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Facebook<\/a> faced an existential crisis during its initial days in the mid-2000s. “Things weren’t really going well, we had hit a rough patch and a lot of people wanted to buy Facebook,” founder Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> confessed last September when he hosted prime minister Narendra Modi for a town-hall session in California.
\n
\nZuckerberg, as it turned out, didn’t take the help of any technology geek nor did he sound off his investors to bail him out. Instead, he turned to his mentor, his guru. “I went and met Steve Jobs,” Zuckerberg recalled.
\n
\nJobs advised Zuckerberg to book a flight to India. After all, the founder of Apple had himself travelled as a backpacker in the early 1970s, in search of enlightenment. He may have returned to the US with dysentery and lice, but the India visit also enabled Jobs to see his business through a fresh prism.
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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nJobs told Zuckerberg to visit an ashram in India that he had been to during a similar period in his career, when the idea of Apple was evolving.
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\nThe visit to Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram in Pantnagar on the plains of Uttarakhand had helped Jobs crystallise his vision for Apple. Zuckerberg let on that the visit to the baba helped him clear his head on FB’s vision.
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\nBack home, not every entrepreneur can have a mentor like Jobs, but if finding gurus with that kind of pedigree and stature is a problem, they are making up for it with sheer numbers.
\n
\nYes, founders of fledgling startups are seeing virtue in having multiple mentors, who come for free and have no strings attached — in terms of equity or investments — to the ventures.
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\nSharing Wisdom<\/strong> Take, for instance, Swapnil Khandelwal, cofounder of alumni-based social network startup<\/a> AlmaConnect<\/a>. If Zuckerberg had Jobs, the 29-year-old rookie entrepreneur is at it with two “big shots” of his own: Amit Ranjan and Gokul Rajaram.
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\nRanjan is the cofounder of Slide-Share, the world’s largest slide-sharing site that was bought by professional networking site Linkedin for about Rs 640 crore ($119 million) in 2012.
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\nGokul Rajaram, Khandelwal’s second mentor, is dubbed as “godfather of Google’s Ad-Sense”, and is one of the most prolific angel investors in the Silicon Valley. A year into the venture, in April 2014, Khandelwal hit a dead end in terms of user engagement. In sheer despair, he dropped a plea for help to Ranjan on Linkedin. “I never thought he’d reply the same day and also give an appointment,” recalls Khandelwal.
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\n\tThe gyan offered by Ranjan was simple: engagement comes with content. The solution too was elementary: content needs to be unique, revolving around what alumni are interested in and not getting anywhere else. That advice spurred Khandelwal to come up with a “news related to alumni” section on his site. It worked like a charm, with visits increasing by 400%.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nBut how does the mentor-mentee relationship work in the absence of financial payback? After all, the hat of mentor is traditionally donned either by investors who play the dual role because their money is at stake, or by paid mentors or advisors. Why would anybody do it for free? Khandelwal offers an explanation: the magic works best when the mentor himself or herself has been an entrepreneur and has at some point of time received help or mentoring for his or her venture.
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\n\tRanjan nods in agreement. For someone who founded a company with the word “share” in its name, Ranjan is a big believer in the sharing credo.
\n\t
\n\t“The more you share, the more it helps others, the ecosystem grows and some of that karma flows back to you,” says Ranjan, who now works with the Modi government as lead product architect at the IT department’s national eGovernance division.<\/p>\nThe trigger for free mentoring comes from Ranjan’s personal experience. Coming from a marketing and sales background, Ranjan had to soon move into technology with SlideShare.
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This meant going through a period of intense learning, and one of the biggest learning components was what’s available on the internet<\/a>. A mentor would have been of great value at that time, if Ranjan could have found one.
\n
\nYet, Ranjan acknowledges that in that period he gained a lot from a lot of people. “And this got deeply ingrained in my psyche,” says Ranjan, “and so I decided to do things for others.”
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\nWhen Khandelwal approached Ranjan, he recognised an opportunity to give back, gratis. “He was in a corner,” recalls Ranjan, adding that he suggested that Khandelwal look at the problem from a different perspective, and it worked.
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\nFree and Fair<\/strong> The hunt for a different perspective is often what drives entrepreneurs to cast the net wide and far for mentors from different fields. Vidhi Sagar, the 26-year-old founder of Feminstaa, for instance, plumped for somebody who is perhaps the most powerful woman in business in India: Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson of the State Bank of India (SBI).
