed a time for doing the updates? If not, then maybe it’s time you did. A majority of our respondents said that they update their security policies once a year. Another set of people said they do it every six months. Very few said that they do it more
frequently than that. Whatever the frequency you’re following, there are certain things to keep in mind when drafting security policies, according to our respondents. We received lots of inputs on what the key elements of every security policy should be. Having a clear list of do’s and don’ts in your policies came up as a major element of a security policy. This has to be accepted, and a commitment should be taken from the top level to enforce it. In case there’s a breach, penalties must also be defined. A clear definition of what is a security violation needs to be put down, along with penalties for violating. We’ll talk more about penalties later in this story. Incident management procedures are another critical element that a security policy should contain. One more interesting response was that there has to be an HR policy on information security. It has to be business oriented and therefore driven from the top. Moreover, a policy must not be theoretical; meaning, whatever is put down should be able to be implemented. Having strong passwords is a must, and more impor-
How frequently do you conduct security training programs for your employees?
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Level of dif culty in convincing top management to invest in security solutions
tant is that users should be aware of keeping their passwords a secret. Besides making passwords difficult to remember, users must not share them with anybody. Lastly, one key element that every security policy must contain is adherence to legal/statutory requirements. Some of the security standards that our
respondents were following included Sarbanes-Oxley, COBIT, ISO 27001, BS7799, BS15000, and even 168-bit encryption.
Importance of training All policies are a waste if the people who need to follow them are not even aware of them. Thankfully,
Satisfaction level with security vendors
62% of our respondents said that they conduct training programs on code of ethics and security policies for their users. The concern was that the remaining 38% did not conduct such a program. Of those who do conduct training programs, a majority use a mix of in-house and external consultants for the job. Training or no training, what if you catch an employee stealing sensitive data or attempting to hack into a critical server? What action do you take? About 14% of our respondents said that they would take legal action immediately. Another 24% said they would sack the person on the spot. Another 31% were slightly more benevolent and would give a warning to the person first. If the action was repeated, they would sack the person. What action would you take in your organization? Your security strategy must define it very clearly. Speaking of security breaches and hacking, it is said that ‘attack is the best form defense’ in the world of security. If you want to know how strong your network security is, you should use hacking tools to test its strength. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a swiping ‘yes’ to this idea. The answer was split almost equally between a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ amongst the respondents.
Issues with vendors
Your security setup is managed by?
We asked our respondents whether they were satisfied by the service offered by their security vendors. We didn’t get an overwhelming answer for ‘completely satisfied’. On a scale of 1 to 5, most of the responses were equally split between 2, 3, and 4. The reasons for dissatisfaction were many, ranging from lack of skills on the vendor’s part to a lack of proactive response. While there can be many concerns from vendors, one thing is clear that they must be skilled enough to handle security issues of their customers. The content for this article is sourced from PCQuest Visit their website: www.pcquest.com
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Enterprise Solutions: Enterprise Security PCQuest Users’ Choice Awards - 2010 his is the only category under enterprise solutions with more than 19 brands contesting, and with six making it to the User’s Choice club—Check Point, Cisco Systems, Microsoft (ISA Server), Symantec, Trend Micro, and McAfee. When compared to last year’s club, there’s one member less— Fortinet. The winner this year is Cisco Systems, which was behind Symantec at second position last year. This year these two brands are used by approximately 42% of the total participants with 22% using Cisco Systems and 20% using Symantec products. Even in the top of mind recall, Cisco Systems and Symantec are on top with 24% and 20% participants, respectively, responding with their names. Considering the reasons for future brand preference, different brands are likely to be preferred for different reasons. However, brand appeal and reliability of a product are two major factors for users choosing their current and future brands. McAfee enjoys product reliability as the strongest reason for its future purchase, while users choose Symantec for its brand appeal. Cisco is dominant in initial price and after sales service/support. Cisco Systems has a strong brand perception across almost all industry verticals, except communication media, health care, and services. BFSI, education, and discrete manufacturing are verticals where Symantec has very strong brand perception. The services vertical is dominated by McAfee. Cisco Systems is leading in three out of four geographic zones with Microsoft ISA Server ahead of it in the East. On the brand loyalty front, all members of the Users’ Choice Club have gained loyal customers over the last year. Both Check Point and Microsoft need to improve, as less than 50% of their existing users are likely to stay with them in the near future.
T
Users’ Choice Club 2010
Cisco and Symantec together are used by 42% of the users surveyed. Cisco beat Symantec to the top position this year.
Future Brand Preference Reasons
McAfee is a likely purchase for its reliability and after sales support/services.
Brand Loyalty 2010 vs. 2009
The percentage of loyal users for all brands has increased over the last year.
