"Entrepreneurship Simplified" is a humming tape of time thinking aloud, and which resonates and aligned well with the "Startup-India" campaign. To foster entrepreneurship in youths, the PM has initiated multiple programs, besides schemes and financial assistance to provide impetus to the start-up professionals and communities.
In present context and time, the book is an eloquent piece of work to have arrived at an appropriate time, which will be viewed as a chef-d'oeuvre for the authors, while for the entrepreneurs will prove to be a "blessing in disguise".
But, before directly getting into its detail, it will be appropriate to discuss the authors first, because among the two of them, in particular; Soota is a professional of a rare and refined class. He has a distinction of being on the panel of the PM's task force during A B Vajpayee Government to provide a clear road map to the Indian IT industry, which was then in its most nascent stage.
Further ahead, Soota has created multiple multi-million dollar companies in the past i.e., Wipro and MindTree. However, his latest sojourn has been to start and set up yet another IT company at a fairly advanced stage of his illustrious career, which is in the name of Happiest Minds Technologies.
He currently serves as the Executive Chairman of Happiest Minds and which is hailed as one of the fastest growing IT companies with an annual run rate of $ 100 million. Happiest Minds, at the moment; is on an exponential growth trajectory and like earlier firms too, he is determined and predisposed to make it a public limited company.
On the other hand, his colleague; S R Gopalan (i.e., sadly though he left us recently) with whom he has co-authored the book was no mug either in the business space and, he too likewise had set up multiple successful companies.
Entrepreneurship Simplified from Idea to IPOPreviously, business plans were made and people would go after them without a thorough foresight and a clear road map of tomorrow. However, things have changed, and professionals now thoroughly plan to approach the business in a more structured manner.
Keeping this aspect, Entrepreneurship Simplified will prove to be one of the most practical and comprehensive handbooks in terms of the topics it has touched upon or, in giving a more strategic direction to your business. He has recommended taking into account aspects like corporate governance, IT, innovation, disruptive technologies, big data, analytics, digital technologies and others to your enterprise as tools to maximize your chances.
Ironically, in Indian context; largely due to the huge socio-economic factors people did not usually consider all these aspects before starting their ventures earlier. And, mostly they would remain one-dimensional and unstructured, and hence they failed to reap rewards to the maximum.
But, time has drastically changed, and opportunities have skyrocketed, which has given hope and scope to bring multiple elements to your business to minimise risks, not just to avoid a failure, but to increase the probability and profitability of running a successful enterprise.
On the hand, Soota explains not each venture will be successful and, even if they become successful then the problem doesn't cease there, because your hurdles may multiply when you would want to grow or, increase its capacity and size.
He further identifies few thumb rules for you, be focused and goal driven, and use automation and technology to carry out your routine work which will enable you to remain in control of your time, space and business. He suggests validate your venture, go slow but secured.
As already reiterated, the book has touched upon seemingly all the subtle aspects and nuances of business, and while major areas either have been explicitly discussed, or light is thrown upon them i.e., Idea Generation, Validation, Funds, Cash Flow, Investors and VCs, Business Strategies, Building an Organization, Branding, Wealth Creation, and last but not the least the ultimate dream for any early or late stage entrepreneur, which is to launch the IPO.
If we evaluate and review, we hardly find any component missing in the thread which an entrepreneur can't refer to or, co-relate with, in order to reap rich rewards for his/her venture.
Tips, Tricks, Tribulations and Key-TakeawaysIt is so difficult, to sum up the book in a few paragraphs because it is full of priceless and unquantifiable wisdom, and which the readers or the entrepreneurs would unravel themselves in the course of their journey or upon completion.
1. One of the most vital decisions that you would make in your entrepreneurial journey is the choice/s of your idea/s around which you will create your business.
2. Your chosen idea must solve the pain points of your customer, or at least identify a new way of delivering your service to ensure you get maximum traction.
3. It is important to examine the timing if it is right for your business and also assess if the market is ready to for it?
4. For validation, one must put the idea through the scalability and defensibility tests to minimise your risk or failure.
5. While making a decision a combination of all these aspects are important i.e., head, heart, gut and time.
6. Not all proposals get accepted by the VCs so you've to do your homework and plan well to get funding on your project/proposal.
7. It is important to create the right foundation and create a great milieu for your organisation for success, and the responsibility and accountability must also be equally shared by the founders.
8. It is also necessary, among the founders, there must be one who is clearly seen as a boss who is ideal to lead, and whose decisions are accepted by all the stakeholders.
9. The ideal numbers of directors for a start-up should be three to five persons. But, again that depends on the type of your business and other specific criteria.
10. It is also important to invoke corporate governance right at the inception stage of your venture. It's best to run companies like a public limited company and hence internal auditors need to be appointed even though it might not be a statutory requirement for a private limited company.
But, the idea is to introduce and adhere to the best practices, and inculcate a habit of fulfilling the rules and requirements of the land, and also avoid any conflict arising in future with people, partner or competitor in the same space.
I mean one can continue to highlight and discuss insights, which are mentioned in the book. It is tough to summarise in fewer sentences and paragraphs. Therefore, it is highly recommended to go through it at least once before embarking on your journey or, you're in the mid of it.
It will help you shape up your ideas, give you a clear foresight and solidify steps for either running your business or making them into a large profitable multi-national organisation.
Further ahead, assessing the value the book, it couldn't have been summarised better than in the words of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, "From start-up to scale-up, Soota and Gopalan simplify the entrepreneurial challenge".
In the end, it can be emphasised the book is away from all the cacophony and unrealistic advice at times you're tempted to depend on that comes from unqualified sources, and more so when you're new in the business field.
It shouldn't be an overstatement if I say; it is the most practical, pragmatic and logical narration of the authors' rich experience and their life's valuable time spent in serial entrepreneurship.
Guest Author
The author is IT entrepreneur, writer, columnist and cricket enthusiast
