Lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time

By Mahesh Murthy

The instant messenger pings and a little querying rectangle pops up on screen. “Got a minute?” my friend, the entrepreneur, asks. “Sure,” I say. I know what she wants to say will take more than ‘a minute’. I also know it’s important to her, not just in terms of getting an answer to her question, but also in terms of having someone around—even if it is at the other end of an iffy internet connection—to talk to.

I remember the few times I started out trying to form a business—what hit me was that no one had ever told me it was going to be so lonely.

It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled,
It’s been a long time since I did the stroll.
Ooh, let me get it back, let me get it back,
Let me get it back, baby, where I come from.

I was starting out businesses without knowing how to do it. My college, or whatever little I had attended, wouldn’t deign to touch unworthy subjects like ‘how to start a company’. Instead, it concentrated on far more important issues such as ‘what Babcock and Wilcox considered when they designed a boiler’. Books didn’t help. Most management and text books I read, seemed to speak in that arcane language which only professors and students shared—neither of who ever seemed to have come near starting a business, even from a distance.

Magazines such as Fortune were a slim hope, when I could steal a glance at a copy—never had the money to buy one. However, it focused more on what a start-up did once it hit the billion-dollar mark in revenue and was no longer a start-up. That was way too far out for me. Still is, actually.

I didn’t know who to ask questions. Starting a business was not in my blood, as my family repeatedly told me, at least not for the past 10 generations that they had news of. Not only was there nobody I knew then who I could ask, the few I ended up talking to not only told me not to do whatever I was doing, but to be a good boy and make Appa-Amma happy, finish my studies and take up a job. That was the second—and worse—whammy.

It’s been a long time since the book of love,
I can’t count the tears of a life with no love.
Carry me back, carry me back,
Carry me back, baby, where I come from.

Yes, I failed then. My first two efforts in business ended up as bad memories, lost cash, burnt relationships and gaps in the CV.I remember when I had started out I had kilotonnes of confidence and eyes bright with dreams that all entrepreneurs harbour. I’d ended up with dark circles—a humbled loser.

Maybe my ideas sucked, maybe my execution sucked more so, and maybe I did deserve to fail. But, equally maybe, I deserved some support system when all was against me. Yes, it is romantic when the world is against you and off you go, all Don Quixote-like, lance in hand, looking to fight windmills. But horses run out of hay, you run out of breath, and eventually both of you need a place to collect calories and courage before you start the next day and the next fight.

In India, these places are traditionally within the family, as businesses move from generation to generation under the family’s watchful eyes and guardianship. I didn’t have the right genes to be a part of that set. There was little else I knew then. So, I reverted to being an employee, working for others in India, and then outside.

Seems so long since we walked in the moonlight,
Making vows that just can’t work right.
Open your arms, opens your arms,
Open your arms, baby, let my love come running in.

Years later, in the US, I discovered the sort of networks that I would have loved to have had. Angel investors telling start-ups the doors they would open. VCs telling you who to go to and how to shape your pitch. Sales directors signing up for businesses that they could help deliver. And I saw promoters drink like hungry camels from these wells of support. Given all these, it would be harder to fail, I thought. When I came back to India and started investing, I tried consciously to be a part of such groups, or to help form some.

We had some flashes in the pan. One group of entrepreneurs met for social do’s one Tuesday every month. Another hung out in the lobby at the Oberoi in south Bombay. A third hung out at a cafe, called Just Around The Corner, in the suburb of Bandra. I was one of this last lot with almost an official table and drink (iced tea) designated for a few years.

Very few of these networks lasted long. One that I stuck to was TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs)—a Silicon Valley import that started before the boom, and fortunately for us, lasted through the bust. Today, TiE does an amazing job of forming a nexus that tries to help entrepreneurs not fall through the cracks—to mix a few metaphors. I’m really happy to spot TiE chapters in dozen-plus places around India. A bit of our role, as early birds, has been to hand over the baton to others who are now ready to serve. And things have gotten even better since.

I see Start-up Saturdays happen around the country in a super collaborative way, glued together by the social media. Sites such as Pluggd.in exist with news and views for those of us who are tech-start-up minded.

Events such as Headstart and Proto do things with professionalism, sponsorship and make money off it—and why not? As long as entrepreneurs are being served. And there are other groups that I’m not a part of, which have been around for long. I’m told that YEO and YPO help you if your daddy was an entrepreneur—that’s a support system for the second generation business people too. So, you’re beginning to see specialisation here, too.

A couple of years ago, there was no demand for columns on how to start a business. Now there are magazines devoted to it. I write columns here and in a couple of other places as well, and have had to say no to some folks.

Never before has there been so much support for the entrepreneur in this country.

It’s been a long time, been a long time,
Been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Yes, it has.

Never have you ever been so un-lonely. Enjoy the company, enjoy the conversation.
Plug yourself into groups who will support you—for there are sure as heck many who won’t. And remember this, it’s not like it used to be for many of us. There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of others out there like you. You’re no longer alone.

	EMAIL THIS ARTICLE	PRINT THIS PAGE