Back in the late 80s, I wrote a lot of ads for a Delhi-based computer company. One with a reputation for gun-slinging cowboy execs who pulled off market stunts that their competition-straight-laced idli-sambar boys from Bangalore-couldn't.
Tales were legion. Bricks were supposedly sealed and delivered when PCs could not be, and then replaced days later. During a demo of a supposedly blazing fast copier, someone hid under a table pushing out pre-photocopied samples because the machine malfunctioned at the last minute. One day, someone will write a book about those early, crazy days of the Indian technology business.
This Indian cowboy company grew at triple-digit rates till it was acquired by a big US company. And then went on to become stodgier than its eternal rival, the southie sunflower-oil-and-software company.
Those were the days of the Apple-IBM battles-and I used to live through its Indian counterpart every day. Street-smart rebels taking on brains in starched blue shirts. (Anyone notice the similarity with Star Wars-or Linux vs. Microsoft?)
Today, of course, the entrepreneurs behind both those Indian companies are phenomenally successful, and wealthy beyond belief. Just as Steve Jobs and the more anonymous IBM CEOs are. So both might be viable routes for success. But the difference I see is that my ex-client-and, analogously, Apple-threw off far more entrepreneurs from its ranks than IBM and its plain Jane desi double ever did.
Entrepreneurial companies, it seems, are breeding grounds for entrepreneurs. I look for that combination of lateral thinking and near-foolish recklessness in the people I meet. To me, it's a good sign that someone's got the spark to be a good entrepreneur.
I am reminded of a story involving one of the co-founders of a tech company. Deep into a presentation to a technology buyer with a billion-dollar budget, he realised there was a much bigger opportunity than what he had come there to sell. He excused himself, asked for a second meeting. He sat that night in a hotel room with presentation and graphics programmes-and went back the next day with screenshots, a presentation, datasheets and a white paper of a product that blew the client away.
What was more impressive was that the product didn't exist till a few minutes before the meeting.
One of my war stories involves being broke and hungry one night when I worked as a door-to-door salesman. I used to wear a shirt and a tie to work-and ended up gatecrashing a large, high society wedding reception, greeting the confused couple with smiles, then gorging myself and leaving before too many questions were asked.
You've certainly heard such tales before-and even seen it happen among your friends. You may even feel that these people have that special something-I call it the 'jugaad gene'-that will take them places. I'd agree with you.
I look for that gene not just in entrepreneurs-but also in regular hires for companies. Give me, any day, a gutsy street-fighter over some college-topping bookworm and I'll give you a company that's likely to succeed faster than its rivals.
How do you find that spark in people? Certainly resume-filtering won't locate it for you. More important, how do you create an educational environment where this can grow and flourish?
I was lucky that my high school and college days were full of quizzing, debating and other non-curricular events that forced one to stretch one's grey matter in unfamiliar ways. Our renewed emphasis on rote learning is surely killing that creative spirit in the generations to come.
I take solace in the fact that the more people are taught to follow the beaten track, the easier it is to find the few, the crazy, the mad that follow the road less travelled. These are the ones that make all the difference.