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\nIt didn’t come easy, of course. Sagar says she had to wait six months to get an appointment with the top banker. Then the first meeting didn’t turn out to be rosy. Bhattacharya was brutally honest in her assessment of the venture: the website looked like an amateur college project, and the cofounders didn’t appear serious about a business model.
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\nSagar and her cofounder Medha Mukerji were spending at least 10 times what they were earning, and thought that to be normal. Bhattacharya offered a reality check.
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\n“She emphasised the importance of creating a sustainable business, rather than spending first and hoping to recover later,” says Sagar, who also counts NDTV Gadgets 360 chief executive Bhavna Aggarwal, author and screenplay writer Madhuri Banerjee and Yes Foundation chief executive Prerana Langa among her “free” mentors.
\n
\nWhat made the banker agree to mentor the founders of Feministaa was their “genuine desire” to empower women. “They were on a mission to highlight the strengths and talents of women who had created success stories in spite of numerous problems,” said Bhattacharya in an email to ET Magazine, adding that she has been working with other young entrepreneurs as well. “We have opened a separate branch for entrepreneurs called InCube,” she says.
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\nBhattacharya could also relate to Feministaa’s vision. “We have managed work and family at a time when (just) one in 10 women was working.” For her part, Sagar says the banker treats Feministaa as her own — “like a mother who guides her child on the right track through the early years of growth”.
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\nThought for Food<\/strong> If Bhattacharya plays mother to Feministaa, can fathers be far behind? Ask Prasoon Gupta, who has Raman Roy, “father of the Indian BPO industry”, as one of his unpaid mentors. Gupta, cofounder of food startup Sattviko, received a Pioneering Spirit Award (constituted by Lufthansa Pioneering Spirit) from Roy in 2010 and ever since the latter has been friend and mentor to the 29-year-old entrepreneur.
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\nGupta learnt his first major lesson in life when Roy chided him during his early entrepreneurial days, saying: Equity is very, very expensive.
\nGupta, like others of his age, displayed desperation to get investors on board for his food startup. Not only did he care less about the background of the investors, he was also too eager to dilute chunky stakes. That’s where having a mentor like Roy helped.
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\nRoy’s advice also came in handy when Sattviko was trying to evolve a sustainable business model. His suggestion: use equity judiciously to have complete control.
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\nGupta spells out the benefits of having a mentor who has no equity interest in the startup nor is bound to it by payment. For starters, the mentor-mentee relationship gets defined by a genuine bond.
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\nWhen there’s a cash or equity deal, the relationship boils down to a simple consulting job, he contends. What’s more, since the mentor isn’t putting his money in a venture, an entrepreneur can have a free hand in day-to-day operations and steer clear of over involvement. Also, as there is no monetary involvement, it brings down expectations for both the parties.
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\nRoy too believes that money is not the sole driver of all relationships. “The guru-shishya relationship has always existed in our culture,” says the chairman of Quatrro, the BPO firm he founded in 2006 after quitting Wipro, to whom he had sold Spectramind, a pioneer in the outsourcing sector.
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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nDonning Two Hats<\/strong> Then there are mentors like serial entrepreneur K Ganesh who wear two hats — one as investor-cum-mentor, and the other as just mentor. For example, in Marketics, an offshore analytics firm, Ganesh was chairman, sole investor and mentor.
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\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nDuring a potential monetisation transaction, as an investor, he was happier not selling, though as a mentor he had advocated the sale since it was the best outcome for the cofounders.
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\nEventually, the company was sold to WNS for $63 million in 2007. Ganesh also points out the downside of having a mentor with no investment. The mentor may not be able to devote the required time, will not have ‘skin in the game’ for the progress, growth and outcome, he contends.
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\nStill, Ganesh
vouches for a relationship where there is no monetary investment. “The beauty of such a relationship is that any advice is free of any bias,” he says, adding that having Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekeni<\/a> as a mentor helped him on numerous occasions at TutorVista, an online tutoring firm that was bought by Pearson, and Portea, a medical care services venture.
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\n“He asks incisive questions, makes us see reality and helps us think into the future,” says Ganesh. It helps greatly to have someone with a broader vision and who has done it globally and at much larger scale, he adds.
