Some thoughts on entrepreneurship and spirituality

Few months ago an old friend Meenal Jhala suggested that I continue blogging about my experiences as an entrepreneur. I was not so sure. I doubted that I had an audience and had something unique & meaningful to say. But then a couple of friends mentioned that they had read my posts and found them mildly interesting . That's all the encouragement I needed to take another shot at it :)

Very recently a good friend and relative, Rakesh Andhare made a very insightful observation . Rakesh is founder of ARRKAY Techno Consultants at Nagpur and  like me is a first generation entrepreneur. He said -
To be a successful entrepreneur, one has to grow spiritually as an individual

Spirituality is something that many of us strive for either thru religion or otherwise. In any case in India you cannot escape either. For me spirituality is all about invoking the greater good in myself thru my actions and thoughts.

When I first started as entrepreneur, I was driven mostly by my desire to do my own thing, thoughts of creating something new and finding professional and financial success. At that time we were contemplating working with a good friend Rajendra Vaidya who was more of an established businessman. He mentioned as an entrepreneur he was proud of the fact that his firm provided employment to so many people. Having worked for the longest period of my career in the US, I found this to be and odd pronouncement. Now I realize this is a major accomplishment of every successful business. 

This insight was also shared very recently by another good friend Madhukar Bhatia, Co-Founder at InnovizeTech Software. I am sure many of us have experienced the highs and lows of building a new company. An entrepreneur has to deal with many ups and downs on a day to day basis. Some days business is good, you are getting new orders, clients are happy, you are getting paid on your invoices and you are on a high.  And then there are those days when you are down in the pits because things have not worked out, you lost a major client, key employee is leaving, the bank has rejected your latest proposal for finance etc. To deal with all this uncertainty and still maintain a positive outlook on life and work, I guess one has to be spiritual. 

As an entrepreneur you create a company that prospers and grows because of the efforts of many people. It may very well remain your company, but its success will depend on the contribution and participation of different people. These people will be employees, clients, advisers, consultants and investors. Without the active support and participation of these different groups, its unlikely that you will succeed. Over a period of time its not your company, but an entity that exists independent of you and belongs to all those that are an integral part of its success. This is something that I am learning and trying to internalize. 

I know very little of the Bhagvad Geeta - but do remember a sholka in which Lord Krishna tells Arjuna - Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Faleshu Kadachan.... - translates to something like - Do your deed without worrying about the fruits of your labor. (My apologies to the purists if I have mis-stated something). I think this can be an entrepreneurs mantra. 

Its been 8 years since I started my entrepreneurial journey. Its been a very satisfying journey and I believe there is still a long road ahead. I look forward with enthusiasm and optimism. I hope this important insight will help me to grow as an entrepreneur and a spiritual person. Many of my friends and advisers like Anil Paranjpe (an awesome life coach), Satindar Singh and Vipin Chawla have been walking along the spiritual path longer than I have.Its only now that I am beginning to see the wisdom of their ways and words. My heartfelt thank you to all of them for their guidance and support.

A great article & website that has helped me on my journey as an entrepreneur

I have been going often to this site called by Steve Pavlina - Personal Development for Smart People to read various articles. His content is mostly free and I found it to be very very good.

Today, I just finished reading the article - The Courage To Live Consciously and was very impressed. I think anyone thinking of starting down the path of entrepreneurship would benefit a lot by reading and internalizing the ideas presented here.

More on the need for support group for entrepreneurs

I made my first post yesterday about the need for a support group for entrepreneurs and immediately realized that I need to clarify this a bit further.

There exist some good organizations that are supporting entrepreneurs already like - TiE or websites like Enterprising India. But they are too technology focussed.

Don't get me wrong, I have attended a couple of TiE conferences and they are quite useful in that you can meet a lot of investors and consultants. Most of the young folks at these events are aspiring entrepreneurs, but very few who are early stage and from non-tech areas. There is also a lot of sponsorship from investor firms and hence the VC-funded or Angel-funded model seems to be the most common model promoted for new entrepreneurship.

I think I would like to create a group for people who have already embarked on the journey as entrepreneurs and want to share their experiences with others. For example, many of us have realized that our business models may not be most suited for VC or Angel Funding and that we have to grow by investing our own money, taking out debt from banks etc. Service industry companies face a lot of problems on hiring, collecting on payments, service contracts etc.

Doing business in India carries it own challenges because of the issues with funding, dealing with the bureaucracy, enforcement of contracts, labor laws etc. which are major hassles.

It would be good if people could share their experiences with others on which banks are good for first time entrepreneurs, how to create your proposals, how to deal with clients who don't pay in a timely fashion, where to find the best deals for PC's etc.

Their are times when we are at a low dealing with all the problems and risks of running a new business. We just need to connect and talk with people who would understand our issues and predicaments because we cannot share everything with family and friends. Many of my social contacts are people in academic careers, big companies or government jobs and their challenges and problems are different. Its difficult for them to relate with my problem of making next months payroll :) That is the kind of support group I am talking about.

BTW, I found a good blog on HBR Online - Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur by Dan Pallota which does a great job of describing why entrepreneurs are the way they are. Recommend reading it.

We need an entrepreneur-support-group in India

I have been an "entrepreneur-in-making" for more than 6+ years now. When I quit my job at Oracle in Dec 2003 to start our new firm Excelize (http://www.excelize.com/), I was full of enthusiams and energy. I was finally realizing my life long ambition of doing something on my own. It has been a great journey so far - lots of ups and downs, but incredible experiences. I cannot imagine giving this up and doing some thing else. There have been times when I have come very close to having to shutdown my company and start looking for a job.

I believe there are many like me who have an "entrepreneurs DNA" and would not be happy doing anything else - despite all the hardships. I want to connect with you - share my experiences and learn from yours.


I believe that doing a startup in India is not easy, as we don't have a culture very encouraging of entrepreneurship and risk taking. This is true especially of those who come from families that have a non-business backgrounds. Even for those who do come from business background families, its not easy - they have different expectations to live up to. I think we need to create a group of like-minded entrepreneurs and share our experiences, learnings from mistakes and wisdom gained by actually doing business in India. What do you feel?


So, this is an attempt to connect with fellow-entrepreneurs and share. Hope you will support my attempt. I will soon post my my first article on - how I realized that starting a new company is like running a marathon and not a sprint.