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

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1. Employees are resource-oriented. Entrepreneurs are opportunity-oriented.
A person with an employee mindset might say, “I would start my own business but I don’t have the money.” Or “I’d love to invest in that piece of real estate, but I don’t have the down payment.” In both of these examples the person focuses on their resources–in this case their lack of money, rather than the opportunity.

In a similar situation, a person with an entrepreneur’s mindset might say, “Let’s start the business and we can finance the business from the cash flow.” Or “Tie up the property and we’ll find the money later.”
Robert Kiyosaki’s poor dad was a man who saw many opportunities, but failed to act on them simply because he was resource-oriented. Instead of taking action, he often said, “I wish I could do it, but I can’t afford it.” Or “I would go into business for myself, but I need a steady job. I have a mortgage and you kids to feed.”

On the other hand, Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad (his best friend’s father, an entrepreneur who taught him a lot about how the rich think about money) was a man who started with nothing, but eventually became one of the richest men in Hawaii. Today, when you look at Waikiki Beach, you see some of the biggest hotels along the ocean on land his family owns. He said, “If you do not have resources, you need to become resourceful.” That is why he forbade his son and me from saying the words “I can’t afford it.” He said, “Poor people say ‘I can’t afford it.’ That’s why they’re poor.” Instead he insisted we learn to say, “How can I afford it?” He believed that when we said, “I can’t afford it” our minds were turned off and went to sleep. When we asked ourselves, “How can I afford it?” our minds, our greatest resource of all, were turned on and put to work.

The second difference between entrepreneurs and employees is:

2. Employees prefer to manage via hierarchical structures.
Entrepreneurs manage via networks, utilizing the resources of other people and organizations.

This means that employee-type leaders would rather hire people and bring their talent “in-house.” Rather than have an outside firm do their creative work, an employee-type leader would prefer to hire the talent and have them under their control. While there are economic reasons for doing this, the report stated that the primary reason is control. This is because employees gravitate to a leadership style that is more suited to a military command-and-control type of organization.

Robert’s poor dad was successful in the hierarchical structure of the government, eventually rising to the top of the educational system as Superintendent of Education and running for Lieutenant Governor for the State of Hawaii. After losing that race–and his position as Superintendent of Education–he tried his hand at entrepreneurship. He purchased a national ice cream franchise that failed in less than a year. Why? While the reasons were many, one reason was his leadership and management style. When he said, “Jump”… no one jumped.

Instead of the military’s command-and-control leadership style, his Rich Dad used a more cooperative and collaborative style of leadership. He encouraged his son and Robert to learn to lead and manage people who are not required to follow our orders–people who did not need to jump when they heard the word “Jump.” Rather than hire people and bring them in-house, rich dad networked with other people and organizations, which tended to reduce his costs and at the same time increase his resources and influence in the marketplace.

Today, The Rich Dad Company follows rich dad’s advice. Instead of becoming a stand-alone publishing house, they choose to cooperate via a joint venture agreement with The Time Warner Book Group, as well as licensed publishers around the world who offer their books in 43 languages. In this way, they keep the core staff small, yet we utilize the thousands of employees of publishers around the world.

But Robert Kiyosaki Says that leveraging the assets and resources of partners is not enough. It’s important to choose the right partners–ones who are aligned with your goals and values. Choosing the right partners can make the difference between success and failure–as I’ve learned the hard way.

As The Rich Dad Company has grown, they have worked with partners who have opened doors to opportunities that were much greater than what they could have been able to pursue on their own. In an entrepreneurial spirit, they formed alliances with major media organizations and international promotion firms that leveraged the Rich Dad brand with their worldwide networks.

In doing so, Rich Dad Company–as entrepreneurs–stay small, yet increase market share by cooperating rather than competing… by networking rather than hiring employees and bringing work “in-house.”

In 1989 the world changed. That’s when the Berlin Wall came down and the World Wide Web went up. Instead of a world of walls, Rich Dad Company became a world of webs… networks of people working cooperatively rather than competitively. It is a special honor for Robert Kiyosaki to be recognized by Amazon.com, a pioneer in the brave new world of the web, founded by a great entrepreneur, Jeff Bezos.
There are key, fundamental differences between the mindset of an employee and the mindset of an entrepreneur. One of the great things about this world of webs is that the world is now open for business to billions of people who choose to think as entrepreneurs–rather than employees.

About the author:
Tarun Trikha is established to provide Marketing Recommendations to aid common people in their pursuit of financial freedom and a better lifestyle. For more information on his approach, visit http://www.taruntrikha.com

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