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\nNilekani feels that “mentoring” Ganesh may be too big a word. “I advise Portea on scaling,” he says. “In fact, most of the startups I interact with are of this type (where there’s little at stake for him in monetary terms). I invest in very few startups, and do not invest in the FinTech sector (where I do policy work), Aadhaar (which I led the creation of ) and education (where I do only philanthropy),” adds Nilekani.
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\nOne of the ventures in which Nilekani has no investments and is a mentor is Kalaari Capital-backed Shopalyst, a product discovery startup founded by four Infoscions. Girish Ramachandra, one of the cofounders, knew Nilekani since the Infosys days. Ramachandra finds the former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India a great sounding board. “He asks us the right questions and helps us connect the dots.”
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\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nValue for No Money<\/strong> Often, mentors can play valuable roles, without being overbearing. Mayank Kachhwaha and Gaurav Chopra, cofounders of IndiaLends, an online credit underwriting and analytics platform, got daily reminders of “salary lost since last week” from one of their mentors, Amit Malik. The idea was to tell the cofounders about the financial loss due to the delay in launching the startup’s operations.
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\nAnother mentor, Akhil
\nWable — among the first 50 engineers at Facebook and a cofounder of Cove, which was acquired by Dropbox — introduced the IndiaLends cofounders to a new way of interviewing candidates: scenariobased and case-study questions, which were not conventionally used in technology job interviews in India. Seeking out mentors for indefinable and subtle benefits isn’t the most popular trend in India. Sunil Kalra, a prolific angel investor, reckons that most of the entrepreneurs he has encountered seek tangible benefits such as network connects and fund-raising. Many don’t take the time to reflect or seek advice from well-wishers. They then get busy trying to build their businesses at breakneck speed, he says.
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\n\tKalra contends that as the world becomes more transactional, emotional and personal bonds are less likely to occur, especially over long periods of time. “Once they (entrepreneurs) step out of their comfort zones and take the plunge, very few make the effort to remain connected.” While maintaining that entrepreneurship can be a very lonely journey, Kalra encourages young entrepreneurs to find someone they look up to and try and establish a bond with. “This mostly comes at a small cost (advisory equity perhaps) but is worthwhile,” he says, adding that it is important for entrepreneurs to have a set of people they can turn to for help.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div> Deep Kalra, cofounder of Makemytrip<\/a>, believes that mentors can only offer the best advice. “It’s for the entrepreneur to listen, distil, ignore and finally execute their plans,” says Deep Kalra, who plays mentor to Annu Grover, founder of Nurturing Green, a startup selling plant-related products for gifting, decor and landscaping purposes. Grover believes he has increased his odds of success big time by having mentors whom he plans to pay back in a unique manner. “Every Eklavya has to give dakshina (fee) to Drona,” says Grover, adding that paying back in cash or equity would be a grave disrespect to mentors. So he plans to give them air-purifying plants for their office and rooms.
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\nMentors may not be exactly looking for such recompense. According to McKinsey’s Rajeev Krishnan, who plays mentor to Dhiraj Agarwal of online fashion and accessory startup Campus Sutra, true joy is realised when goals are achieved, hurdles are overcome and new paths are created by the mentees. Says the senior adviser (retail & consumer goods), SE Asia, McKinsey: “It is the absolute culmination of your personal and professional achievements and journey.”\n\n<\/body>","next_sibling":[{"msid":51568335,"title":"AP to launch fibre net project from Aug","entity_type":"ARTICLE","link":"\/news\/ap-to-launch-fibre-net-project-from-aug\/51568335","category_name":null,"category_name_seo":"telecomnews"}],"related_content":[],"msid":51568346,"entity_type":"ARTICLE","title":"How some of India\u2019s hottest startups are finding big-hearted mentors","synopsis":"Our stories will help and give courage and strength to the next gen who are striving to succeed, says Arundhati Bhattacharya.","titleseo":"telecomnews\/how-some-of-indias-hottest-startups-are-finding-big-hearted-mentors","status":"ACTIVE","authors":[{"author_name":"Rajiv Singh","author_link":"\/author\/479211175\/rajiv-singh","author_image":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/authorthumb\/479211175.cms?width=100&height=100&hostid=268","author_additional":{"thumbsize":false,"msid":479211175,"author_name":"Rajiv Singh","author_seo_name":"rajiv-singh","designation":"Editor","agency":false}}],"analytics":{"comments":0,"views":243,"shares":0,"engagementtimems":1057000},"Alttitle":{"minfo":""},"artag":"ET Bureau","artdate":"2016-03-27 07:29:41","lastupd":"2016-03-27 07:30:52","breadcrumbTags":["Internet","Facebook","makemytrip","startup","Mark Zuckerberg","Sunday ET","Nandan Nilekeni","AlmaConnect"],"secinfo":{"seolocation":"telecomnews\/how-some-of-indias-hottest-startups-are-finding-big-hearted-mentors"}}" data-authors="[" rajiv singh"]" data-category-name="" data-category_id="" data-date="2016-03-27" data-index="article_1">

