Am I an entrepreneur material???
I was reading Subroto Bagachi’s ‘The High Performance Entrepreneur’. I was completely overwhelmed by the narration. After reading this book I started thinking deeply. He has mentioned so many entrepreneur qualities. One of them is resilience. He gave an example of Wipro and narrated how Ajim Premji was firm resilient when Giants like IBM entered Indian market. I started thinking whether we are an entrepreneur material.My answer to this question is yes. These qualities are embodied in our self. But we rarely recognize it. Some people are very good in marketing their talent and some are not. Many of my friends started their own company but failed to become an entrepreneur. After reading that book I came with some conclusions. If I want to be an entrepreneur how I must dealt with the process of becoming entrepreneur. You can go through the book to know more about entrepreneur profile.
When I entered engineering I was not having specific goal. I wanted to become an astronaut but my health conditions stopped me to study away from Karnataka. First year understood what is engineering all about. 2nd year went in creating an interest in the topic. That was the time I was studying my favorite subject FAFL. 3rd year full of dreams and by the time I started my final year project the dreams were grown into tree. I always wanted to play a big role in whatever I do.
After relieving from VTU I joined Gumbi. Here I want to tell you the truth. There are so many young people who want to start a company very soon they complete their engineering. For all those who have this dream, my suggestion is do not make decisions in hurry. You may make profit in the business, but failed to become an entrepreneur. Some people also misjudge IT field. One of my friends who owned a bread factory started a software firm. He treated the employees same as bread factory workers. Result is in front of me. Company never became an entrepreneurship centre. So I always ask you to work in a small firm, get some exposure and then think about your decision.
Gumbi was a small company. They were already into animation field. But for a software team, I and my project manager were the two employees. My CEO has told me he will see my performance for a month then only he will say yes. But I didn’t give that much time to decide. I think, in one or two days, I have convinced them I was the right person to work in that team. Logically I was very good but technically I was not fit for that position. My project was on Hongkong school project. My project manager didn’t tell any good things about me to management until I did some exceptional work in the project. He was very hard to convince since it was very difficult to match his skills. He was just like Sachin Tendulkar when comes to hard work. May be the staff searching logic, whole library system and some of the toughest queries I wrote made him to think I belong to the same league.
I was having information in most of the field, from education to politics, from sports to literature, from culture of foreign countries to Indian internal matters. Whenever I used to read non textual books people used to tease me for wasting my time. But I never stopped reading books. I used to visit villages and used to write documentary on their life style. These all helped me in giving my inputs to the project I worked, mainly to G-School and OPMS. I have seen many adult education centers running in villages and studied it. That helped me in giving inputs to OPMS, an adult education centre oriented project. It is different thing that the project never sold since the administration changed in district level and it was scrapped.
Then we moved to the project G-Education, video conferencing software. We both worked deeply into the technical aspect of the project. We studied lots of material and finally came with a solution. During this project luckily I got a chance to work with formerly senior scientist in Wipro, Santhoshanna (What we used to call him). Normally I used to work for more than 11 hours a day. That day I left office at 4 ‘o’ clock morning. One of my colleagues dropped me to my room. I was about to sleep. Suddenly a call came from my boss. I have to go to Mangalore for the implementation of G-Education. They told me it will be for a day. So I went with only a pair of clothes. But it was extended for a month. I was not having money to buy new clothes also. But I got a very good friend in Karthik who helped me during my stay in Mangalore.
Being a poet if I don’t talk about Mangalore girls means it is meaningless. I was not in a position to leave Mangalore. I wanted to settle my family there only. But God doesn’t want me to make too many families. That’s why I have to leave Mangalore after partial successful campaign in G-Education. After I returned to Hubli due to some reason I quit my position in Gumbi. Later Ketan, my project manager continued his research in G-Education and made it successful. It was most learning experience because I was in a position to handle a big project alone.
When I came here in Bangalore two people helped me the most. One is my brother Raghu and another is my best friend Sharath Manjithaya. The decision to join Gumbi was against my family and leaving also was against them. But later they stood by me in both situations. My family always gave me freedom to choose my career and I will be grateful to them for their support. I and Sharath searched every corner of Bangalore. Though I was getting jobs, pay was very less. I was rejected in 16 companies in college and now I got through difficult interviews of most of the small companies. Finally I got one tailor made for me. Though initial pay was less but I smelled positive environment in that company.
I have heard experienced people telling, life is all about decisions. I felt it true when I got this opportunity. Rarely people will get this opportunity. My project manager completely believed my abilities. He had seen in me a wealth of imagination and a good team player. I designed API for Synway board. Not an easy task. In MNC’s 6-7 years experienced people will do such work. Many of my work include Dialer, Logger, Voicemail, Conference and most important part is Private Branch Exchange (PBX). I enjoyed every second of my work there and in this duration only, I got hundred percent hike in my salary and they give me bigger role in the company. Due to some reason when I quit that company my boss told me “We will miss you and you will miss us too”. That was the bonding between us. But I have kept a dream and I have to move towards reaching it. Till then I was building foundation and with my decision to join Mindtree I am moving one first step further. May be I finish it or not but If I will live for another ten years surely prove it I am an entrepreneur material. May be Mindtree will give me an opportunity to be an entrepreneur within the company.
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