Slowdown or A Million Dollar Opportunity!

Over the last few weeks, if not months, we have been having an interesting debate on Dealing Room, our morning markets show, a debate that I am sure must be on in most other offices, on how bad things really are for India in the midst of the global crisis or on the flip, is there an opportunity staring us in the face? While no one has the answers, both sides have enough ammunition to ensure that this debate goes on for a long time, especially given our love for the back and forth!

So here’s my own two bits worth. I’ve felt optimistic and inspired by some young, successful entrepreneurs I met over the last 3 months in the show The Million Dollar Idea. These men and women managed to rake in the ‘moolah’ translating simple ideas into fantabulous business opportunities with nothing more than a ‘ear to the ground’, earthy, street smart logic that was backed with a ‘practical’ action plan. Here are some lessons learnt, for me at least:

Who says a recession is bad? Not that the ‘R’ word is being used in the current context (for India at least). But most of the successful businessmen in the series started out in 1997-98 or 2000-2001, the first year saw an economic slump and the second, the dotcom bust. So why was it such a good time to start a business? Well as Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal told me ‘expectations were low, labour and rentals were cheap and costs were down’, in all it was a good time to set up shop!

There is a world of opportunity if you simply expand your world view. This holds true at the work place or in business. And it held true for most of the entrepreneurs on the series. It’s this ‘go out and do something new’ that got Deep Kalra to chuck a good banking career, and set up Makemytrip.com. A plan of focussing first on NRIs and then the domestic market, for online ticketing ensured that he survived the 9/11 storm and he says this will hold even in these tough times, let’s see…

Sometimes you have opportunity staring in your face, like Nisha Somaia of retail chain Revolution, who set up shop selling clothes that fit her. The trigger, large sized women in India didn’t have that choice and today there are Revolutions all over the place. Nisha is not going to have to shut shop because of the perceived slowdown. There is a huge and growing domestic market with so many gaps that need to be filled, the opportunity is mind blowing!

Wait it out. There are ups and downs and downs simply allow you to re-strategise, sift out the chaff and introspect. Name one Fortune 500 company that has gone unscathed in the last 20 years of its existence. Many of the entrepreneurs I meet in the series also tell me the same story. Some had false starts like the founder of Justdial, who had to shut shop, and nearly lose everything he had, till he got his timing and business plan right, or Dinesh Vazirani, the founder of online art auction house Saffron Art, who had to shut down most of his businesses to concentrate on one, that proved to be a million dollar, multi bagger!

Take care of your customer and the customer will take care of the competition. This, one of my favourites, is from the founder of one of the largest mobile retail chains in the south - UniverCell. Satish Babu has over 200 outlets in the 4 southern states and his business has grown with the telecom sector. Satish never went to a posh MBA school, but he learnt his lessons well. Today nearly half his customers are those who bought their first mobile phones from him years ago, and they are coming back!

It’s all about the timing. All the entrepreneurs in the series were at the right place at the right time,
perhaps because they kept their eyes open and grabbed an opportunity anyone else could also have.

It’s the India story. There is a world of opportunity here in India, from the terrible urban transport system, (the reason for the success of Meru cabs), to mobiles in rural areas (the expansion of UniverCell), to not finding clothes that fit (the success of Revolution), to finding good ghar ka khana in a nice fine dining eatery (the success of Gujjarati thaali joint Rajdhani, which by the way also managed to change with the times) the list just goes on.

Balance things out. That’s the lesson I learnt from Ranjeev Ramchandani, the founder of Tantra T Shirts. He turned entrepreneur because it meant he could be his own boss, do the stuff that he loved and spend as much time he wanted with his six-year-old son.

Love what you do. That’s what made all the entrepreneurs in the series such successful businessmen and women. As they all told me, ‘imagine being paid or in this case making money doing what you love doing!’

Red-tape getting you down. Lastly, on a slightly negative note, each one of the entrepreneurs in the series told me that they would have been far more successful had the authorities been more co-operative. Corporate India is simply bogged down by red tape that has slowed expansion and growth, maybe that’s something that should be addressed.

So getting back to the debate on the India story, you can look at the bleak or you can look at the euphoric, but I’d rather look at the simple. Simple stories that you see around you, stories that show that we can get it right, provided we have the right attitude!

By the way the series is still on air, do catch it!