Ownership and optimism, a common childhood trait of first-gen entrepreneurs: The Captainship launch in Bangalore

While there has been documented history of childhood of political leaders, at least the charismatic of them, there is little knowledge about the childhood or youth of entrepreneurs. Unless they wrote their autobiographies, we are left in the dark about their formative years. In a first of its kind book, Anya Gupta, while interning at Helion Ventures, has compiled the childhood and youth of nine first-gen entrepreneurs who have “defied their constraints,” in Subroto Bagchi’s words, to script successful entrepreneurship journeys. Taking inspiration from William Ernest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’, the book is named The Captainship. Taking a large span of life from maybe five years (since the first memories) to college, the entrepreneurs have described their early years as first-person accounts.

On a pleasant evening at Bangalore, The Captainship was launched among an audience from a spectrum of professions. Rasheeda Bhagat of The Hindu Business Line engaged in a conversation with MindTree’s chairman Subroto Bagchi, who has given an account of his childhood in the book. Earlier, Anya Gupta, who has compiled the book, explained that the stories are of “ordinary middle

class youth full of optimism and ownership and detached from geneticism.” She narrated how an “emotional contagion” overtook her as she took up this project – for a cause. Yuwa, an NGO engaged in re-creating the lives of adivasi girls in Jharkhand by promoting football as a passion among them to help them overcome their illiteracy, prevent their early marriage or stop their trafficking, caught the attention of Anya, which in turn inspired her to look at the early lives of first-gen entrepreneurs. Anya would contribute her earnings from the book to this NGO, with which she has worked.Subroto Bagchi, when asked by Rasheeda Bhagat if educational institutions encouraged independent thinking, felt the educational system is stifling. But entrepreneurs recognize the “force of the environment” and achieve breakthrough by overcoming constraints, he added. Bagchi has explained in the book how his mother still followed tradition (ending the letter to his father with the closing “your devoted servant” and prostrating before his father) but argued with him vociferously. It was a strange combination. Bagchi is “seemingly honest” to acknowledge that his father was bipolar. He wasn’t worried about telling the world about it. He said, “There are 18 to 20 percent of the people in the Indian population suffering from a mental disease.” But there are only three psychiatrists for a million people. Calling it a disaster, Bagchi said, “India is the mental diseases capital of the world.” And the people who suffer from mental diseases are not stigmatized. Relating his childhood days when he had to endure his father’s tantrums and hospitalization, he was relieved that he was not looked upon differently by his friends.

Bagchi pointed out that failure is overrated in India as many people are not prepared for success. Taking the example of Bangalore, which was bursting on the seams with its growth and was taking centre stage in the world, the government and political leaders were not prepared for the success.

“It’s like a 747 coming to land and going away without finding a runway,” he said. He added that failure gives resilience and told the audience, “ask your children to focus on success.”Anya Gupta explained how she was able to zero in on the first-gen entrepreneurs featured in the book after she had done a survey, commissioned by Helion, on their strengths and weaknesses. For Zia Mody, the only woman entrepreneur profiled in the book, Anya talked to her mother, Mrs. Vena Sorabjee; she shared that mothers had very interesting insights into the entrepreneur's early life. Sanjeev Aggarwal, co-founder of Helion Ventures, asked her to talk to his sister Deepa as he couldn’t recollect some parts of his childhood clearly. Vijay Shekar Sharma, founder of One97, had a difficult childhood with an “angry” father and told Anya, that he wanted to put his story out so as to connect to other entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. The audio interviews of the entrepreneurs will also be made available shortly, Anya said.

Subroto Bagchi listed the common thread across the childhood/youth of the entrepreneurs featured in the book: (1) there was a parent who led the way; (2) they all had closely knit families (barring one or two); (3) all of them were grateful to someone; (4) all of them had fire in the belly and a streak of independence; (5) all of them suffered some form of displacement; and (6) they were content with resources but discontent with the environment.