The content for this article is sourced from PCQuest Visit their website: www.pcquest.com DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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STRATEGY
STARTUP
Intellectual dishonesty Congenital or Congenial? In business there is probably a very thin line between ardent promotion and intellectual dishonesty
t is fun listening to children speak, especially those primary scholars. Naive, aren’t they? Sometimes I beg to differ because their naivety gets overwhelmed by dishonesty. Surprised, are you? You would definitely have encountered children making claims that are not completely true. Ask a kid, he for sure will pledge that he is one of the top three in his class. By and large, it will turn out to be fallacious; especially so when their parents encourage them in passing on soft lies. Take this, for instance. It was the club day. Men and women had gathered in bright colors accompanied by their children. There were formal and informal introductions. While friends and spouses were introduced with single lines, everyone made sure that they introduced their children elaborately. One of the kids was introduced as a great sports person who had represented a state in a sport. Everyone was congratulating the boy and wishing that he would scale greater heights. Being a sports buff, I inquisitively started exploring a bit more. I could eventually make out that he had participated in state-level competitions. Representing a state is far more different than participating in a statelevel competition. Intellectual dishonesty, soft lies, rhetoric, and selfdeception are seen everywhere in day to day life. Without getting into definitions, we can explore the world of discourses, arguments, point of views, and pretence, which are deliberated contrary to conscience. It may be a part of the profession for an advocate to argue in favor of his client and withhold contrary information in order to put forth a perspective and convince the jury. When a politician speaks to justify the stand his party has taken, it is considered as an oration. Perhaps, unless one masters this art, one cannot qualify to be a spokesperson! An oration is a dangerous potion when mixed with intellectual dishonesty. We find it everywhere in the
I
world. Though salesmen probably are the easiest prey to be pointed at, one can also find them among environmentalist, social workers, economists, politicians, and common folk. Quite often than not, they would have made their living and earnings advocating a view point from which it is difficult to escape for two reasons. First of all, their business model will collapse leading to misery in life. Secondly, not many people would be ready to publicly accept that their stand regarding an issue was wrong. In business, there is probably a very thin line between ardent promotion and intellectual dishonesty. Recently, I visited an outlet looking for a particular model of bicycle, which was out of stock. On inquiring, the shopkeeper told me that his is the biggest outlet in the area and no other place can have one. He advised me to pay a 50% advance and fetch it next week. As I drove away, to my dismay, there was a huge outlet, probably 10 times bigger, that had several pieces of the model I was looking for. Was the shopkeeper a good salesman or intellectually dishonest? The conscious omission of the truth known or believed to be relevant in a particular context also amounts for intellectual dishonesty. If we consider it, maybe several achievements, certifications, and standings mentioned on a CV also qualify to be intellectually dishonest. Suspicion towards intellectual dishonesty is more likely if the knowledge gap between the seller and buyer is high. The best example is none other than the medical profession. Every decision by a doctor incurring a substantial expenditure is viewed with suspicion. That’s not without prior precedence. The variability of individuals and their pathological conditions add up to the confusion. In fact, intellectual dishonesty is spread across all professions. Many a times, stories are told purely for the sake of entertainment. Haven’t you heard of simi-
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Are businesses also structured to some extent in promoting the benefits and concealing the deficits? lar stories happening to your friend’s friends several times? Here is one. One of the Indian politicians was visiting a western country for a conference. Before the end of the morning session, there was a special announcement that it was the politician’s birthday that day. A candlelit cake arrived at the scene. As the Indian politician bent down to blow the candles, someone from the backseat shouted, “Stop, this is not your culture. You don’t celebrate your birthday holding the knife in hand and blowing the light away. In your culture, you light the lamp on auspicious day!” The Indian politician thanked him and lit the lamp and his birthday was celebrated. I have heard this story at least 10 times during speeches by various different politicians who claimed that it had happened to them. Applying intellectual dishonesty could be a very delicate affair in the ad industry; unless we ward it off as an art form. Without hyperboles and exaggerations all ads will probably turn out to be devoid of fizz. Though the saying goes that exceptions are not examples, in the press every second example sighted is an exception. These exceptional examples are extremely appealing and sticky. They convince and sell the advocated idea very efficiently. How many times have you seen politicians blocking the road of development for the sake of poor and downtrodden? I suspect those bigmouthed representatives of nongovernment organizations also sometimes advocate a point of view for their personal benefit rather than the poor. Environmentalist, economists, and intellectual thinkers rarely give even the slightest benefit of doubt to contrarian views. Denial is the other form of intellectual dishonesty. It is common to accept the progress of a competitor and decline the unfavorable news about one’s own company. If you get to meet an aggressive entrepreneur considering a new project that you feel is nonviable, it will be difficult for you to convince him. This is particularly true about those who are persuing a proj-
Dr Hrishikesh Damle
ect with passion that is close to their heart. Similarly, a religiously rigorous person has a tendency of denial towards news that is contrary to his or her belief. Convictions that are strongly bonded with emotions can make one blinded to facts. Exceptions to this behavior are not uncommon. Most of the successful leaders, in fact, do not succumb to intellectual dishonesty. I think it is an important virtue that every entrepreneur needs to inculcate in order to harness respect for self and value for their words. One can be noncommittal about an issue when it is politically incorrect or when the situation does not permit one to speak out the facts, rather than committing against conscience. Shimon Peres, president of Israel, in an interview was seen appreciating the intelligence and the standpoint of his rival Netanyahu, in an interview to BBC. But, unfortunately, all over the world, parliamentary system of democracy is structured to find solace in blaming the opposite party for every action of theirs. Are businesses also structured to some extent in promoting the benefits while concealing the deficits? Though one can argue that the market will decide and promote a product that has an advantage over the other, the marketing muscle can eclipse the same. But it may be difficult to put a system in place to advocate a product with good features and benefits, and, hence, it is better left to the wisdom of entrepreneurs to embrace the best tactics of promotion. Practicing strict abeyance from intellectual dishonesty will definitely pay rewards in personal growth and respect for your business.
