rashmi Bansal - Stay hungry, stay foolish: the inspiring stories of 25 IIM Ahmedabad graduates who chose to tread a path of their own making

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First published in India by CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad 2008

First published by westland ltd 2012

Copyright CIIE, IIM Ahmedabad, India 2008

All rights reserved

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN: 978-93-81626-71-9

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JAM Venture Publishing Pvt Ltd.

Cover Design by Amrit Vatsa

Typesetting by Ram Das Lal

Printed at Manipal Technologies Ltd., Manipal

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is a labour of love supported by the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at IIM Ahmedabad and the Wadhwani Foundation. I would like to thank the following people for making it possible:

Prof Rakesh Basant and Kunal Upadhyay at CIIE for believing in me.

Laura Parkin at the Wadhwani Foundation for the funding.

My friend Piyul Mukherjee for her valuable feedback and comments on every chapter.

Anjan Mukherjee, for coming up with the title for this book and Amrit Vatsa, for conceiving the cover.

The team at JAM for giving me time off from work to focus on writing.

Priyanka Sharma, for her brilliant design and Madan Mohan for the layout.

Swastik Nigam, Arjun Ravi and Tamanna Jaisinghani for proofreading.

My husband Yatin and daughter Nivedita, for giving me a high-five for every chapter and keeping me going.

And finally, all the entrepreneurs who shared their thoughts and experiences so generously and honestly.

I know that you will be as inspired by their stories as I was.

That holding this book in your hands will be like meeting each one of these amazing people in person.

It is indeed very satisfying to write the foreword for a very different kind of book, one on the entrepreneurship of the alumni of IIM Ahmedabad. The Institute is already well known globally for the quality of the post-graduate programmes in management it offers. It is now increasingly getting recognised for the innovativeness and the entrepreneurship of its alumni. In this book, Rashmi Bansal, herself an alumnus of IIMA, describes how twenty-five alumni of the Institute chose the path less trodden and successfully built new businesses and organisations. Written in a conversational style, the book lucidly captures how these individuals, with fire in their bellies and stars in their eyes, overcame the odds to realise their dreams of being their own masters as they ventured into uncharted territories, some with little else than a belief in themselves. The book should be a must read not just for students of management but for all youngsters as it would inspire them to dream the forbidden and achieve the impossible.

The book was commissioned by the Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIMA. The funding for the project was provided by the Wadhwani Foundation. On behalf of the Institute I thank the Foundation for providing the funding support.

Even as I pen the foreword, I realise that many more alumni of IIMA have become entrepreneurs. This is the first attempt to document the insights and experiences of IIMA entrepreneurs. The Institute will continue such endeavours through books, cases, documentaries and other modes of communication to inspire and instill the can do spirit of entrepreneurship in the younger generations.

Samir K Barua

Director
IIM Ahmedabad

Of all the questions we leave unanswered the one that comes back to haunt us the most is : What if

What if Id married my college sweetheart?

What if I had the good sense not to?

What if I had been born in this job market?

What if

What if Id planned a little less?

What if Id lived a little more?

What if Id chucked it all and started my own company?

What ifs are never idle fantasy. These are our hopes, dreams and desires.

Logic and reason are the naphthalene balls we use to pack them away into a sandook called Some day. But when that day comes we are too old, too poor, too tired or too lazy.

This book is for all those people who seized their moment. So they would not wake up one day with regrets.Of course they saw markets and opportunities and need gaps. But more importantly, they stood in front of the mirror and saw their true selves.

That self told them it was meaningless to sell soap just because youre paid well to do so.

That being a corporate slave was the easy option, but not the one that felt right.

That there was something bigger and better to do with their talents.

So they did the things others thought were foolish.

And they stayed hungry for that something more.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish is what Steve Jobs advised the graduating class of Stanford University in his commencement address to the class of 2005. And that is the motto by which all the entrepreneurs I have met for this book have lived.

Each story may be different but at another level they are all the same. The entrepreneur took a leap of faith. Then struggled and strived for years. Before finally achieving a size and scale which made the effort what we call a success.

For every such story there are several who are still out there, struggling, striving. This book will give them renewed hope and vigour.

And for those who look at themselves in the mirror each morning, before they head out to sell those soaps, I hope you catch in it a glimpse.

A glimpse of your hungry and foolish true self.

Rashmi Bansal

Mumbai, May 2010

CONTENTS

People who knew entrepreneurship was the Chosen Path. They took the plunge straight after their MBA or after working barely a couple of years. And they persevered until they made it big!

Sanjeev Bikhchandani (PGP 1989), naukri.com

Sanjeev is Indias most successful internet entrepreneur. For close to a decade he struggled on the sidelines but never gave up on his Big Idea. In 2006, naukri.com became the first dotcom to IPO on an Indian stock exchange.

Shantanu Prakash (PGP 1988), Educomp

Despite a regular middle class upbringing, Shantanu went into business while doing his BCom. The entrepreneurial streak continued after the MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. His company Educomp is today the leading provider of digital content for schools across India.