Life at IMDR

Omkar Pisal

Alumnus PGDM 2017-19

Questionnaire for Entrepreneurs

1. What is the role of your Alma mater in encouraging entrepreneurship?

Alma Mater enhances the spark of entrepreneurship into a burning desire. It is the place where the foundation of your entrepreneurial character gets laid.Alma maters always play a huge role in an entrepreneur’s life. Overall, culture of any educational institute has a significant impact on the thought processes, personality and quite evidently one’s academic upbringing.Thus, the importance of finding a platform or rootsthat will not only support your ideas but actually encourage you to pursue them is second to none!

2. How important it is to have a family business background, for being an entrepreneur?

If it is a traditional business then it’s evident you get a lot of advantage, because in that case you get ready resources. But in this case also one should start with ground level to understand the nature of business and people who work from bottom to the top. Having a business family background might not necessarily always motivate you. Sometimes personal failures can teach you a lot about what NOT to do in a business. What more appreciated is that you learn from such failures and plan your ventures accordingly.

If a person has an entirely new idea, then it doesn’t matter whether you have a business family background or not; at that time the person just needs to connect that idea to the market and should be able to convey the same to the investors in terms of revenue. Another upside for actually not having family business background can be that there is barely any scope for oversight when the idea has been developed by you. Since you are the sole anchor to bring it to reality you are much less likely to let things just slide by and rigorously check every nook and corner.

3. According to you, what are the challenges specifically faced by a first generation entrepreneur?

There are many challenges at every stage:

  • Deciding business i.e., what market has opportunities
  • Creating a network for your business to sell your product, finding the right sources to do so.
  • Building relationships with people for your product and establishing trust.
  • Funding is something which is always less than what we expect. Thus, making your business financially able is another big challenge for debut entrepreneurs.
  • Sustaining in the initial crucial phase of startup as it is the phase which determines the make-or-break point of your business life cycle.

4. According to you, what kind of support can be provided by Higher Education institutes to the prospective entrepreneurs?

Some things that education institutes can provide entrepreneurs with are:

  • Foundation to understand business. Just like IMDR has introduced Entrepreneurship as a minor specialization, its very important for other institutes as well to acknowledge the due significance of academic implications of the same.
  • Imparting basic knowledge of subjects which will tell studentswhat the basic needs to start any business are, like Shop Act, GST, legal requirements etc.
  • A platform where a person can showcase his idea and get investment at the same time. Making students and aspiring entrepreneurs aware of platforms or resources to pitch their ideas and gain financial backing is also essential.

5. According to you, is there any ideal age to become an entrepreneur?

No, there is no concept such as an ideal age. Mark Zuckerberg started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 19 with Facebook, while KFC’s Colonel Sanders founded KFC at the age of 65. So, anyone can start their business at any stage of life as far as you have the persistence to follow through.

6. According to you, what is more important for becoming an entrepreneur, an idea/resources/funds? Share your reason as well.

The most needed thing is your idea, passion and perseverance to make it happen. If your idea is unique and you are able to market it with your skillset and passion poured into it then nothing can stopyou from achieving your business goal.If you have the idea and the perseverance to build it into something, the resources and the funds will follow.

7. In your opinion, has there been any change in the entrepreneurial scene during the last decade?

Earlier, the word‘Entrepreneurship’ was mostly used in case of tech startups. It was famous for app developers, new cloud innovations etc. But now there is change, the definition of entrepreneurship has changed. People are focusing on small entrepreneurs and startups like Chai startups, Dairy farming. The revenue that is getting generated from such startups is almost equivalent to what revenues are generated from tech startups, and these small startups have a huge potential to grow due to their unique features. The government schemes are inspiring people to start their own ventures, even various platforms are providing managerial strategies, due to which number of startups are increasing, which is really a good sign for the Indian economy.

8. In your opinion, Is there any impact of government schemes on encouraging entrepreneurship?

Schemes that are launched by present government such as Make in India, Startup India Seed fund, Mudra loan etc. these are really helping people a lot in all the manner to get into the business.

