Meet the dream catchers

E Sarathababu

TNN | Jul 20, 2008

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-toi/Meet-the-dream-catchers/articleshow/3254858.cms

REMEMBER plots on the moon selling by the acre some years ago? The world of entrepreneurship is paved with good intentions, though not all dreams of greatness come true (thank God!). Sample some of them - getting your pet insured, getting paid to send sms, an ebay clone in butterchicken.com and even selling dog poop catchers.

India Shining too has several examples of bright sparks and while it may be long before our homegrown whiz-kids transform into dollar billionaires, it's not an impossible dream. The dreams are grander, larger and global. And for this, we have Infosys chairman Narayana Murthy to thank, whose real-life success is the stuff middle-class dreams are made of. That's why a teenager becomes the world's youngest CEO at 14, or an engineer puts all effort into a bus ticketing business, when he can't get a ticket to make it home for Diwali.

Owning a dream is key for these young entrepreneurs. They would rather chase their dreams than risk it for stability or the lure of lucre. The icons for this generation, who reach for the stars while living in a hut, like IIM graduate E Sarathababu, are the academic Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former President Abdul Kalam.

Today's generation wants to be the next Google, Infosys or Starbucks on their own terms.

Take 11rupees.com, for instance, the brainchild of two IIT-Delhi graduates from the class of 2000. The free online application to manage your personal finances started with co-founder Anuj Gupta "wanting to help my dad manage his bank accounts". On the risks involved, he says, "The potential upside to it is huge in terms of money you make plus job satisfaction. I am also learning new things every week."

While Gupta's dream is to make it easier for people to get control of their finances, Sarathababu's dream is to take his catering business Foodking to the Rs 20-crore mark by the end of this year. The millionaire also plans to finally buy a house for his mother, a former ayah in an anganvadi. The first generation entrepreneur, who sold idlis in the slum where he lived, also plans to export frozen idlis to the US. He has a simple dream, "In my entire career, I want to provide jobs to at least 50,000 people."

"Even after your best efforts things will go wrong but, if you have enough cushion in the plan, things will be fine," says Nitin Gupta, 28, chemical engineer and former Infosys and SAP employee, who started waste management company Attero with Rohan Gupta, 30. Their venture began when the latter tried disposing off an old laptop.

It's now the educated Indian middleclass, which is ready to brave the risks involved in a new venture. The typical profile of the firsttime entrepreneur is male, educated, in his late twenties to early thirties. There are many like R Subramanian, founder & CEO of the retail chain Subhiksha and an IIT-ian, who r e a l i s e d early on "that I was a misfit for a normal job". Young Indians seem to be following the lead, with confidence, a clear roadplan and, in most cases, family support - a big change from the past.

"Like most Indian families, our families too were initially wary. However, they were eventually supportive and knew how much we needed it," recalls Phanindra Sama, who runs RedBus with former BITS Pilani classmates. The 27-year-old's vision is to build the IRCTC of buses in India. 'India's largest bus ticketing company' started when Sama couldn't get a bus ticket from Bangalore where he was working for his hometown Hyderabad.

Suhas Gopinath started young, browsing chatrooms in the cybercafe near his house and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the youngest CEO at 14. At 21, his software company Globals Inc currently employs 400 people in 11 countries and in 2010, Gopinath plans an IPO. His mother thought he had a long-running hobby club in the US, till he was invited to give a talk at the IIM. His employees, whose average age is about 25, unwind by playing hide-and-seek, dumb charades and antakshari. His idol, he confesses, is Bill Gates and his "dream is to provide jobs to 10,000 youth".

Another encouraging sign is of global venture capitalists setting up shop in India to provide the brick and mortar for the dream to take shape. Says Dr Shyama Chona, educationist "It's easy to get loans now. Young entrepreneurs dream big and don't want to take orders from anybody. They believe in taking risks. An ex-student started a film studio sometime back and now has contracts to make television serials. Another student, an IIM topper, set up an education portal instead of taking up a high-paying job." The ambition to make it big, she says, starts at as young as 19. So much so, CBSE has introduced an elective course in entrepreneurship for secondary schools.

So, as entrepreneurship gets mainstream, Indian youth have their roller skates on, to speed ahead on the road less travelled.