Dr Hrishikesh Damle is a first generation entrepreneur. He is CEO of Atrimed, a pharmaceutical company. To write to the author, please send an email to dare@cybermedia. co.in with the subject line 'Dr. Hrishikesh Damle'. DISCLAIMER: The views expressed here are that of the author and do not represent the magazine's.
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EVENT
HEADSTART
Startup Saturday sparks the spirit of Entrepreneurship Chennai and Chandigarh join the startup fraternity he month of October was a memorable one for Startup Saturday, which spread its entrepreneurial wings over two new cities and sparked the spirit of entrepreneurship in Chennai and Chandigarh. Fueled by the joy of having achieved this significant goal, the Startup Saturday events took off successfully. Mumbai Startup Saturday was based on the theme “Design Entrepreneurs”. The first speaker was R. Sridhar who spoke about his journey from being an advertising executive to the founder of IdeazRS. Dr. Aditya Dev Sood of Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS) gave the next talk. CKS works with several organizations and helps them design products and solutions for Indian markets, especially rural areas. Dr. Sood spoke about his entrepreneurial journey and shared some interesting cases that the company has worked on. Manik Kinra came next and spoke about his startup Jade Magnet, which is one of Asia’s largest creative market place with close to 3000 listed service providers. The event saw many interesting lightning pitches. Madhav Sawant of Indra Technologies presented a novel product called the Night Glow Wallpaper, Faizal Thakur spoke about pro9 Bicycle Studio, Priyank Dahanukar presented his company Faith Designs, while Ritika Bajaj and Meghna Shah spoke about their company, MeritC2. This was followed by an informative talk by Neha Modgil of Techved Design on the importance of usabil-
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ity in the design of websites. The session enlightened the audience about various techniques used in user research and usability studies. Startup Saturday Bangalore was about “Generating Revenue through Intellectual Property Licensing”. The first talk was by Muthukrishnan Chinnasamy, the director of Sonic Chips and a serial entrepreneur, with vast experience as an angel investor in many IPcentric companies. Muthukrishnan gave us insights into the field of IP and monetizing from IP. He stressed on the significance of having a plan to monetize the IP, before going ahead with it. He also discussed the factors we must consider while identifying the value of an IP like its development cost, potential, longevity and uniqueness. If after evaluating these factors, the results are not quite satisfactory, then we must be ready to temporarily abandon the IP and go ahead with it when the market need arises. Kartik Puttaiah, founder InvnTree spoke next, about the different types of IP, the patent process and the strategies startups can adopt for patenting. He discussed in detail about the different kinds of IPs like Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, Design patents and Trade secrets that can be used by the companies. Kartik’s talk was followed by the brand new open discussion session. Here the members in the audience were divided into 3 groups. One person from each group had to put across a particular startup challenge that they were facing, to the other members in the group. The mem-
bers, after a quick brainstorming session, provided the person with some practical solutions to their startup problems. The groups came up with various interesting questions like “What are the parameters we must consider before starting up?”, “Should we think of passion or profits before going ahead with a new venture?”, “When to look out for a co-founder?”. The session encouraged exchange of ideas between the speakers and the audience. ‘Learning from brave startup failures’ was the theme of Startup Saturday Hyderabad. The event had few serial entrepreneurs come and talk about their failures and how they handled them and moved ahead on the entrepreneurial path. The first talk was by Deva Prakash, an entrepreneur in the healthcare sector. In his engaging talk, Deva Prakash spoke about how he successful established his company, set up a good team, secured
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funding and identified the captive market for his business. Even though the journey was smooth-sailing in the beginning, he was posed with a big challenge, when the principal healthcare services company he was working with got acquired and the PE investors in that company put a stop to their engagement with the company. By quoting his personal experiences on how he handled this challenge, Deva Prakash answered many questions looming in the minds of the audience. The next talk was by Lakshmi Kodali, an entrepreneur and the principal coordinator of Hyderabad Angels. In his talk, Lakshmi shared his story of starting up and his encounter with failures. He also gave us insight into the funding cycle and some guidelines on the amount of equity to let go in each stage. This was followed by lightning pitches by Shantanu, founder of DocSuggest
and Tarun, founder of KrypSys. Chennai’s inaugural Startup Saturday event went extremely well. The event started with a talk by Suresh Sambandam, founder of OrangeScape. Suresh spoke about the challenges he faced as an entrepreneur and the learning he gained. This was followed by an inspiring talk by Dr.V.M Periyasamy, the registrar of B. S Abdur Rahman University. Lightning pitches were presented by Karthik, founder of Twenty19, that helps students find the right place to start their internship. Shrikrishna, founder of Sarukai gave the talk next on his product Sarukai that deals with the student – employer problems. In Chandigarh, the event started with a talk by Harbir Khurana, CEO of WiZiQ. He spoke about what to do and what not to do while starting up. The next talk was by Jasmit Juneja, founder of Karman Infotech, one of the first companies to offer affordable WiFi services in North India.