印度一些最热门的创业公司如何寻找洒脱的导师吗

我们的故事将帮助和勇气和力量给下一个世代努力成功,阿兰达蒂巴塔查里亚说。

拉吉夫·辛格
  • 更新2016年3月27日上午07:30时坚持
阅读: 100年行业专业人士
读者的形象读到100年行业专业人士
脸谱网面临着生存危机最初日子里在2000年代中期。“事情不是很顺利,我们有遭遇坎坷,很多人想买Facebook”创始人马克•扎克伯格去年9月承认当他主持总理在加州纳伦德拉•莫迪的市政厅会议。

扎克伯格,事实证明,没有任何技术极客的帮助下,他的声音也没有他的投资者来拯救他。相反,他转向他的导师,他的大师。“我去见过乔布斯,”扎克伯格回忆说。

工作建议扎克伯格预定航班到印度。毕竟,苹果的创始人自己旅行背包客在1970年代早期,寻找启迪。他可能回到美国与痢疾和虱子,但印度访问也使乔布斯看到业务通过新鲜的棱镜。
乔布斯告诉扎克伯格在印度访问一个修行的,他已经在他职业生涯的一个相似的时期,当苹果发展的想法。

访印楝Karoli巴巴的修行Pantnagar平原的北阿坎德邦曾帮助苹果的乔布斯形成视觉。扎克伯格让在访问爸爸帮助他清楚他的头在FB的愿景。

回家,不是每一位企业家都能有一个导师和乔布斯一样,但如果发现大师的血统和地位是一个问题,他们正在用纯粹的数字。

是的,刚起步的创业公司的创始人看到美德有多个导师,免费的,没有附加条件——股票或投资的合资企业。

分享智慧比如,Swapnil口创始人之一alumni-based社交网络启动 AlmaConnect。如果扎克伯格工作,29岁的新秀企业家在与自己的两个“大人物”:阿米特野生动物和Gokul拉贾拉姆。

野生动物Slide-Share的创始人之一,是世界上最大的幻灯片分享网站买的职业社交网站Linkedin大约640卢比(1.19亿美元)在2012年。

Gokul拉贾拉姆吉口第二导师,都可称为“谷歌Ad-Sense教父”,和最多产的天使投资人之一在硅谷。一年合资企业,2014年4月,口死胡同的用户参与。在彻底的绝望,他恳求帮助野生动物在Linkedin。“我从没想过他会当天回复,也给一个约会,”吉口回忆说。



野生动物提供的吉安很简单:订婚有内容。解决方案也基本:需要独特的内容,围绕校友感兴趣而不是其他地方。这个建议引发口想出一个“新闻与校友”部分在自己的网站上。乐动扑克它像一个魅力,访问增加了400%。
但如何师徒关系缺乏金融回报的工作吗?毕竟,导师是传统的帽子戴上,投资者扮演双重角色,因为他们的钱,或支付顾问或顾问。为什么有人做免费吗?口提供了一个解释:魔法效果最好时,导师自己一直是一个企业家,在某种程度上收到的时间帮助他或她的风险或指导。

野生动物点头表示同意。人成立了一个公司,“分享”这个词在它的名字,野生动物是一个大的信徒分享信条。

“你分享越多,帮助别人越多,生态系统生长和一些业力流回到你身边,“野生动物说,他现在工作与莫迪政府引领产品架构师在it部门国家eGovernance部门。

触发器免费指导来自野生动物的个人经验。来自市场营销和销售背景,野生动物与SlideShare很快进入技术。

这意味着经历一段时间的学习,和最大的一个学习组件是可用的互联网。导师是很有价值的,如果野生动物能找到一个。

然而,野生动物也承认,在那个时期,他获得了很多很多人。“这有根深蒂固的在我的心灵,“野生动物说,“所以我决定为别人做事。”

口靠近野生动物时,他承认一个回馈的机会,免费的。”他在一个角落里,”回忆说野生动物,并补充说他建议口从不同的角度看问题,而且它工作。

自由和公正寻找一个不同的角度通常是什么促使企业家撒网宽,远从不同领域的导师。Feminstaa殊荣Sagar,这位26岁的创始人,例如,支持的人可能是最强大的女人在印度的业务:阿兰达蒂巴塔查里亚,印度国家银行的主席(SBI)。

当然,它不容易。Sagar说,她必须等待六个月预约前银行家。然后第一次会议没有变成乐观。巴塔查里亚是残酷的诚实在她的评估风险:该网站看起来就像一个业余大学项目,和合伙人没有出现严重的商业模式。

Sagar和她的共同创始人Medha Mukerji支出至少10倍收益,并认为是正常的。巴塔查里亚提供了一个现实。

”她强调创造一个可持续的商业的重要性,而不是花,希望恢复后,“Sagar说他也计数NDTV产品360年首席执行官Bhavna Aggarwal,作家和剧作家玛杜丽Banerjee是的基金会首席执行官Prerana兰加在她“免费”的导师。

是什么让银行家的创始人同意导师Feministaa是他们“真正的愿望”为妇女。“他们的使命是突出女性的优势和人才创造了成功的故事尽管许多问题,”巴塔查里亚等杂志在一封电子邮件中说,并补充说她一直在与其他年轻企业家。“我们已经打开一个单独的分支为企业家称为InCube,”她说。

巴塔查里亚也可能与Feministaa的愿景。“我们有管理工作和家庭的时候(就)10个女性中就有一个工作。“对于她来说,Sagar说银行家将Feministaa视为自己的——“就像一个母亲引导孩子正确的早期的增长”。

想了食物如果Feministaa Bhattacharya扮演母亲,父亲还会远吗?问Prasoon Gupta,罗伊拉曼,“印度BPO产业之父”,他的一个无薪的导师。Gupta,创始人的食物启动Sattviko,收到了开拓精神奖(由德国汉莎航空公司开拓精神)从2010年的罗伊和自后者已经29岁的企业家的朋友和导师。

