Breaking Boundaries: Entrepreneurial Summit Explores How

Breaking Boundaries: Entrepreneurial Summit Explores How

Through innovations, scalable social models and sheer grit, successful entrepreneurs show how entrepreneurship is really about having no boundaries

What does No Boundaries mean in entrepreneurship? At the start of the second day of TES 2010, this was the question that Mr. Sridar Iyengar, Chair of the TiE Entrepreneurial Steering Committee put to two seasoned entrepreneurs in the keynote panel.

Mr. Zohar Zisapel, Chairman, RAD Data Communications, a veteran entrepreneur who has fourteen companies under the RAD Group, showed how there are really no limits to starting up. He spoke about starting up a successful company in Israel, and then going on to start several new ones by working on ideas, bringing in great teams to build and running new companies based on the ideas.

The most interesting slide of Mr. Zisapel presentation was a genealogical map of the number of companies that the RAD group had spawned. These included companies started by people who had left RAD, and then by employees of those companies leaving to start new companies of their own. One of the key factors of success is to share the wealth with the teams, he said.

Mr. Deep Kalra, Founder and CEO, Makemytrip.com, presented the various angles to having no boundaries. Growing geographically was one, he said. “But remember, it’s going to take a long time to build a great company in India, because each aspect of it takes longer than in countries like US or Israel.”

Mr. Kalra pointed out that Indian companies today benchmark themselves against the highest industry standards. Some companies can also set new benchmarks for the world to follow, he said. Mr. Kalra also spoke about the huge change that has happened in Indian society in the perception of entrepreneurship. From not being an acceptable choice, entrepreneurship is now at a point where it is beginning to be celebrated. He also shared his agreement to the idea that the support that budding entrepreneurs enjoy in the top cities has to trickle down to the Tier-2 cities of India.

Mr. Sridar added that while a lot of entrepreneurial innovation did happen in these smaller cities, our mainstream media had not done enough to highlight them.

The session on Ideas that Impact brought to fore some innovations done for the lower income population. Chaired by Mr. Pramod Bhasin, President and CEO, Genpact, this session saw a heartwarming talk by Mr. Mansukhbhai Prajapati and his inventions related to pottery. Speaking in Hindi, he spoke about his deep desire to do something more than just be a potter or a mason. He described his journey, his decisions, the failures, and the relentless commitment to produce something new. He talked about his inventions: the Mitticool refrigerator, which uses water for cooling and does not need electricity, the machine that can make a thousand earthen non-stick tawas in a day, an earthen cooker complete with a whistle, and an earthen water filter. All to applause that refused to die down.

Mr. Amit Chugh, Co-Founder & CEO of Cosmos Ignite Innovations talked about having to learn to adapt products to the real needs of the people as against what we perceived their needs to be. “Cosmos started with giving a lighting device powered by solar energy, but what the people needed was power, to charge their mobile phone and play the radio,” he said. He emphasized that the product has to be co-created with the consumer audience. He put the need for business model innovation higher than product or technology innovation, as financing a product becomes the critical aspect for such products.

Mr. Rajat Dhariwal, Founder of MadRat Games spoke about how his conviction about creating an Indian language board game overcame all the resistance their company faced during its buildup. Now the game is on Nokia’s phones and will soon find its way on PCs. He shared the huge acceptance of the game they found in various schools in Chattisgarh, and said that they are now taking it to schools in various other states.

The session on Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Mr. Abhishek Sinha, CEO of EKO, that aims to bring financial services to the unbanked by following a pathbreaking retail access and mobile banking model, spoke about his journey so far. The key challenges faced by the company included being asked if they were fraudsters, to not having a level playing field as customer service is dependent on the telecom operators. He also highlighted that the social entrepreneurship sector needed a policy framework to enable longer term investments.

Ms. Sumita Ghose, Founder, Rangsutra, a garment company that provides employment to artisans in Rajasthan, talked about how she aimed to provide sustainable livelihoods by becoming a bridge between the producer and consumer. Rangsutra has 1100 artisans who are shareholders in the company, of which two-thirds are women. Her venture has been able to bring in change in the mindsets of the artisans as they turn shareholders from only being wage earners. “We have also been able to reduce some of the caste and gender stereotypes,” she said.

Mr. Sadeesh Raghavan from Acumen Fund, a venture philanthropy fund, said that he found that working with the lower-income people has shown him that they display more integrity, transparency and dignity than the more fortunate class. He said venture philanthropy funds enable the scaling of social entrepreneurship ventures. “Social ventures must realize that they need different business models as they scale, and should be able to adapt to that.”

Mr. Jasjit Mangat of Omidyar Network, also a venture philanthropy fund, encouraged the audience to identify more social needs that needed addressing and make it sustainable and scalable. He also highlighted the need for nimble and agile teams to adapt to the various inflection points that running a social entrepreneurship venture entails. “Since social entrepreneurship is being addressed for the first time in the country, there are gaps in the policies and frameworks that need to be addressed” he said.

About The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)

The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) is the world’s largest organization dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship. TiE was founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley by a group of successful entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and senior professionals with roots in the Indus region.

There are currently over 15,000 members and more than 2,500 charter members in 56 chapters across 14 countries. TiE’s mission is to foster entrepreneurship

globally through mentoring, networking, and education. Dedicated to the virtuous

cycle of wealth creation and giving back to the community, TiE’s focus is on

generating and nurturing our next generation of entrepreneurs

TiE members include senior and successful Entrepreneurs, VCs, Angel Investors, Private Equity, and Law Firms, Tech and Management professionals, SME’s, aspiring entrepreneurs and students.

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