The co-founders of eMagzin (an online magazine) spoke in the lightning pitches session. This was followed by a talk by Sidharth, the founder of the startup ‘FRiEnDz’ an online magazine for teenagers. The October Startup Saturday events were a major hit, creating palpable enthusiasm and excitement among all. Kudos to all the spectacular speakers, the ardent audience and, the vigorous volunteers for, putting up such a great show. Startup Saturday happens at eight cities (Chennai and Chandigarh joined the family this month) every second Saturday of the month. Join us there if you have the faintest inclination of starting up your own business (any business) or if you have already started up! We can assure you that you will meet a lot of your ilk and will takeaway a few many inspiring ideas. Signing off folks, lets create more startups and make existing ones more productive. Join us @ www. headstart.in. Startup Saturday is an initiative by HeadStart to provide entrepreneurs in each city with a monthly community driven forum that is structured in agenda but open in discussions. A Startup Saturday provides a forum for entrepreneurs to discuss, present, network and learn from peers, prospective customers, adopters, partners and investors. Currently SSs are held in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Kolkata, and Mumbai, on the second saturday of every month. http:// headstart.in/ Inputs from Arun Venkatesh, Gurudutt, Mohit, Priyanka, Swati & our content team!
DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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STATISTICS
INVESTMENT
Private Equity/Venture PE Investments
VC Investments* 20
541
September 2010
September 2009
No. of Deals
September 2010 No. of Deals
Amount (US$ M)
Top PE investments in September 2010 Investors
September 2009 Amount (US$ M) * VC investments are a subset of PE
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
Industry
39
37
409
Company
9
6
25
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
Top VC investments in September 2010 Amount ($ M)
Company
Industry
Investors
Amount ($ M)
IVRCL Assets & Holdings
Infrastructure
IFCI Ventures
55
Aryaka Networks
Networking Tech (Cloud Computing)
Nexus Ventures, Others
14
Micromax
Mobile Handsets
Sequoia Capital India, Sandstone Capital, Madison India
44
Cold Star Logistics
Cold Storage
Tuscan Ventures
6.5
Asianet
TV Broadcasting
SIDOFI
36
Frameboxx Animations
IT Training (Animation)
India Alternatives
6
CARE Rating
Rating Agency
Aditya Birla PE, Others
33
Tyfone
Mobile VAS
Ojas Ventures, Others
5
Thriveni Earthmovers
Contractors (Mining)
Samara Capital
33
Suryoday Microfinance
Microfinance
Aavishkaar Goodwell, Lok Capital
4.4
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
72 NOVEMBER 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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Capital in September 2010 VC Investments in Early Stage Companies 49
49 197 339 86
141
197
241
49 76
502
115 2010 (Jan-Sept)
2009 (Jan-Sept)
No. of Deals
Amount (US$ M)
Amount (US$ M)
No. of Deals 2010 YTD
2009
2008
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
2007 SOURCE: Venture
Trends in Early stage investments in 2010
SOURCE: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
Early Stage Investments by Industry (No. of Deals) Industry IT & ITES Healthcare & Life Sciences Energy BFSI Engg. & Construction Education Shipping & Logistics Other Services Manufacturing Agri-business
No of Deals 26 7 5 3 3 2 2 1 1 1
Amount ($ M ) 124 29 18 18 9 4 15 5 0.5 3
Source: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
Source: Venture Intelligence PE/VC Deal Database
DATA SOURCE: DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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UNWINDINGS
ON THE BOOKSHELF By Shradha Mohanty
The Upside Of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits Of Defying Logic At Work And At Home Dan Ariely Now here is one book, that can get the readers hooked on to it with the title itself. Behavorial economist, Dan Ariely, has elaborated on the positive and negative effects of irrational decisions that we take in our daily lives. There are a wide number of topics and examples covered in the book to which a reader can relate to-why revenge is important to us, why fat bonuses can make CEOs less productive, why online dating doesn’t work are a few examples among them. It is a fascinating read which does some much sought out explanations on why we behave the way we do. Publisher: Harper Collins UK Price: Rs.399
The Little Book Of Business Wisdom: Rules of Success From More Than 50 Business Legends Peter Krass A collection of 50 essays penned down by ‘business legends’ from the past and present, put together by Peter Krass. These essays, written by the likes of David Ogilvy, Lee Iacocca and even Benjamin Franklin have been categorized into 8 different categories. These include Management Principles, Leadership Secrets, Qualities for Personal Management, Wall Street Wizards, Gunslingers and Entrepreneurial Drive, The Gurus, The Builders of Culture, Maxims for Life. It comes across as an excellent holiday gift for business associates, customers, college graduates etc.
