Conference Insight: 1st World Entrepreneurship Summit @ Bangalore – Dr.Goparaju Purna Sudhakar

This blog describes the insights from 1^st World Entrepreneurship Summit held at Bangalore, India on February 02, 2019; (Organized by Global Entrepreneurship Grid and NHCE, Bangalore). This was an insightful event; I came across different speakers from different walks of life having diversified experiences relating to entrepreneurship. I thought learning from other peoples’ experience will save lot of our time and energy; hence, sharing this. Among the people, who shared their experiences:

(One person sold his company to other big company – lost his share because of unknown reason – went into depression for 6 months)

(One premier B-school alumni – divorced – Lost daughter of 25 years old, who has corporate job, married; got divorced too – now the father remained single by 58)

(One person loved the world – loved India so much – became millionaire at very young age – from Orissa rural background – has strong family tie ups – experienced lovely venture capitalists/corporate world helping him – young successful entrepreneur)

(One person build business and grown to Rs 45 crore revenues in just 3 years – suddenly turnover crashed to Rs 4.5 crore – ultimately became bankrupt)

(One person worked in 7 different industries – mentored 20,000 students in his career time)

Some inputs with respect to entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneur: They should be able to assess their own ideas. They should identify the demand-supply gap in industry/society; and combine it with aspirations of people for effective business. They should be able to visualize, what venture capitalists and angle investors are looking for. Their soul, vision and mission should have clarity. Entrepreneurs should have a vision and roadmap of 5 to 10 years for their startups. The objective of entrepreneurship should be value creation. Ideas should be disruptive and assessable. One should combine capitalism and humanity. Giving back to society in a positive way should be part of the journey. “Funding” is one of the myths of entrepreneurship. Start small and scale up should be the philosophy. Lean manufacturing is the need of the hour. One should understand that entrepreneurship is not a career; it is a journey. Entrepreneur should try to make an impact and identify what he loves. Entrepreneurs should try to find the problems in society, industrial voids and try to concentrate on problem solving.

Entrepreneur’s motto should be service for society, service for people and service for planet. Human beings are of 3 types. They are i) risk taker ii) risk averter, and iii) risk neutral. Entrepreneurship is the key for employment generation. Being entrepreneur, one should have plan B as well. Entrepreneurs should master the basic art of communication. Entrepreneurs should have excellent finance skills. They should have glocal (global + local) cultural understanding. While being a generalist, they need to have niche skills in specific area of products/domain. Job creation is important for entrepreneurship and the business should be sustainable.

Stages of Start-up: For a startup, initial 2 years, innovation would be more. The 2 to 4 years duration is the time; you ramp up the team and develop them. After 4 years of startup, real people skills are required for the entrepreneur; you need to love your people, country, believe in doing good (it will turn out positively in future). Passion and human connect are required during this performing stage of the organization. One should have sustainable development goals by utilizing demographic dividends.

There are two keys to success of start-up: i) Innovation lead, and ii) Execution lead. Start-up valuation is not a science; rather it is an art. Innovation and scale determines the revenues for start-up.

Best Example for Company Valuation: One upon a time, Google thought of selling itself to Yahoo for $1 million valuation. The deal did not workout. Later, Yahoo was acquired by Verizon for $5 billion. In 2019, Google is worth $790 billion (market capitalization). For acquiring a company, the key criteria (in decreasing order of importance) are people, product, process, customer traction and finances.

Social Entrepreneurship: With respect to social entrepreneurship, Solar energy/solar power for rural India, developing apparels/cloth/dress brands (example: listed on “FabIndia”), developing entrepreneurship among rural women, etc. are some of the areas having potential. Education and hygiene, waste management, e-waste, environment related, can be areas for social entrepreneurial exploration. Social business, social capital, social investment, and social media are key for social entrepreneurship.

Among social entrepreneurship, micro financing is the zooming sector. For example, in Bangladesh, micro financing loans are given just based on trust; recovery rate of micro financing in Bangladesh is 99%. In USA, micro financing recovery rate is around 98%. Specifically for social enterprises, service should be the motive.

Corporate Social Entrepreneurship: Organizations such as Wipro are spending around 15% of their profits on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities.

Indian Youth: There are around 65 crore young Indians. As on 2019, India has around 500 million Internet users. Real building of the nation depends on young people. Youth should look at entrepreneurship from social perspective.

Youth + Energy + Experience + Knowledge = Strength of Nation

Cultural rootedness way is one of the India’s strengths. Graduating from college, is just like an insurance, which can save you in difficult times.

Dreaming -> Thinking -> Actions

One should look at the skill set of individuals. Skill set can be trained, learned and acquired. However, passion cannot be trained.

Technology Usage: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp should be used for effective communication in building relationships. Technology should be used for organizational effectiveness.

Some of the Entrepreneurial Ideas: Some of the potential entrepreneurial areas include Healthcare, infrastructure development, urban planning and development, biotechnology, e-market places, traffic planning, renewable energy, smart transport, P2P financial products, etc.

Thus entrepreneurship in emerging economies is growing with ease of doing business contributing to employment generation, economic development and wealth creation. India may see $10 trillion market capitalization in the coming 10 years.

   `                                                                                                             All the best…..

Dr.GPS