Take it ezee...

Most companies that are big today have created value in a manner that can not be challenged. Google with the process of searching over the internet, ebay with the idea of a common forum for buyers and sellers, microsoft with the idea of a software for everyone and a host of others. But by stark contrast, we in India have not done much at all.

Agreed that it was an Indian who started Hotmail, but then why did he sell it? Why could he not have stayed in there and grown the company? Did the promoter of MS, Apple, Google, eBay, build it to sell it? No, then why are we doing that? I will tell you why. Fear and the reaction to that fear. We in this country are scared of failure (like almost anywhere else in the world), but we react by evading it. This is the impact of overprotection. We are overprotected by our government, by our parents, by our schools, by our friends, by almost everyone, even God (remember that we stay in that subcontinent which is highly conducive for life, no struggles no too many natural disasters to face). We are now used to the ideology that we don't have to worry about anything. Worst comes to worst my parents will take care of me. Thus why risk anything. Lets just live out our existence in a way that is good and stable. Very few of us have the craving for creating something lasting in this world. All we are obsessed with is money. For god's sake, "Money should be a by-product, not the end."

If you want this country to improve, then we need something radical. Someone needs to tell parents to stop protecting their children but instead teaching them to stand up on their own feet. How many times have I seen people living with their parents under the pretext of a joint family. I don't dispute that, but there is a time when I need to go out and fend for myself and my parents, just like some birds in the wild, should push me over the cliff, if I am ever to learn how to fly. I am an MBA grad, and even in my college I had students who have moved out of their homes for the very first time. That is the problem. There are so many who will never move out of their homes, who will never know how to cook, who will never know where to go to pay the electricity bills, how to get through life without the help from others.

We are brains behind every big company. We are the best people in software, but we are not the ones the world is talking about. Why, you ask? The answer is simple. This world acknowledges the ones who make a difference, not the ones who make the difference normal. Think about it.

Wake up and start running, 'coz this is our only chance to make India great. Once we are gone, God knows what the overprotected next generation would do. Lets get paranoid and make a difference, lest we just pass on this country until someone better (and thats an insult to all of us in the present), comes and makes the difference.

This is something I had written for entreprenuers and through this I got in touch with a group of entreprenuers in bangalore called the bootstrapers. This article is posted on their yahoo group. Click here to view the page. This group symbolises all that I have spoken, take a look at the group by clicking here.

What drives an entreprenuer is the spirit of creating something, like a mother who gives birth to a child. We are ferocious and gentle, encouraging and punishing, all depending on what stage our idea is in. Once I have said this, I would like to add that it is important to have social acceptance, others saying that it is possible, or at least giving suggestions as to how to make it work. Its just TOO EASY to strike off an entreprenuer and if the entreprenuer is as normal a human as me, then the venture is destined to fail because "Might is Right". Right?

What I hope can be achieved through this forum or group of people is a watering hole for the tired and tattered soul and ego of any entreprenuer, who has faced the wall and is ready to give up. But I am not talking only about giving hope to the soul, but also giving good food and water, to get them back on their feet again and fight the wall yet again.

The idea I am toying with is almost the same as the bootstrapers and other incubators of the world, but with a little more added to it. I am talking about wishing entreprenuers coming together and talking about each other's ideas and ventures and contributing (not being only a passive listener) to a selected venture in whatever way they can (not only money, any way will do). Once a venture succeeds, it can be let out in the world with one or selected people from the founding team going with it. The rest would stay back and talk and contribute to another person's idea.

Think about it. A lot of venture fail the first time failure knocks and we all know that if you can get through enough failures, you are bound to succeed. All I am suggesting is that we should become a team of people with small resources with each one, but a huge pool of resources in cumulation to assist any new venture from within us or any tired venture from outside and get it back on its feet. No we should not only be investing or consulting or incubating or advising. Instead we should do all of that albeit as insiders. Help the venture, stabilize the venture, grow the venture, and finally go with the venture or go to the next venture that needs you.

You will ask me what is the difference. The difference is the same as between a Teacher and a Mother. This group should not only talk about entreprenuership, but practice it, but at the same time not become like a typical incubator, where once the birth is given the venture goes out on its own. The one who feels most attached to the venture can go with it. The others who want more adventure in the true spirit of an entreprenuer will stay back and build more ventures.

We can all come together and start this group. More will join us. We will start many ventures. All will fail. We will cry, fall back on each other and start many more ventures. Then one fine day, one venture will succeed. It will become big and then some of us will follow that venture and manage it. Others will stay back and start some more ventures. More will join us. Then through this long cycle of failures and victories we would have many successful ventures to show for our lives. And some day, God willing, this group will cease to exist when all of us would have become tired of starting ventures and would have settled in managing the ventures we would have followed.

"Love what you do and you will never need to work again."