Bharat Entrepreneurs

” When I thought of starting a company, I felt India needed 100 people like Narayana Murthy and Ambani. If 100 such people support 2 lakh people each, imagine how many Indians get supported. Entrepreneurship is needed to uplift the poor. It is not easy to be an entrepreneur, especially a first generation entrepreneur. There will be lots of challenges in the beginning but you should learn to look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Never give up even if there are hurdles. There are many who give up within a week. You need determination and a tough mind to cross the initial hurdles.” E.Sarathbabu

E. SarathBabu is not the typical IIM Ahmedabad student you read about in the newspapers. He did not take the easy path to earn mega bucks in spite of being offered plum jobs from top companies. Instead he chose, like a true entrepreneur, to carve out his own path to success. So he started FOODKING.

His mother worked as an ayah in an Anganvadi to educate him and his siblings. Later he went on to complete his higher education in the prestigious BITS Pilani and IIM Ahmedabad.

In the beginning, he took a loan of Rs 20 lakh and started Foodking in August 2006. Initially the losses were poised at Rs 2000 a day. The cafeteria’s he set up initially did not work according to plan and he soon came to the conviction that only by selling in large volumes that any profit could be made.

In 2006 IIM A alumni meet, he hoped to bag a contract but could not.

In march 2007 he got an offer to start a unit at BITS, Pilani. This contract proved profitable. Spurred with this initial profit and with the money that he borrowed from his IIM A friends, he wanted to move ahead. He got BITS Goa contract which was to be his biggest break. He had to cater to over 1300 students and the sales peaked at 65,000 Rs per day.

Then he got an opportunity to serve at SRM deemed college which boasts of over 17,000 students!

Right now he has a turn around of Rs 3.5 crore per annum. By next year he hope to increase it to Rs 20 crores.

At present he has BITS hyderabad in his hands and it all set to be operational by July 2008. So the future does look rosy to this Foodking.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/aug/31spec.htm

Popularity: 40%

Picture the state of Orissa. A state known for its passive citizens who often give an impression that they are so disinterested in what affects their lives by the lesser frequency with which they vote out an incumbent government, irrespective of whether or not it has governed them well. The percentage of ministry changes in this state will be less than half of the average in the country as a whole. Anti-incumbency wave never seems to touch them, much like their more volatile and vociferous neighbours in West Bengal. It is not just in this that the state differs from the national average. The per-capita income of an Oriya is just half of the national average. While you would have met a number of Oriyas in the Indian Administrative cadre, in Banks and in the Academic fields, one’s image of the state, subjected to the furies of nature, be it drought , flood or Cyclone year after year lingers. Famine deaths ostensibly happen in the state even today. The state is still an enigma to the other parts of the country, despite its wealth of natural resources and strategic location.

Please come with me to Sambalpur. The district infamous for the famine deaths a couple of decades back Worse still, known for the sale of a an infant by a hungry mother for a paltry Rs.100/-. This district typifies the Orissa image we all have. The people here speak Sambalpuri, a language with not even a script. Let’s travel about four decades back to the small thatched house of Gopal Ratha, in Sindhekela village, who is lucky to have a job of his own, yet prides in the quantity of rice in his storehouse rather than on the amount of (rather lack of) cash. The family does have a decent living compared to the neighbourhood, but the people don’t even visualize a life outside the district. For Gopal, his son Dilip is the hope. He is convinced this bright student son of his will one day become the Post master of the village As time moves forward, Dilip and his siblings have already gained the knowledge and courage to move out of the boundaries of Sindhekela and Sambalpur. Brilliance and hard work brings a PhD Dilip’s way.

Bidding good bye to his fathers Postmaster dreams, Dilip travels to the far off shores of magical America, more because of his urge to learn more than earn more. The flowering of the brilliant son of Sindhekela was quick. The assignment in the World Bank is a dream come true for Dilip Ratha. He is able to put to use all that he learned and is soon noted for his treatise on human migration and related issue. It was believed that migratory population the world over never amounted to much when their contribution to economic growth of the world was concerned. He focused on the power of the remittances these migrants made. He and his team researched and brought out the startling revelation that the aggregate remittances by migrants the world over amounted to three times the total foreign aid. The fact that most of the migrant population was from the developing and under developed countries, Dr. Ratha had no difficulty in proving the value their remittances to the economies of these countries. Even assuming a large percentage of these remittances get squandered away on consumption, Dr.Ratha is convinced that development gets a boost from them the world over. The aggregate remittances per annum is estimated at $300 billion. Having aggregated the remittances, compiled mostly from the figures of the Central Banks, Dr. Ratha points out that with about 200 million migrants the world over, their remittances reach one tenth of the world population! It is not only countries like India and China who are the beneficiaries. Smaller countries benefit more. National Incomes have gone up by as much as 20 times. Realising the power of the remittances by the migrants Dr. Ratha is now focusing on the channels for remittances and reduced cost of remittances. He says, in an interview to The New York Times (quoted in Hindustan Times) “Some people say I paint too rosy a picture of migration and what it can achieve. But I realize the importance of the dollars that come in because I know poverty first-hand. Once people decide to migrate, they usher in local development.”

He has a point there.

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