Ready Reckoner for your
Entrepreneurial Dream
Ten Tips to Become Your Own Boss:
Presented By:
Dr. Sachin S. Vernekar
Director, BVIMR – New Delhi
1
What is Entrepreneurship?
 “Entrepreneurship is all about an idea which
creates
differentiated
business
value
to
customers”, said Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy,
Chairman Emeritus of Infosys Technologies.
(Source: The Hindu – Business Line in an
excerpt from “TieCon Hubli-2012”.
 JOSEPH
SCHUMPETER
View
on
Entrepreneurship,
“A
process
where
established ways of doing things are destroyed
by the creation of new and better ways of getting
things done.”
2
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
1. Prepare Your Family – Pillar of Support – My
wife
wasn’t
too
comfortable
with
my
entrepreneurial zeal, so we agreed to give it a
year. If I failed to zero in on something within
this period, I would return to a job Rivi
Varghese, Customer XPs ( A Real - Time
Intelligent
Customer
Experience
Management Solutions for Banking, Retail
and Telecom Industries).
3
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
2. Plan Your Finances –You might not earn
anything in the first 2-3 years, so you need to
plan your family’s finances accordingly. A
capital cushion is essential to ensure that your
family lives comfortably – Ashutosh Garg,
Guardian Lifecare (Guardian Lifecare
Private Limited is an eight-year-old retail
chain of health and wellness stores ).
4
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
3. Forget The Job Perks – As a manager in a
company, you are accustomed to other people
doing things for you. In a start – up, you have
to care of everything yourself – from
operational expenses to food bills – Jiggy
George, Dream Theatre (Official site for
band and some of their side projects.
Information
includes
tour
dates,
discography, album reviews, tablatures,
sound clips, photos, links and an online
shopping store).
5
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
4. Learn to Cope With Failure – I met 15 VCs
before one agreed to fund me. One investor
rejected my proposal within five minutes of a
presentation. Instead, he spent an hour trying
to convince me to go back to my job - Treat
failure as a Stepping Stone – Kunal Bahl,
Snapdeal (Snapdeal is India's best daily
deals website offering up to 90%
discounts on dining, health & beauty
services, travel, apparels & branded
products like mobiles, clothes, watches
etc.
)
6
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
5. Have a Plan that is Unique – The business
plan should be unique and clutter free. An
entrepreneur must look into his area of core
competence and use it to devise a strong plan
– Kavindra Mishra, Zovi.com ( An
exclusive online apparel brand in India;
quality mens & womens apparels, formal
shirts and leather belts )
7
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
6. Belief in Yourself - Belief in one’s idea can
take you a long way. Our concept was ahead of
its time, but I didn’t give up on my vision. At
every step, there were people who ridiculed
the idea. I had the last laugh– VSS Mani, Just
Dial (Just Dial India's No.1 local search
engine provides comprehensive updated
information on all B2B and B2C Products
and Services).
8
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
7. Interact with Like – Minded – My partner
Abhishek was running an e-commerce portal,
which was acquired by a bigger website. He
expressed interest in working with me and we
launched
our
site
–
Chetan
Bafna,
Fetise.com (Fetise is India's first online
shopping community for Men - selling
apparels, shoes and accessories from
contemporary luxury brands).
9
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
8. Gain Enough Experience – I used to teach at
a diving centre in Lakshadweep. After teaching
more than 600 students for eight years. I
decided to float my own diving company –
Anees Adenwala, Orca Dive Club (Orca
Dive Club offers dive solutions for
beginners and experienced divers, our aim
is to bring the sport of SCUBA closer to
the people of India).
10
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
9. Don’t Take Too Much Debt – If you are
thinking of starting up, this is the best time.
But don’t take a home loan since it kills
entrepreneurship. You can never get out of it –
Binny Bansal, Flipkart (Flipkart is among
India's largest online retailers. It is an
electronic
commerce
company
headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka,
India).
11
Ten Commandments of Entrepreneurial
Dream
10. Have a Plan “B” Ready – After the first few
months, we realised that service was not our
core competence. Besides, the margins were
quite low. This was the time we concluded that
it was better to focus on products – Rahul
Anand,
Happily
Unmarried
(Happily
Unmarried is a product design brand from
India).
(Source : Excerpt from “How to Fund a
Start – Up, The Times of India, February 6,
2012, Page No. 18 ).
12
Think and Act !!!!!!! – Be the
Agent of Positive Change
13
Thank You
14