Soaring high on a micro chip

Even after september 11, Silicon Valley retains its relevance for India

NARENDRA M APTE

The Entrepreneurial Connection: East Meets West In The Silicon Valley is a collection of success stories that epitomise the Indian entrepeneurial ethos of young expatriates who have made it big. The book is based on interviews with 25 Indian entrepreneurs, who either have their own information technology (IT) companies or are angel investors in IT companies at Silicon Valley in the United States.

These are fascinating narratives of mostly first generation entrepreneurs, the majority of whom have degrees in engineering. All of them share some distinct personal attributes, like a propensity to work hard, enormous innovative skills in the field of IT and absolutely no aversion to risk—the qualities that have brought success.

The entrepreneurs were grilled about their style of work, their business or investment strategy, family influences, mentors and so on, in these series of interviews, some conducted face-to-face and some through video conferences. The responses of the entrepreneurs varied with their individual experience and background and should provoke thought among students of business management.

Suhas Patil, an angel investor and co-founder of Circus Logic and first president of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), cogently introduces the non-profit organisation, which helps entrepreneurs in the US. “TiE has three objectives: networking, mentoring entrepreneurs and integrating with the mainstream society,” says he, adding, “TiE’s mission is to foster and support entrepreneurs. The Gurus must be willing and able to give the time and energy necessary to make their disciples successful.”

Vinod Khosla, who is a partner in the venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, says, “Unless you have built a company yourself, you are not qualified to advise entrepreneurs.” Another interesting sound byte from Mr Khosla is, “I try to get people to think in terms of miles, not inches.” Dr Anil K Gupta, who is a strategy scholar and a visiting faculty at the Stanford University Technology Venture Programme, says, “I like to think of the business strategist as analogous to an architect, someone who is a part engineer and part artist. Like an engineer, a strategist tries to create something functional, something that will serve as a means to an end...”

“Yet,” Dr Gupta goes on to say, “the strategist must also be like an artist—somebody who strives to break the mould and to change the rules of the game. This is how CNN rose from nowhere to become a leader in network broadcasting...”

Romesh Wadhwani, who is the founder and former chairman of Aspect Development Inc. and now vice-chairman of i2 Technologies, spells out the Silicon Valley recipe. “There are entrepreneurs, who know how to start things, but don’t know how to run them. There are entrepreneurs who are great idea generators, but not business leaders. There are entrepreneurs who are good evangelists, but not good managers,” says he.

Mr Wadhwani says, “They don’t all have to be business leaders; they don’t all have to be great managers. However, they need to recognise what they are good at and bring in help in the areas where they need it to realise their vision. If they can do this, they can achieve great success,” says he.

Kanwal Rekhi, chairman of TiE, says, “I became an entrepreneur by totally thinking out of the box, not focussing on design alone. I focussed on how to deliver value, how to price it right and how to make sure the customers come in.” Prakash Bhalerao, angel investor and venture capitalist, offers his advice to the entrepreneur, “Don’t take no for an answer. Persistence and tenacity always pay off.”

Vivek Ranadive, founder chairman and CEO of TIBCO Software Inc., a global leader of Total Business Integration Solutions, says, “There are five steps to creating a great company: Imagine that you are on planet Earth and are trying to reach the stars in your little rocket ship. Step one is to start with a single product. Hopefully, the product is good enough and the market big enough for the rocket ship to reach an escape velocity, which is step two.”

Step Three, according to Mr Ranadive, “is using the escape velocity to spearhead and diversify around market space. Step four is when companies look at you as being strategic for that class of products, for example, Oracle for database, Cisco for networking, and so on. Step five is the eco-system where the company gets bigger than itself by leveraging a world of complementary partners, applications and services.” These are only some samples of the mind-boggling array of formulae green investors have to choose from. Nuggets of sound advice indeed!

Curiosity about the heroes of the Silicon Valley fairy tale, should logically extend beyond their business strategies, to their parents and family. Who are their mentors and what motivates them to carry on? Almost all of them have acknowledged that their parents and family played an important role in their business success. For some of them, money was no longer a motivation. When Wipro chairman Azim H Premji is asked what keeps him going, his response is unique. “It is a very simple answer. Ultimately, the race is with yourself,” says he.

Author Gurmeet Naroola rightly observes in his foreword that his book is meant for anyone with an entrepreneurial mind-set. One may add that it was in reality for anyone with a business instinct.

The Entrepreneurial Connection: East Meets West In The Silicon Valley by Gurmeet Naroola, Tata McGraw-Hill; Rs 395; Pp 382