古普塔在生活中学会了他的第一个主要教训当罗伊指责他在他的早期创业,说:股票是非常,非常昂贵。
Gupta,他和其他同龄人一样,绝望显示投资者对他的食物上启动。他不仅关心投资者的背景,他也太渴望稀释的股份。这就是拥有一个像罗伊帮助导师。

罗伊的建议也非常方便,当Sattviko试图发展一个可持续的商业模式。他的建议:使用股本明智的完全控制。

古普塔法术的好处有一个导师在启动也没有股权一定会付款。首先,师徒关系被定义为一个真正的债券。

当有一个现金或股权交易,归结为一个简单的咨询工作的关系,他说。更重要的是,因为导师不是把他的钱在一个风险,一个企业家可以有一个免费的手在日常操作和避开参与。同时,由于没有货币的参与,它将对双方的期望。

罗伊也认为,钱不是所有关系的唯一动力。“guru-shishya关系一直存在在我们的文化中,“说Quatrro主席BPO公司Wipro辞职后他成立于2006年,他卖掉了Spectramind,外包行业的先驱。
穿上两顶帽子还有导师像企业家K Ganesh investor-cum-mentor戴两顶帽子——一个,,另一个是导师。例如,Marketics离岸分析公司,Ganesh主席,唯一的投资者和导师。
在一个潜在的盈利交易,作为一名投资者,他快乐不卖,虽然作为一个导师,他提倡销售合伙人以来最好的结果。

最终,该公司于2007年以6300万美元的价格卖给白鼻综合症。Ganesh还指出的缺点有一个导师,没有投资。指导者可能无法投入所需的时间,不会有“共担风险”的进步,发展和结果,他认为。

不过,甘
担保的关系没有货币的投资。”这种关系的美丽是任何偏见的建议是免费的,”他说,补充说,印孚瑟斯创始人之一南丹Nilekeni作为导师帮助他无数次在TutorVista,在线辅导公司收购了皮尔森和Portea,医疗服务的风险。

”他问尖锐的问题,让我们看到现实,帮助我们思考未来,“Ganesh说。有极大帮助的人与一个更广泛的视野和谁做了它在全球范围内和在更大的规模,他补充道。

尼勒卡尼认为“指导”Ganesh可能太大一个字。“我建议Portea缩放”,他说。“事实上,大多数的公司我接触这种类型的(几乎是没有利害关系的他以货币计算)。我很少投资于创业,不投资于FinTech部门(我做政策工作的地方),Aadhaar(我的创建领导)和教育(我只做慈善事业),”尼勒卡尼补充道。

尼勒卡尼没有投资的企业之一,是导师Kalaari入股Shopalyst,发现启动由四个Infoscions产物。Girish拉马,联合创始人之一,知道尼勒卡尼自印孚瑟斯的日子。前董事长拉马发现印度唯一标识权威的一个伟大的共鸣板。”他问正确的问题,帮助我们把这些点连接起来。”
值没有钱通常,导师可以发挥宝贵的作用,不傲慢。玛雅Kachhwaha Gaurav Chopra, IndiaLends合伙人,一个在线信贷承销和分析平台,每日提醒了“工资失去自上周以来”从一个导师,阿米特·马利克。想法告诉关于经济损失的合伙人由于延迟启动启动的操作。

另一个导师,Akhil
自然,首批50名工程师在Facebook和海湾的创始人之一,Dropbox -介绍了收购IndiaLends合伙人面试候选人的新方法:scenariobased和案例研究问题,在印度不常规使用的技术面试。寻找导师模糊不清的和微妙的利益不是在印度最流行的趋势。苏尼尔•卡尔拉,一位多产的天使投资者,估计大部分的企业家,他遇到了寻求网络连接和融资等实实在在的利益。许多没有花时间来反映或咨询来自信徒。然后他们忙着试图建立其业务以极快的速度,他说。



卡尔拉认为,随着世界变得更多的事务,情感和个人债券不太可能发生,尤其是在很长一段时间。“一旦他们(企业家)走出他们的舒适地带和冒险,很少努力保持联系。“同时保持创业精神可以是一个非常孤独的旅程,卡尔拉鼓励年轻企业家找到他们查找和尝试建立一个债券。“这主要是一个很小的代价(咨询股票可能),但是是值得的,”他说,补充说,重要的是对企业家有一组人他们可以求救。
深卡尔拉,创始人之一Makemytrip认为,导师只能提供最好的建议。“这是企业家的倾听,蒸馏,忽略最后执行他们的计划,”卡尔拉深表示,物质Grover饰演的导师,培养绿色的创始人,赠送的启动销售写产品,装饰和美化的目的。格罗弗认为,增加了他的成功的几率大的时间有好老师他计划以一种独特的方式来偿还。“每个出演给dakshina(费)冬那,”格罗弗说,并称偿还以现金或股票将会是严重的不尊重的导师。所以他打算给他们过滤植物为他们的办公室和房间。

