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Entrepreneurship in India is booming. Here's your "How to become an entrepreneur" while still at a salaried role.
Entrepreneurship in India is booming. Here’s your “How to become an entrepreneur” while still at a salaried role.
By Jaya Narayan
How often have you told yourself that ‘someday’, you will start up your own business? Yet, unless you inherit a family business, chances are, you are unlikely to be groomed to succeed in a business context.
Don’t wait to start learning until you actually turn entrepreneur. Successful entrepreneurship cannot be learnt in a day, which is why – even if your business venture is a few years away, you can make concerted efforts to pick up the ropes while working in an organization. (Read, 4 Entrepreneurs in Unlikely Places).
Here are 5 must dos for a salaried employee waiting at the threshold of entrepreneurship in India:
Start by identifying and working on your competencies and personal attributes. The performance management and development processes in your organization are a great source of professional feedback from leaders, customers, and key stakeholders. Do leverage all the learning and developmental opportunities provided by the organization to strengthen your professional profile and tackle your weaknesses.
Shabari Madappa, HR consultant and new age restaurateur says, “Thanks to my work experience as Business HR manager in Texas Instruments, I walked away with tremendous personal confidence and faith in my ability to work under tough circumstances – be it unrealistic deadlines, high pressure, demanding customers, unpleasant conflicts etc. My experience in organizations helped me inculcate a risk appetite, instill a never say die attitude and develop strong emotional maturity, all of which has come in handy while running my own setup.”
If your employer doesn’t have a very good feedback process, go out and seek feedback yourself, from superiors as well as peers.
Anyone who is focused on starting their own venture must proactively seek diverse work opportunities and push personal and professional boundaries, whether at your current company or elsewhere. Face it, no one will hand you new opportunities on a platter. (Read, 10-steps to Changing Careers). Smita Rajagopal, who runs a design house, SMITTEN, previously chose to work as an Art director in design agency, Beyond Design as opposed to taking up a job at an ad agency. She says, “My last role gave me a bird’s eye view to all the aspects required to run my own design set up. I had to perform multiple roles at a time to deliver superior performance and it definitely helped me to take the leap of faith”.
Smita invites prospective women entrepreneurs in India to question, if their current role will prepare them to run a business from a multi- disciplinary perspective. Ask yourself, have I –
a.Worked on cross functional situations to appreciate the big picture perspective of business?
b.Handled diverse roles to integrate aspects like finance, commercial, budgets, people, technology, sales, business development and legal?
“People work with people,” advocates Sangeeta Patni, previously the Head-Systems, Eicher Motors Limited and now the CEO of Extensio Software. Be it birthday catering or the IT services industry; opportunity will knock on your door by word of mouth. A strong network will differentiate you in the market place and give you a head start. Begin by cultivating key relationships to increase your circle influence. Engage actively in professional networks; leverage social media like LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, online startup communities and professional networks to build your future company brand.
Gain access to government grants, training programs for women, online communities for start ups and formal training opportunities ahead of starting up. In addition your organizations may help in locating a credible and committed mentor. Investing in building a deep and authentic relationship with your mentor will come handy in the future. (Read, Getting the best from Mentoring). Sangeeta Patni says “If you start on your own, no one will give you feedback if you are not willing to listen; the cost of ignored feedback will cost your business heavily”.
Often, working in an established organization makes us unconsciously acquire definitive patterns of working which we don’t question. For example, given the resources big corporations have, we may become accustomed to the idea that things can work flawlessly with minimum investment of time and effort. In the startup mode however it is our ability to work with limited resources that determines success.
Be watchful and open to unlearn some aspects of working in large corporations -.
a.Working with unlimited resources especially since start ups are all about being frugal and being able to beg, borrow and endure for a long period
b.Treating partners with disrespect due to a false sense of power. In a start up, the smallest vendor is strategic in ensuring your success
c.Rigid people practices – organizations operate with fixed norms on hiring, compensation, retention etc. In a start up you may value attitude and the ability to learn over professional qualifications.
If entrepreneurship is your destination, begin with a road map to evaluate what it demands from you. Use a time bound plan and build competencies in your current role that will prepare you for the big leap. Be reassured that many aspects of your dream entrepreneurial job can be learnt by tweaking your current role, and jump start to victory!
Jaya Narayan is a freelance Human Resources professional, behavioral trainer and assessor. She enjoys working on projects that untap the people dimension in organizations. She is passionate about blogging and writing on diverse workplace issues. In her free time she enjoys networking and playing with her kids. She can be reached at [email protected]
Jaya Narayan is a alumnus of TISS, Mumbai and has over 15 years of experience in the HR field. Her current interests & engagements include behavioural assessments, HR in startups, behavioural training, writing, and blogging. read more...
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Before expecting the daughter in law to love, respect and accept the new family, it is only fair that the family demonstrates all of these first.
If you are a married Indian woman, one of the first words you hear from your in laws is that you are now a daughter of the house. How true is that statement though? Are daughters in law really treated as daughters or is this only lip service?
A friend recently confided how hurt she felt when she wanted to visit her in-laws along with her husband but was told not to, because the in-laws wanted time alone with their son. Naturally, she was taken aback since she had always been fed this trope – that she was the daughter, not the daughter in law. Why then this sudden keeping at arm’s distance? Would a son in law ever be told not to accompany his wife on her visit to her parents because they wanted quality time with their daughter? That is unimaginable in a patriarchal society.
It is ok to want time alone with the married offspring but how does that meld into the Indian family system, where independent choices are less important than the whole family coming together?
My husband returns home tired after working & travelling. I, like other working women, return home refreshed after enjoying full day at office!
I am a working woman and mother of a 2 year old daughter. People say I am irresponsible and lazy because I have a house-help.
Yes, I’m irresponsible and don’t have any work. Except checking what groceries needs to be refilled and ordering them for home delivery, washing my and my husband’s clothes, drying and folding them, getting the work-wear clothes ironed, keeping clothes in place, cleaning bathrooms and toilets, changing bedsheets, dusting windows occasionally, hand washing my daughter’s soiled clothes in hot water, bathing my daughter twice, feeding my daughter breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Rest other work like cooking and house cleaning done by the house-help and my husband takes care of getting fruits and vegetables from the market every week. So I don’t have any work except those few mentioned earlier.
Nandini Hirianniah, Co-founder of The Morpheus, a start-up mentoring firm talks about the excitement and challenges of entrepreneurship in India.
Nandini Hirianniah is a pioneer entrepreneur who co-founded Madhouse Media, India’s first online/offline movie rentals company in 2004. Madhouse was acquired by Seventymm in 2007 and after working with the new entity for a year, Nandini moved on to create a start-up incubation and mentoring firm, The Morpheus with her co-founder at Madhouse, Sameer Guglani, and Indus Khaitan.
Here, Nandini talks about start-up companies in India, the opportunities open to them and the causes of failure. She also discusses Morpheus’ work with start-up companies, especially with helping them survive early stage troubles.
Meet these young women entrepreneurs in India who have become successful business women while still in college!
By Melanie Lobo
Becoming an entrepreneur is no mean task and starting a business with no prior work experience is all the more challenging. But this fact did not stand in the way of a few enterprising women entrepreneurs in starting their businesses while still studying. (more…)