Due to these schemes starting and running a business hasbecome really easy.It has made funds easily available, tax exemption for first three years, no time consuming compliances. Earlier it was really difficult to initiate any venture but now it has all been made accessible through a single window, due to which starting and running a business has become easier.

9. Any advice to the people who do have an idea, but not the resources to pursue?

People should design a proposal with a thorough business plan. It must include the idea’s practicality, potential to grab market and generate revenue. This will help to pitch investors and to generate seed funding. Many funding houses are available even many industrialists are investing in new ideas nowadays.

10. Any advice to your younger self, when you started the journey of entrepreneurship?

Don’t think of giving up when things go south.

11. If a person does have a strong family business background, but a different business idea to pursue, what would you suggest, to carry on the settled business or face the risk of failure with new idea?

Never give up your idea due to your strong existing family business! Try it, work on it, utilize existing family business resources for it and make it happen. If it doesn’t work, then get back to your family business. If it does work, then combine it with existing business and run it as group of industries.

12. Out of 100, 95 start-ups fail. What is your advice to the young generation, who isn’t willing to take risks?

Failure happens when a person stops trying, it is really necessary to have faith in yourself and in your idea.

Don’t ever compare your lifestyle and earnings of your startup with your friends who are doing job and earning a salary. Any business takes 2-4 years to get settled and generate good revenue. But people give up by seeing others earning money from their salary and due to the fear of losing, they get back into job, leaving their passion. This must be avoided.

13. How did you overcome the temptation of a safe secure job over entrepreneurial aspirations, which carries many risks?

Always read ‘entrepreneurs’failure tosuccess’ stories, books and keep yourself inspired, trust your idea and yourself. That is enough to overcome the temptation of safe secure job. Also, the temptation of a safe and secure job will only disrupt in your initial career stages. When you have earned enough, worked enough and learnt enough, you will want to take a peek into your passion and the life of an entrepreneur.

14. How important is entrepreneurship for Rural India?

Rural Entrepreneurship growth will lead to employment generation, reduction in poverty, will stop rural crowed migration to cities; and villages will become self-sustainable. It will also help in improving the literacy rate and improving the standard of rural people.

15. How important it is to have skills and experience before starting the entrepreneurial journey?

It is necessary to have skills and a passion to convey your idea or product to your target audience. Convincing skills are really necessary to run a business. If you have experience of same field, then it is an added advantage for your startup as it provides more knowledge and business network which usually you don’t get immediately if you directly start a business.

16. How does the concept of work-life balance work for the entrepreneurs?

Life is business! In the initial phase if you expect to have family time or outings with your friends, then leave the startup and join a job, it is not made for you. For the first two years/ at least till the business gets settled, you should not think of work life balance philosophy.

Everything will be definitely balanced when business gets settled and starts generating revenue after break even.

17. Have you ever, even for a moment, regretted your decision to be an entrepreneur?

When things went south during the lockdown, I used to see my friends doing WFH and having no trouble with finances, then for a moment I did regret it, but I believed in myself and again kick started with the same energy. When you see others around you doing better, its obvious to second-guess yourself. But that’s just a phase; the initial insecurity of it all. Once your idea bears fruit, there is nothing like it. The satisfaction you get from your hard earned money makes the effort worth it.

18. How important is the support of family for an entrepreneur?

Without family support, nothing can happen. For me family support is really necessary, without that, a man cannot keep mental stability. If your family believes in you and supports you, then only you can give your 100% for your startup.

19. Have your ever felt that you should have started your entrepreneurial venture sooner?

No, I don’t feel so. It was necessary for me to have management knowledge along with technical knowledge and that I did imbibe through my PGDM and BE. It helped me a lot to run the business.

20. What would you advise your children, if they want to walk on your footsteps and start something of their own?

Start from the ground and don’t see yourself directly in the chair of CEO. It is really necessary to understand grounds of your business and work at that level, without which you just stay commercial and cannot really understand that flare of entrepreneurship. So I would definitely ask them to start from the ground and not from top management.

What do you think? Share your thoughts

For contributing articles for the blog mail to pradnya@imdr.edu