Publisher: Wiley India Price: Rs. 250
When the Penny Drops R.Gopalakrishnan How important is it to have a sound EQ in your work space? How do you overcome deadly traps in an organization’s functioning? How do you get things to work effectively? R.Gopalakrishnan explores these aspects in his new book using the framework of the Tata Management Training Center (TMTC) and the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). It promises to act as an inspirational guide by encouraging one to reflect upon himself by identifying success mantras. Publisher: Penguin Books Price: Rs.399 74 NOVEMBER 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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Review
eading the book Connect the Dots brought a paradigm shift in my mind. The design of the book title on the cover intrigued me enough to pick up the book and skim through it. And as I progressed along the pages, I realized in me, a desire to become an entrepreneur. This book is about 20 entrepreneurs who dared to find their own path without an MBA. The credit for creating this kind of an impact goes to the author, who not only chose the right entrepreneurs but also wrote the book in an interesting and lucid style. What hooked me to the book were the stories of the entrepreneurs who were daring enough to pursue the most unconventional ideas. From outside many of these ideas did not seem lucrative but these entrepreneurs were creative enough to milk them. Take Sunil Bhu for instance who started working with cheese. His company, Flanders Dairy, is today one of the few companies in India which makes different types of cheese, including those which are not that popular here. A takeaway for me from this story was passion towards the business one pursues. This passion drove Sunil to Belgium and Italy where he learnt how to make cheese of international standards. From another entrepreneur, Satyajit Singh, I learnt the necessity to take risk. He worked on a product which very few considered worthwhile to be pursued on a
R
commercial level. The product Satyajit chose was Makhana also known as Fox Nut (Euryale Ferox). His company Shakti Sudha makes different delicacies from this not so tasty seed which is probably used by many only during specific Hindu festivals. Another such risk taker is N Mahadevan who left the job of a professor in Madras University to set up a Chinese restaurant. Connect the Dots highlights that failure stares at your face many times as you take these risks but the entrepreneurs looked at these challenges as opportunities. And to take up these opportunities and make unconventional ideas work, the next lesson I learnt from the entrepreneurs was perfection. But aiming to perfect a single product is not good enough; entrepreneurs need to keep innovating, moving along with the times. While some of them went about their passion in working on unconventional ideas, others knew what would catch the imagination of the buyers. Ranjiv Ramchandani’s Tantra T-shirts were immediately lapped up by consumers because of the creativity he put into his work. If Ranjiv's product caught the imagination of his buyers, another entrepreneur R Sriram knew how to convert a niche product into a mass selling proposition. Sriram, through his largest chain of bookstore in India, Crossroads has managed to get more people to take up the habit of reading books. Lesson for me from these two entrepreneurs... know the pulse of the people. One reason the entrepreneurs confidently took on the risks was their belief in their ability to put in hard work. In the initial years some of them had put in 14 to 18 hours per day to ensure their dreams come true. The first case study in the book on Prem Ganapathy who started off as a dishwasher to become the owner of the fast food chain "Dosa Plaza" in Mumbai shows exactly that. The hard work doesn't end when success is achieved; in fact the passion pushes the entrepreneur to strive for more. After tasting success
By A Ravi Shankar these entrepreneurs still remain hands on people. They still get their hands dirty instead of leaving it to others to manage their business. The hands on training has obviously taught them lessons — Lessons that cannot be read from text books. Today, Prem Ganapathy who had a humble beginning as a Dishwasher speaks of Branding, Costing and Customer Satisfaction. Such humble beginning has also helped some of them understand their social responsibility. The socially responsible entrepreneurs in the group have been able to mix their passion for business with a sense of welfare. Suresh Kamath of Laser Soft believes that social responsibility and sound business can go hand in hand. In fact, he has employed differently-abled people as well as those from economically poor background without any kind of programming knowledge to work in his software company. In an industry which is notorious for its attrition rate, Kamath has been able to retain people, as most of his workers are indebted to him for providing them with this opportunity. The book, Connect the Dots is a sequel to the first book by Rashmi Bansal, "Stay Hungry stay foolish" which has sold over 200,000 copies in English and has been translated into eight Indian languages. At Rs 150 Connect the Dots is definitely worth a read. The author works for Actuate Business Consulting and can be reached at ravishankar@ actuatebusiness.com DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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UNWINDINGS
WHAT’S NEW?
A sneak peek into what’s new in the gadget shop this month
Skullcandy Full Metal Jacket earphone Known for its inclination to aggressive styling, Skullcandy has come out with a new in-ear headphone called Full Metal Jacket. The earphones are made of aluminum, which is surprisingly light at 13gm and are available in ten different colors. It boasts of removable silicone tips based on foam tip technology. The foam tips rest gently and secure your ears completely, blocking outside noise. In spite of nonstop listening for more than five hours it did not strain my ears. The warranty card offers full product replacement at no charge. The five pairs are of different sizes, allowing you the option to pick up the size which is more comfortable in your ears. It can work on laptops, PC, mobile phone, iPhone and MP3 players.
What's Hot - Good sound - Comfortable ear tips - Noise isolator - Decent price - Dedicated bass booster-cum-microphone
What's Not -Sound splits -Bass booster needs to be always pressed for bass effect
Price: `2,699/-
Aroma D110 The crowded dual SIM market is stimulating manufacturers to come up with bold, stylish and economical handsets where price becomes the main captivating factor. Aroma Mobiles, a new entrant, has done just that with its D110, a stylish and sleek dual SIM handset. It comes in black color with a pair of headphones, charger, mobile cover and a mirror screen protector in the box. The keypad has large keys, which is great for people with large hands, however the navigation D-pad is smaller compared to the other keys. It has a 3.5mm audio jack on the right side with a hard plastic cover to protect it from dust. It also comes preloaded with MSN messenger and Facebook applications for social networking. Additional features include FM radio with recording and an MP3 player with equalizer supporting Mp3, Amr, Mid, Imy files, bluetooth and expandable memory of upto 2GB.
What's Hot - Sleek - Large Display - Good battery backup and sound quality - Comfortable earphones and keypad
Price: `3,559/-
What's Not - Camera - Badly placed SIM card slots
76 NOVEMBER 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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Iomega eGo Skin portable hard drive Iomega has come up with the funky looking "Skin" range of portable drives that look uber cool and very hip. The connectivity mini USB port is also placed vertically on the side which is another attempt at making the drive look different as other drives place the connectivity port horizontally on the side. The drive comes preloaded with Iomega protection suite that includes Trend Micro Internet Security (1 year subscription), Iomega QuikProtect, Roxio Retrospect and MozyHome Online Backup service. It also has a drop guard feature that protects the drive from damage on occasional drops. In our data transfer benchmarks the drive showed an impressive 34MB/s transfer rate. Its a perfect portable drive for anybody who wants to stand out of the crowd.
