First Innings turns 1

Kavitha’s story may not sound very different for the dime-a-dozen Internet entrepreneurs, but for me it is about seeing a simple, shy girl who never thought of working transform to manage a company. Tucked inside Madipakkam is Kavitha’s flat, with her home and office on the ground and second floor respectively, where she juggles between the two.

It all started one year after marriage when her husband, Venky, motivated her to do something. “Even if it is a failure, it is fine; I will be with you,” Kavitha repeats his words. After a little prodding, Kavitha was ready to take the plunge. Thanks also to the three others (her sister proficient in computers, a friend well-versed in human resources and a computer teacher) who guided her in floating the web maintenance and development firm.

Before that, the Commerce graduate made sure she enrolled in a computer class to learn the basics of what she would be handling. “Even now I only know the basics. I bag projects and the rest is handled by my team,” she says candidly about her company, Compunet Connection, for which she is the sole proprietor.

How did she bag her first project? “Through a common friend I got my first client, Deb Andrews, from the Caribbean, who later referred me to others. And the chain continued.”

Kavitha also keeps a social consciousness angle when she recruits. “All my appointees, six sets of eight to nine freshers who have worked, are from rural areas like Namakkal, Salem, Tiruveneli and other districts. They have BE/ MCA degree in hand, but lack communication skills, so they lose out on opportunities,” she explains.

She has no qualms about losing them after a year or two. “I am happy that they are going to a better place after getting the initial push,” she says, explaining how she conducts personality development programmes for them. “Being intelligent is not enough, but it is essential to be smart,” Kavitha concludes. True!

Mr. PRObit

Call it curiosity or interest in the net worth of one’s fellow human being, Amit P. Nahar loved to go through the list of billionaires, a fascination that started during his school days.

“I was deeply inspired by the growing number of billionaires in India during my school days; each one was an entrepreneur. Rarely would one see someone in employment reaching those heights,” says Amit talking about how the entrepreneurial bug caught him.

In fact, after school Amit decided that he would play his own game in life. “I always wanted the steering wheel of my life in my hands and not let anyone drive it.” From being a Chartered Accountant to Masters in Financial Management to a Management Consultant and the Fa Chennai Man 2007, Amit’s entrepreneurial journey has been an assortment of twists and turns.

His venture, PRObit Consultants, is a one-stop consulting solution catering to all client needs. In less than four years since its inception, the company has one of the most diversified clientele and has been competing with the big fours in many domains. “My journey called for strength, tenacity and a bottomless reserve of determination,” says Amit, who is director-promoter of the company. “It was good to idolise some of the successful entrepreneurs and later make them your client.”

Those hiccups? “There were many times when it would have been easy for me and my team to throw in the towel, but we learned that by simply hanging on for another day we could often change things dramatically, often for the better.” Well, that’s what entrepreneurship calls for, no matter how much one plans.

Did winning the Chennai Man title change things? “It did change my image in the corporate world. I always wanted to lead life the unconventional way and achieve feats which people rarely achieve,” Amit says. It’s the same gut feeling that makes him balance both worlds with zeal.

Home Shanti Home

He is not an architect, interior designer, builder or Vaastu consultant, but the usability and functional aspects required in a home run high on this product engineer’s mind, which he converted into a business module.

Meet Virupakshan K. or Viru for friends, who will help you apply more commonsense while building your dream home. Viru brings with him around 10 years of IT experience (he has worked with Infosys, Cognizant and MindTree) and the belief that it is better late than never has driven him to take up his entrepreneurial ambitions. With due credit also to Subroto Bagchi’s article, The Fallen Tomato Cart.

So, what’s HomePlanGuru all about? “I help you plan various functional aspects of your home that your builder will not tell,” he explains, saying there are 1,000 such details to be considered, which he calls micro planning for the home.

His implemented plan takes six months to one year for people to experience/understand, but the benefit is long-term, which promises to give you a quality home at a lower cost. Easy duplication (his website is quite transparent), fluctuating real estate prices and the fact that he’s a novice in the field notwithstanding, Viru is undeterred and believes in his dreams.

“In fact, I want all architects to copy my concept,” says Viru who calls himself a micro planner, a concept which is yet to pick up in India. From one customer a month, HomePlanGuru now receives five to six customers monthly. “Once I gain momentum with customers, I plan to start developing products as well as certify if the house is safe in all aspects,” he adds.

Thanks to the ESOPs he received from Infosys, Viru says it has made him debt-free as well as sail in the venture. And if you have been thinking how recession can affect his business, Viru says, “The longer the downturn, the better is the business for me, as today’s market is changing from builder-driven to customer-driven.”

Now, all you who have built or are planning to build a home, do read through the FAQs section on www.homeplanguru.com for a dose of uncommon commonsense.

Acumen matters

Imagine getting the first break in business while studying, where your goal is not making money but enhancing your skills. Just think you hit jackpot.

The start-up plans of Sudhakar Arjunan (23) and N. Kalyanaraman (22) took wing when they were studying Information Technology at Vel Tech Engineering College. In their second year, the duo started the ‘IT Acumens Community’ to later launch IT Acumens, where they undertook web projects for classmates and college events.

Knowing their skills, a librarian asked them to design a library management system. That became a hit and was later hosted by the college. “The Chairman of the college gifted us Rs. 10,000 – our first salary-cum-gift,” they recall.

Soon, offers started pouring in from other institutions, too. The success of IT Acumens was huge; they completed designing 20 such projects before their graduation (that is, juggling work and college). So much so that Sudhakar even decided to drop the job offer he got through campus placement.

The down-to-earth boys do not call themselves entrepreneurs as they think they need to be a better “performing company”, though they have gone through all that a start-up faces in their last two years. “We started functioning from Kalyan’s home,” recalls Sudhakar, saying how the entrance where footwear was left behind was converted into an office – a 100 sq ft space to be specific.

Today, it’s is a different growth story. They have 15 employees working for the company, spread over an area of 1,200 sq ft in Ashok Nagar. “Every quarter we make a turnover of Rs. 5 lakh through our various projects,” says Sudhakar, adding, “We have a customer base of 1,500 people.”

Hosting the website hasn’t been a cakewalk, either. “It required high bandwidth and overload. So we purchased a shared server,” they say. “Winning the trust of our customers was another difficult task,” says Kalyan.

IT Acumens, according to them, is a ray of hope for freshers, those swindled of their money in the name of a job and for all those who want to “learn, share and leave after getting hands-on experience.”

With over 25,000 resumes in their database, 16,000 new visitors and 7,900 registrations, there seems to be no stopping. The duo has launched their second start-up, MobiDrive, which is a short code SMS service.