导师可能不是准确寻找这样的报应。根据麦肯锡的Rajeev Krishnan,饰演导师Dhiraj Agarwal的在线时尚和辅助启动校园经典,真正的快乐是意识到当目标实现时,障碍被克服,新的路径是由学员。说,高级顾问(零售和消费品),东南亚,麦肯锡:“这是你的个人和职业成就的绝对高潮和旅程。”
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  • 印度一些最热门的创业公司如何寻找洒脱的导师吗
Facebook<\/a> faced an existential crisis during its initial days in the mid-2000s. “Things weren’t really going well, we had hit a rough patch and a lot of people wanted to buy Facebook,” founder Mark Zuckerberg<\/a> confessed last September when he hosted prime minister Narendra Modi for a town-hall session in California.
\n
\nZuckerberg, as it turned out, didn’t take the help of any technology geek nor did he sound off his investors to bail him out. Instead, he turned to his mentor, his guru. “I went and met Steve Jobs,” Zuckerberg recalled.
\n
\nJobs advised Zuckerberg to book a flight to India. After all, the founder of Apple had himself travelled as a backpacker in the early 1970s, in search of enlightenment. He may have returned to the US with dysentery and lice, but the India visit also enabled Jobs to see his business through a fresh prism.
\n
\n
\n
\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nJobs told Zuckerberg to visit an ashram in India that he had been to during a similar period in his career, when the idea of Apple was evolving.
\n
\nThe visit to Neem Karoli Baba’s ashram in Pantnagar on the plains of Uttarakhand had helped Jobs crystallise his vision for Apple. Zuckerberg let on that the visit to the baba helped him clear his head on FB’s vision.
\n
\nBack home, not every entrepreneur can have a mentor like Jobs, but if finding gurus with that kind of pedigree and stature is a problem, they are making up for it with sheer numbers.
\n
\nYes, founders of fledgling startups are seeing virtue in having multiple mentors, who come for free and have no strings attached — in terms of equity or investments — to the ventures.
\n
\nSharing Wisdom<\/strong> Take, for instance, Swapnil Khandelwal, cofounder of alumni-based social network startup<\/a> AlmaConnect<\/a>. If Zuckerberg had Jobs, the 29-year-old rookie entrepreneur is at it with two “big shots” of his own: Amit Ranjan and Gokul Rajaram.
\n
\nRanjan is the cofounder of Slide-Share, the world’s largest slide-sharing site that was bought by professional networking site Linkedin for about Rs 640 crore ($119 million) in 2012.
\n
\nGokul Rajaram, Khandelwal’s second mentor, is dubbed as “godfather of Google’s Ad-Sense”, and is one of the most prolific angel investors in the Silicon Valley. A year into the venture, in April 2014, Khandelwal hit a dead end in terms of user engagement. In sheer despair, he dropped a plea for help to Ranjan on Linkedin. “I never thought he’d reply the same day and also give an appointment,” recalls Khandelwal.
\n
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\n\t
\n\t
\n\tThe gyan offered by Ranjan was simple: engagement comes with content. The solution too was elementary: content needs to be unique, revolving around what alumni are interested in and not getting anywhere else. That advice spurred Khandelwal to come up with a “news related to alumni” section on his site. It worked like a charm, with visits increasing by 400%.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nBut how does the mentor-mentee relationship work in the absence of financial payback? After all, the hat of mentor is traditionally donned either by investors who play the dual role because their money is at stake, or by paid mentors or advisors. Why would anybody do it for free? Khandelwal offers an explanation: the magic works best when the mentor himself or herself has been an entrepreneur and has at some point of time received help or mentoring for his or her venture.
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\n\tRanjan nods in agreement. For someone who founded a company with the word “share” in its name, Ranjan is a big believer in the sharing credo.
\n\t
\n\t“The more you share, the more it helps others, the ecosystem grows and some of that karma flows back to you,” says Ranjan, who now works with the Modi government as lead product architect at the IT department’s national eGovernance division.<\/p>\nThe trigger for free mentoring comes from Ranjan’s personal experience. Coming from a marketing and sales background, Ranjan had to soon move into technology with SlideShare.
\n
This meant going through a period of intense learning, and one of the biggest learning components was what’s available on the internet<\/a>. A mentor would have been of great value at that time, if Ranjan could have found one.
\n
\nYet, Ranjan acknowledges that in that period he gained a lot from a lot of people. “And this got deeply ingrained in my psyche,” says Ranjan, “and so I decided to do things for others.”
\n
\nWhen Khandelwal approached Ranjan, he recognised an opportunity to give back, gratis. “He was in a corner,” recalls Ranjan, adding that he suggested that Khandelwal look at the problem from a different perspective, and it worked.
\n
\nFree and Fair<\/strong> The hunt for a different perspective is often what drives entrepreneurs to cast the net wide and far for mentors from different fields. Vidhi Sagar, the 26-year-old founder of Feminstaa, for instance, plumped for somebody who is perhaps the most powerful woman in business in India: Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson of the State Bank of India (SBI).
\n
\nIt didn’t come easy, of course. Sagar says she had to wait six months to get an appointment with the top banker. Then the first meeting didn’t turn out to be rosy. Bhattacharya was brutally honest in her assessment of the venture: the website looked like an amateur college project, and the cofounders didn’t appear serious about a business model.
\n
\nSagar and her cofounder Medha Mukerji were spending at least 10 times what they were earning, and thought that to be normal. Bhattacharya offered a reality check.
\n
\n“She emphasised the importance of creating a sustainable business, rather than spending first and hoping to recover later,” says Sagar, who also counts NDTV Gadgets 360 chief executive Bhavna Aggarwal, author and screenplay writer Madhuri Banerjee and Yes Foundation chief executive Prerana Langa among her “free” mentors.
\n
\nWhat made the banker agree to mentor the founders of Feministaa was their “genuine desire” to empower women. “They were on a mission to highlight the strengths and talents of women who had created success stories in spite of numerous problems,” said Bhattacharya in an email to ET Magazine, adding that she has been working with other young entrepreneurs as well. “We have opened a separate branch for entrepreneurs called InCube,” she says.
\n
\nBhattacharya could also relate to Feministaa’s vision. “We have managed work and family at a time when (just) one in 10 women was working.” For her part, Sagar says the banker treats Feministaa as her own — “like a mother who guides her child on the right track through the early years of growth”.
\n
\nThought for Food<\/strong> If Bhattacharya plays mother to Feministaa, can fathers be far behind? Ask Prasoon Gupta, who has Raman Roy, “father of the Indian BPO industry”, as one of his unpaid mentors. Gupta, cofounder of food startup Sattviko, received a Pioneering Spirit Award (constituted by Lufthansa Pioneering Spirit) from Roy in 2010 and ever since the latter has been friend and mentor to the 29-year-old entrepreneur.
\n
\nGupta learnt his first major lesson in life when Roy chided him during his early entrepreneurial days, saying: Equity is very, very expensive.
\nGupta, like others of his age, displayed desperation to get investors on board for his food startup. Not only did he care less about the background of the investors, he was also too eager to dilute chunky stakes. That’s where having a mentor like Roy helped.
\n
\nRoy’s advice also came in handy when Sattviko was trying to evolve a sustainable business model. His suggestion: use equity judiciously to have complete control.
\n
\nGupta spells out the benefits of having a mentor who has no equity interest in the startup nor is bound to it by payment. For starters, the mentor-mentee relationship gets defined by a genuine bond.
\n
\nWhen there’s a cash or equity deal, the relationship boils down to a simple consulting job, he contends. What’s more, since the mentor isn’t putting his money in a venture, an entrepreneur can have a free hand in day-to-day operations and steer clear of over involvement. Also, as there is no monetary involvement, it brings down expectations for both the parties.
\n
\nRoy too believes that money is not the sole driver of all relationships. “The guru-shishya relationship has always existed in our culture,” says the chairman of Quatrro, the BPO firm he founded in 2006 after quitting Wipro, to whom he had sold Spectramind, a pioneer in the outsourcing sector.
\n
\n