Price: `5,950/-
What's Hot
What's Not
- Funky looks - Performance - Software suite - Drive guard
- Small indicator light
Asus P42F Notebook: The P series from Asus is aimed at the business segment. However, the latest entrant changes the boring look of business laptops with its sexy looks. The notebook has a glossy 14' LED backlit screen that produces vibrant and vivid visuals which are quite pleasing. The build quality of the laptop is quite sturdy and the brushed aluminum surface accentuates the elegant design. The touchpad is accurate with the multitouch working. One really useful feature is the palm proof technology which doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t move the cursor when the palm accidentally brushes the touchpad while typing. The bass and depth produced by the altec lansing speakers are commendable.
What's Hot
Price: `37, 500/-
- Looks - Asus palm proof technology - Anti shock hard drive protection - Usage performance
What's Not - Weighty - Glossy Screen - Battery life Content generated from DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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INDEX Academy of Animation & Gaming (AAG) ..........................52 Actuate Business Consulting ..75 Aditya Birla PE ..........................72 AGA Group International.........56 Akasha Boutique Spa ...............56 Al-Can Exports..........................54 Apass India Leisure Solutions .56 Aryaka Networks ......................72 Ashok Art Gallery .....................37 Asianet ......................................72 Aspiring Minds .........................55 Atrimed......................................69 Audrey Moruzzi ........................48 Baba Interior .............................32 BBC ............................................69 BCCL ..........................................39 Bigshoebazaar ..........................31 BitTorrent ..................................20 Blue terra spa ............................56 Bonsai Expert ............................36 Cane Boutique ..........................56 Cane-line, ..................................56 CARE Rating .............................72 Cashurdrive ...............................52 Celebration Cakes & Flowers ......................................33 Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) ......................74 Centre for Knowledge Societies (CKS) ..........................70 Check Point ...............................65 Cisco Systems ...........................65 Cocoberry ..................................55 Cognizant Business Consulting .................................50 Cold Star Logistics ....................72 Crossroads.................................75 CSC ............................................50 CWG...........................................52 D.light ........................................45
ORGANISATIONS Tantra T-shirts ..........................75
Evolute Systems .......................20
Laser Soft...................................75
exchange4media .......................39
Lucifer Lights ............................33
Facebook ...................................20
Madison India ...........................72
Faith Designs ............................70
Mainland China ........................55
Tata Management Training
Ficus Landscape .......................30
Marine Solutions .......................56
Center (TMTC) ..........................74
Finolex Industries Ltd ..............56
Marks Business Center ............48
Tattva ........................................56
Fisher Price ...............................29
Maruti ........................................59
Flanders Dairy ...........................75
McAfee ......................................65
Flickr ..........................................20
MeritC2 ......................................70
The Chinese Language Institute
Foodaholics ...............................41
Micromax ...................................72
(CLI) ...........................................45
FoodandNightlife ......................32
Musical escapades....................57
The Colour Factory ...................34
Four Seasons Hotel ...................41
NextBiT......................................20
Frameboxx Animations ............72
Nexus Ventures ........................72
FriendsOfBooks ........................36
Nirvana Adventures .................41
FRiEnDz .....................................71
Norwest Venture Partners .......44
Funskool ....................................29
Oh! Calcutta ..............................55
Games2win.com .......................44
Ojas Ventures ...........................72
Geebacks ...................................83
Olive ...........................................55
Google........................................42
OrangeScape .............................71
Green & Good Store..................30
Ormita Commerce Network .....37
Green Digital .............................45
Ormita India ..............................37
toys-on-rent ...............................29
Harper Collins UK .....................74
PCQuest.....................................64
toysforrent .................................29
HealthPA ...................................31
Penguin Books ..........................74
Holoflex......................................55
PhokatCopy ...............................52
Holostik India ............................55
Plastiblends India Ltd ..............56
Ideal Ice Cream .........................28
Plus Beverages..........................40
IdeazRS ......................................70
Privilege Corner ........................49
IFCI Ventures ............................72
pro9 Bicycle Studio ...................70
Twenty19 ..................................71
Imax ...........................................52
Proto...........................................19
Twitter .......................................20
India Alternatives .....................72
Punjabi By Nature.....................55
Indra Technologies ...................70
Raj musicals ..............................57
Infinity yachts ...........................56
Rentoys ......................................29
Urban Vidya ..............................38
Infosys .......................................50
Salad Chef .................................44
Veda ...........................................55
Instrumentation Scientific Technologies (InSci) .................20
Samara Capital ..........................72
Intel ............................................35 Invention Labs ..........................45 inviziads ....................................44 Invn-Tree ...................................70
Samman Foundation.................48 Samvad Sutra ............................47 Sandstone Capital.....................72
TastyKhana ...............................29
Techved Design ........................70
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)50 The Next Shop ..........................56 The Walt Disney Company ......44 Thriveni Earthmovers...............72 Times Private Treaties (TPT) ...39 Tomy ..........................................29
Travel India Company ..............57 Trend Micro ...............................65 Tuscan Ventures.......................72
Tyfone ........................................72
Venture Intelligence .................72 VLCC..........................................23 Walt Disney ...............................52
Sarukai .......................................71 Savvy wigs ................................55
