Surrounded by Entrepreneurs

Layoffs and salary cuts triggered by the worst economic downturn in the past 80 years has launched many entrepreneurs across the world. India is no different.

Many of my relatives, friends and acquaintances have become the sole founders, co-founders and jobholders in many such ventures. At the end of everyday you collect more business cards of CEOs and Directors than managers.

It feels good though to see people of my realm talking business. Some have become quick learners and have already generated revenues; some are in the process of making many, while most are simply undecided on what they are working on.

What ever may be the stage of their development in the journey of entrepreneurship, it echoes a spirit that is crucial for building a successful and resourceful India.

Last Saturday morning I had brunch with a younger sister who’s the chief executive of a branding firm, and is yet to make the fist dollar.

Yet what she thinks startled me. She has her third year operations plan and profitability ratios well calculated. She also has plan B, C and D ready incase plan A fails.

This is a girl who was piggy-tailed few years ago and was unable calculate the price of her dolls. Now she watches business channels and writes on increasing operating profits before you get venture funding.

The same evening I met Om, an agricultural graduate from Rewa in Madhya Pradesh. He had just got a loan approved for his proposed warehouse project.

In college he didn’t have enough money to go home in vacation, now he is preparing himself to create 50 million rupees enterprise to help his village farmers store perishable farm output.

Om was fired from an oilseed processing unit eight months ago, while the young girl couldn’t find a job after she was back from sabbatical.

But both of them unfazed. This time you can smell it. It’s in the air. The confidence, the audacity and the honesty to go beyond hurdles and create value; value not for self but for a generation. There comes your new leader.