\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nDonning Two Hats<\/strong> Then there are mentors like serial entrepreneur K Ganesh who wear two hats — one as investor-cum-mentor, and the other as just mentor. For example, in Marketics, an offshore analytics firm, Ganesh was chairman, sole investor and mentor.
\n
\n
\n
\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nDuring a potential monetisation transaction, as an investor, he was happier not selling, though as a mentor he had advocated the sale since it was the best outcome for the cofounders.
\n
\nEventually, the company was sold to WNS for $63 million in 2007. Ganesh also points out the downside of having a mentor with no investment. The mentor may not be able to devote the required time, will not have ‘skin in the game’ for the progress, growth and outcome, he contends.
\n
\nStill, Ganesh
vouches for a relationship where there is no monetary investment. “The beauty of such a relationship is that any advice is free of any bias,” he says, adding that having Infosys cofounder Nandan Nilekeni<\/a> as a mentor helped him on numerous occasions at TutorVista, an online tutoring firm that was bought by Pearson, and Portea, a medical care services venture.
\n
\n“He asks incisive questions, makes us see reality and helps us think into the future,” says Ganesh. It helps greatly to have someone with a broader vision and who has done it globally and at much larger scale, he adds.
\n
\nNilekani feels that “mentoring” Ganesh may be too big a word. “I advise Portea on scaling,” he says. “In fact, most of the startups I interact with are of this type (where there’s little at stake for him in monetary terms). I invest in very few startups, and do not invest in the FinTech sector (where I do policy work), Aadhaar (which I led the creation of ) and education (where I do only philanthropy),” adds Nilekani.
\n
\nOne of the ventures in which Nilekani has no investments and is a mentor is Kalaari Capital-backed Shopalyst, a product discovery startup founded by four Infoscions. Girish Ramachandra, one of the cofounders, knew Nilekani since the Infosys days. Ramachandra finds the former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India a great sounding board. “He asks us the right questions and helps us connect the dots.”
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\nValue for No Money<\/strong> Often, mentors can play valuable roles, without being overbearing. Mayank Kachhwaha and Gaurav Chopra, cofounders of IndiaLends, an online credit underwriting and analytics platform, got daily reminders of “salary lost since last week” from one of their mentors, Amit Malik. The idea was to tell the cofounders about the financial loss due to the delay in launching the startup’s operations.
\n
\nAnother mentor, Akhil
\nWable — among the first 50 engineers at Facebook and a cofounder of Cove, which was acquired by Dropbox — introduced the IndiaLends cofounders to a new way of interviewing candidates: scenariobased and case-study questions, which were not conventionally used in technology job interviews in India. Seeking out mentors for indefinable and subtle benefits isn’t the most popular trend in India. Sunil Kalra, a prolific angel investor, reckons that most of the entrepreneurs he has encountered seek tangible benefits such as network connects and fund-raising. Many don’t take the time to reflect or seek advice from well-wishers. They then get busy trying to build their businesses at breakneck speed, he says.
\n
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\n\t
\n\t
\n\tKalra contends that as the world becomes more transactional, emotional and personal bonds are less likely to occur, especially over long periods of time. “Once they (entrepreneurs) step out of their comfort zones and take the plunge, very few make the effort to remain connected.” While maintaining that entrepreneurship can be a very lonely journey, Kalra encourages young entrepreneurs to find someone they look up to and try and establish a bond with. “This mostly comes at a small cost (advisory equity perhaps) but is worthwhile,” he says, adding that it is important for entrepreneurs to have a set of people they can turn to for help.<\/p>\n