Warner Brothers .......................52
Sequoia Capital India ...............72
West Coast Marine ...................56
del.icio.us ..................................43
IPCL (Indian Petrochemicals Corp. Ltd) ..................................30
Digg ...........................................43
isalvageauction .........................53
SIDOFI........................................72
DocSuggest ...............................71
IVRCL Assets & Holdings ........72
Sonic Chips................................70
Doggy World .............................38
Karman Infotech .......................71
Sony ...........................................52
Wiley India ................................74
Dosa Plaza .................................75
Koenig Solutions .......................53
Spock..........................................46
WiZiQ .........................................71
Egglacious .................................83
KrypSys ......................................71
Suryoday Microfinance.............72
Elixir School of Recruitment.....28
L-Pad ..........................................49
Symantec ...................................65
eMagzin .....................................71
Lamaze ......................................29
Taj ..............................................44
Wetpets .....................................40
YouTube ....................................20 ZigEdu Learning Solutions ......38
78 NOVEMBER 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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INDEX
PEOPLE
A Ravi Shankar .........................75
Jasmit Juneja ............................71
Neha Modgil ..............................70
Saurabh Mhatre ........................83
Aditya Dev Sood .......................70
Jay Thaker .................................48
Netanyahu .................................69
Shakti Sudha .............................75
Albert Szent-Györgyi ................39
John Crosby ..............................39
Nitin Agrawal ...........................31
Shantanu ...................................71
Alok Kejriwal .............................44
Karthik .......................................71
Nitin Mathur..............................31
Sheldon D’Souza .......................29
Andy Grove ...............................35
Kartik Puttaiah ..........................70
P. G. Wodehouse.......................47
Shilpa Prasad ............................29
Anil Sharma ...............................52
Kishi Arora ................................41
Peter Krass ................................74
Shimon Peres ............................69
Anshul Gupta ............................49
Kunal Kaul .................................82
Pranav Bhatia ............................38
Shrikrishna ................................71
Anurag Batra.............................39
Lakshmi Kodali .........................71
Prem Ganapathy .......................75
Siddharth Rai ............................30
Anwar Ali ..................................32
Lee Iacocca ................................74
Priyank Dahanukar ...................70
Sidharth .....................................71
Aparna Bhatnagar ....................30
Leonard McCoy .........................46
Pulin Dani ..................................40
Sitash .........................................50
Aradhana Pandey .....................38
Madhav Sawant ........................70
Purnima Garg ............................45
Sneh Bhayani ............................83
Arti Jain .....................................36
Malcolm Gladwell .....................53
R Sriram .....................................75
Snehal M ....................................83
Ashish Kothari ..........................83
Manik Kinra ...............................50
R. Sridhar ...................................70
Srikala Bhashyam .....................59
Ashok Nayak .............................37
Manik Kinra ...............................70
R.Gopalakrishnan .....................74
Sudhakar Yadav ........................83
Benjamin Franklin ....................74
Manish Kumar ...........................36
Raghu Khanna...........................52
Sumit Goyal ...............................32
Captain James T Kirk ...............46
Manjit Trehan ...........................33
Rajesh Purohit ...........................33
Sunil Bhu ...................................75
Carolin Christian.......................83
Manmohan Agrawal .................31
Rajul Jain ...................................31
Suresh Kamath ..........................75
Dan Ariely .................................74
MD Gujrati .................................52
Rakesh Brahmi ..........................44
Suresh Sambandam ..................71
Danish Ahmed ..........................31
Meghna Shah ............................70
Ranjan Agarwal ........................44
T. Bhargavi ................................20
David Ogilvy..............................74
Mohit Bansal .............................49
Ranjiv Ramchandani.................75
Tarun .........................................71
Deva Prakash ............................70
Mrinalini Kohajkar ....................83
Rashmi Bansal ..........................75
Vandana Luthra ........................23
Dr. Hrishikesh Damle ...............69
Muki Regunathan .....................51
Ritika Bajaj ................................70
Veena Nanda.............................36
Dr.V.M Periyasamy ...................71
Mukund Kamath .......................28
Rohit Aggarwal .........................53
Vijay Anand ..............................19
Faizal Thakur ............................70
Murphy ......................................18
Rohit Mahajan ...........................37
Vijay K. Parikh...........................54
Gulab Abdul Wahab .................40
Muthukrishnan Chinnasamy ...70
S. Prabhakar Kamath ................28
Vikas Verma ..............................34
Harbir Khurana .........................71
N Mahadevan ............................75
Sam Goldman ............................45
Vimarsh Bajpai..........................46
Harsh Narang ............................52
N.R. Narayana Murthy .............50
Sameer Jain ...............................20
Vinayaka RCN ...........................82
Irfan Alam..................................48
Naresh Tagotra .........................53
Sanjay Rao .................................41
Vipul Prakash ............................28
Jade Magnet .............................70
Neeta Verma .............................29
Satyajit Singh ............................75
Winston Churchill .....................39
SMS: “DARE <your comments, questions or suggestions>” to 56677 Email: dare@cybermedia.co.in Website: www.dare.co.in Follow us at: http://twitter.com/daretostartup DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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celebrating its 3rd anniversary offers an assured gift on every subscription
DARE is a media platform for the Indian Entrepreneur and the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. DARE is a monthly magazine which has been encouraging and supporting aspiring and existing entrepreneurs across India, since October 2007. DARE provides analysis and presents opportunities, strategies for entrepreneurs. DARE seeks to enable aspiring entrepreneurs to start their own businesses, and enable the established entrepreneurs to take their business to the next level. DARE identifies business opportunities and success mantras for others to follow.
