Entrepreneurship at different levels

One of our gurus (guru Nanak) always emphasized on traveling, as per him it helps a man discover his true self. During college i was lucky to travel to 7 countries … Now after a long time and as a part of my work at druvaa, i was traveling for almost 8 weeks now …

This time (may be because of my state of mind), i happened to notice entrepreneurship at different levels …

1. My cousin who did masters in sciences (chemistry) for Ludhiyana, spent 5 years and Rs. 25 lakhs to start a company which manufactures plastic/rubber spare parts for spinning industry. He now can reverse engineer any German plastic and rubber spare-part for its composition and qualities and recreate it (even better) and sells for 1/3rd the price. He buys 2nd hand preferably-non working cheap German machines and repairs them himself. Company has 3 employees and generates Re. 1 Cr. in revenues now. They don’t want to grow beyond that. 🙂

2. At M.G road, Pune, some smart chap gives of parking tickets at a discount with an advertisement printed at the back 🙂

3. I always find this old guy, selling poly-bags to visitors at pune gurudwara who are not able to manage their prashad 🙂

4. A close friend at cobaan is working on a online business, mathematics of which i could never understand. This time i was thrilled to see how he (as sole founder) with a two member team could manage a $100 first payment within 6 months of inception and zero marketing effort. He also gets 25K visitors every month now … This is one of the very few online businesses (atleast i know of) in India, which have a commonsense based revenue model in place, and not depending on google adwords or a potential buyout.

conclusion:
So, i believe, terms like – “crowded market” , “product difficult to sell”, “involved sales cycle”, “tough competition” are all terms coined by losers for losers. No market has ever been uncrowded if it has been lucrative enough, and it has never been easy to sell. There is nothing you can’t recreate better and there is no competition you can’t break.

The “restrictive” conventional wisdom has no place in startups, and thats precisely the point you start-up all over again.

You have to be an entrepreneur, think positive and stay alive.