\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/td>\n\t\t<\/tr>\n\t<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div> Deep Kalra, cofounder of Makemytrip<\/a>, believes that mentors can only offer the best advice. “It’s for the entrepreneur to listen, distil, ignore and finally execute their plans,” says Deep Kalra, who plays mentor to Annu Grover, founder of Nurturing Green, a startup selling plant-related products for gifting, decor and landscaping purposes. Grover believes he has increased his odds of success big time by having mentors whom he plans to pay back in a unique manner. “Every Eklavya has to give dakshina (fee) to Drona,” says Grover, adding that paying back in cash or equity would be a grave disrespect to mentors. So he plans to give them air-purifying plants for their office and rooms.
\n
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\nMentors may not be exactly looking for such recompense. According to McKinsey’s Rajeev Krishnan, who plays mentor to Dhiraj Agarwal of online fashion and accessory startup Campus Sutra, true joy is realised when goals are achieved, hurdles are overcome and new paths are created by the mentees. Says the senior adviser (retail & consumer goods), SE Asia, McKinsey: “It is the absolute culmination of your personal and professional achievements and journey.”\n\n<\/body>","next_sibling":[{"msid":51568335,"title":"AP to launch fibre net project from Aug","entity_type":"ARTICLE","link":"\/news\/ap-to-launch-fibre-net-project-from-aug\/51568335","category_name":null,"category_name_seo":"telecomnews"}],"related_content":[],"msid":51568346,"entity_type":"ARTICLE","title":"How some of India\u2019s hottest startups are finding big-hearted mentors","synopsis":"Our stories will help and give courage and strength to the next gen who are striving to succeed, says Arundhati Bhattacharya.","titleseo":"telecomnews\/how-some-of-indias-hottest-startups-are-finding-big-hearted-mentors","status":"ACTIVE","authors":[{"author_name":"Rajiv Singh","author_link":"\/author\/479211175\/rajiv-singh","author_image":"https:\/\/etimg.etb2bimg.com\/authorthumb\/479211175.cms?width=100&height=100&hostid=268","author_additional":{"thumbsize":false,"msid":479211175,"author_name":"Rajiv Singh","author_seo_name":"rajiv-singh","designation":"Editor","agency":false}}],"analytics":{"comments":0,"views":243,"shares":0,"engagementtimems":1057000},"Alttitle":{"minfo":""},"artag":"ET Bureau","artdate":"2016-03-27 07:29:41","lastupd":"2016-03-27 07:30:52","breadcrumbTags":["Internet","Facebook","makemytrip","startup","Mark Zuckerberg","Sunday ET","Nandan Nilekeni","AlmaConnect"],"secinfo":{"seolocation":"telecomnews\/how-some-of-indias-hottest-startups-are-finding-big-hearted-mentors"}}" data-news_link="//www.iser-br.com/news/how-some-of-indias-hottest-startups-are-finding-big-hearted-mentors/51568346">