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OPPORTUNITY
CAMPUS
The E Week Impact ‘India: Opportunities Within’, the theme of E Week India, held in February 2010, continues to inspire young people to explore entrepreneurship, as the recent spurt in student startups, campus companies and other initiatives reveals ix months, two semesters, and hundreds of class submissions post Entrepreneurship Week India 2010, students of the NEN Entrepreneurship Cell at National Institute of Engineering, Mysore are still stealing time from their day-to-day distractions to keep the promise they made during E Week in February: promoting innovative use of technology in rural India.
S
In line with the E Week theme of ‘India: Opportunities Within’, NIE E Cell had joined hands with NIE’s Centre for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technologies (CREST) to promote eco-chulhas and biogas plants on the outskirts of Mysore. Its members are now in talks with potential donors for funding installation of 50 chulhas by the year end. Forty five E Cell members have been coached by CREST to run training
NIE E Cell students promote eco-friendly chulha in a village home near Mysore
workshops for rural farmers, helping them apply these technologies in their own homes. In May, the members organized a green cycle rally to increase awareness and interest in CREST technologies and rural technologies. Their work helped their institute gain funding from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for five technology projects. Next on the E Cell’s agenda is to build a model village using green technologies, reveals Vinayaka RCN, NEN Faculty Leader at NIE. “We are on an exciting mission,” says Kunal Kaul, a student E Leader at the E Cell. “It’s a great way to experience entrepreneurship. We are passionate about this technology and love selling it to people.” Similar stories of entrepreneurial initiatives are emerging across India following the success of E Week India, a celebration of entrepreneurship that saw the participation of over 6,00,000 people across 30 cities. Designed to build public awareness and support for entrepreneurship, E Week India focused public attention on today’s biggest opportunities and encouraged participants to reflect on their role as leaders and innovators. At Chennai’s Saveetha Engineering College, students reached out to villagers of Nayapakkam,
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located on the outskirts of Chennai, to promote vermi-composting during E Week. Six months later, the villagers are making their own compost in their backyard, yielding over 50 kgs of rich manure. “The President of the village Panchayat is now planning to expand, by establishing a big vermicomposting unit in the village,” shares Reshma Rafi, an E Leader of Saveetha Engineering College. In Mumbai, Snehal M who graduated from ITM Business School this year, has launched a mineral water manufacturing and bottling plant with his father to provide clean drinking water to the masses. “It was a business idea my father was toying with for over 20 years. The exposure I received through workshops, entrepreneurship talks and discussions during E Week, on huge business opportunities lying untapped in sectors like water and energy, convinced me that my father’s startup idea is the right way ahead,” he says. He credits his E Cell for building his skills and giving him the confidence to reject a job and pursue entrepreneurship. Mumbai’s Thakur Institute of Management Studies and Research has witnessed a spurt in student startups after E Week. Four students — Saurabh Mhatre, Carolin Christian, Sudhakar Yadav and Ashish Kothari — have opened ‘Egglacious’, an egg specialty restaurant on campus. “Eggs are nutritious and high on protein — and students were greedy over omelettes. We were excited to experiment with entrepreneurship after E Week, and selling egg stuff seemed like a good idea to start,” reveals Saurabh. Egglacious has become a busy outlet in the last three months with `55,000 in monthly turnover and 300 eggs used up every day. Another TIMSR student Sneh Bhayani has started a company ‘Geebacks Enterprises’ that sells school bags and travel bags. “At-
Rural vermicomposting units being set up by Saveetha Engineering College E Cell
ABOUT E WEEK INDIA Run by National Entrepreneurship Network and supported by the Wadhwani Foundation, Entrepreneurship Week India is an annual celebration and advocacy campaign to improve ecosystem and engage people in entrepreneurship. In February this year, over 6,00,000 people across 30 cities engaged in a celebration of entrepreneurship for Entrepreneurship Week India 2010. Over 4,000 entrepreneurial activities were led by 70,000 students of E Cells (Entrepreneurship Cells) from 512 member institutes of the National Entrepreneurship Network as part of E Week India — making it the biggest entrepreneurship activity in Asia.
tracting corporate sponsorships for our E Week events was a great learning experience, where I learnt valuable lessons on how to sell ‘value’ to our sponsors. I apply these lessons when I sell my bags to customers — especially when it comes to designing and packaging my product
so that it meets their needs and expectations,” Sneh says. Students of Maharastra Institute of Technology at Pune were energized to start multiple campus companies, engaging over 100 students. Launched during admission season, the campus company selling hostel kits, comprising mattresses, pillows and toiletries made a turnover of `1,00,000 in two months. “I can see a phenomenal change in the way my MBA students look at their careers. Their entire attitude has changed. They are beginning to see India as an emerging market, full of business opportunities for them to tap into. They are beginning small, but they are very motivated, and I am sure some of them could one day solve India’s biggest problems,” feels Mrinalini Kohajkar, Director, TIMSR. More articles on www. nenonline.org. Content provided by NEN DARE.CO.IN | NOVEMBER 2010
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Please visit www.dare.co.in to read articles published in these previous issues of DARE For fresh subscriptions or renewals of the magazine, please visit http://www.dare.co.in/subscribe/ 84 November 2010 | DARE.CO.IN
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RNI No.DELENG/2007/22197. Posting Date: 5th & 6th of every month. Posted at Lodi Road HPO.
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