HAILING from a non-business family, VSS Mani is a born entrepreneur. He undertook his first business venture when he was in his tweens. “I had organised a paid video show of Bruce Lee’s ‘Fist of Fury’ for family and friends,” fondly recollects Mani, Founder & Managing Director of India’s biggest search engine, JustDial. The likes of JRD Tata, Dhirubhai Ambani and Verghese Kurien have inspired him to his grand vision to touch the lives of millions of people with an enterprise. And thus was born JustDial

When asked what made him choose this field, he replies, “While working for a yellow pages company in 1989, in a casual discussion with a customer, I conceived this idea of a 24×7 telephonic product and service search engine.” The first version of this concept saw an early demise as it was way ahead of its times. But he was determined to restart the service and transform it into a successful enterprise. In 1996 he launched the current version of JustDial, subsequently adding other avatars–web, WAP and print, which achieved huge success.

Mr Mani tried different ideas (including the concept of a wedding planner) to survive and save money so that he could start JustDial. Started with some borrowed furniture and rented PCs in a small (10×30 feet) hired garage, today JustDial has over 86,000 customers across the nation and employs over 3500 people with offices in major cities across India. In a very short time, justdial.com has become probably the most frequented local search website in the country. Recalling the 20 years of his journey, Mr Mani says, “So far it has been wonderful; I loved every bit of challenge the market threw from time to time. This exciting journey had no dearth of tests and trials, problems and solutions.” Moreover, he enjoyed proving all the naysayers wrong, those who kept discarding all his efforts by branding them trash.

“We believe in a philosophy of small and continuous improvement on a daily basis; so it is difficult to pinpoint the milestones of this journey. Every day, every decision we took and every effort we put in were milestones,” he asserts. However, if he has to identify a few, he considers the trust and faith shown by international investors in JustDial, the wide acceptance of its pan-India service on the single national number ‘69999999’ and the phenomenal success of Justdial.com as the highlights of his journey.

It wasn’t a cakewalk. He encountered challenges at every step. But he had evolved a game plan to overcome these challenges, which proved successful. “The major issues were raising capital and convincing the advertisers about the feasibility of our idea. We surmounted them through intelligent pricing strategies and innovative ideas,” he affirms. Mr Mani’s success mantra is conviction and passion. “Of course, a good measure of common sense and simple thinking also helps,” he adds.

His ambition is to take the company to new heights in the next five years. Leaving a global footprint, and becoming a world leader in local search services, is his ultimate aim.

As a concluding note, his advice to entrepreneurs is, “First ask yourself why you want to become an entrepreneur? If you have the fire in your belly, and a bright new idea, please go ahead, or else revisit your decision. Being an entrepreneur is all about belief, passion, perseverance and hard work. There is no substitute to passionate desire, will-power and sustained hard work.”

 When Buddha professed, “Life is suffering”, he was likely referring not to a gloomy picture of our lives of sadness and suffering but to the constant inner struggle we have with our thoughts and emotions. Thoughts are ceaselessly traveling to the past or to the future – what I did well, what could have been better for me, what I would love to happen and so on. These thoughts are not an occasional occurrence but are a human preoccupation. A human mind typically has over fifty thousand thoughts in a day – and, all these thoughts are accompanied by corresponding emotions. Thoughts of things going are accompanied by feelings of satisfaction and happiness; thoughts of things potentially going wrong lead to emotions of fear and anxiety. As a result, our moods and state of happiness is always at the mercy of our thoughts and emotions. Is there an alternate to this existence? Can one have greater equanimity, irrespective of the direction of thoughts? Can these thoughts be minimized?

As we attempt to answer these questions, we need to first recognize what causes these thoughts in the first place. It’s our ego. It’s the notions of ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’ that we grow up with, which develop a deep sense of independent personality and separateness of our identity. We then begin working towards our own survival and growth and can end up leading an entire life focused on pursuit of personal pleasures. This sense of duality (I am different from others) is the genesis of our thoughts. As long as we see ourselves disjointed from the whole, we will continue to feel incomplete and have thoughts driven by our craving for more (money, success, knowledge, happiness etc.) or fear of losing something that we already possess (money, power, reputation, happiness…).

While there are numerous methods out there to deal with this unending train of thoughts, one powerful approach is related to connecting with ‘awareness’ or ‘consciousness’. Awareness is not the mind, or our thoughts; it’s the consciousness which allows us to observe our mind, thoughts, and emotions. If we close our eyes and just focus on the thoughts that arise in our mind, it’s the awareness which allows us to notice these thought patterns and we can notice the observer as distinct from the thinker. We can then train to recognize that this awareness is like a mirror – it only reflects what the mind is going through, without any projections of its own. The mirror has no worries, fears, anger or cravings – its pure awareness, pure consciousness. All the thoughts and accompanying emotions arise in the mind, even though we experience them only through this awareness. As we begin to connect with this inner awareness, we start to realize that this awareness is who we really are. In our normal life, we are so busy with external stimulus that we lose connection with our true inner selves. We can simultaneously learn to comprehend that this awareness is omnipresent, and governs everything; all of us are made of it and that we are all connected and part of the same whole – the awareness continuum. Just observing ourselves, without paying attention to our circumstances or potential outcomes, can be a great way towards liberating ourselves of many of our inner struggles.

Being such a witness makes us realize we have no independent identity, which in turn reduces our ego and our overarching sense of separateness and duality. Instead, it initiates us into greater equanimity – that can assist us in reducing our continuous thoughts of craving and clinging, and of judging everything as good or bad. Cultivating equanimity can help us better normalize what the Buddhist teachings identify as the eight variations of our tendency to continually hope and fear – pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and disgrace. Practicing mindfulness (by staying connected with our awareness) and an attitude of equanimity can open us up to all types of experiences (pleasant or otherwise) with equal acceptance. In fact, if handled well, suffering can then become another opportunity for further learning and personal growth. Suffering can teach us greater compassion by helping us better appreciate the difficulty of others in similar situation.

Of course, one can argue against all these ideas with a “so what, who cares?” attitude. It is so possible to continue living without bothering to analyze these aspects in our daily existence. There’s also the question around, when and where do I begin, if at all? I reckon there are various perspectives to that. I believe we are all at different stages in the circle of life (not ahead of or behind any other) and spirituality works for those who need it at their stage for personal growth. Further, it makes eminent sense to start from wherever we are – we can never be too early for it or too late; our own time is the right one for us. Having said that, once we do become conscious of these aspects, it can be hard to ignore them any further. As Socrates said, “A life not examined is not worth living.” Socrates, who lived at a time not very different from Buddha’s, believed that each person is born with full knowledge of the ultimate truth and we need only be spurned to conscious reflection to become aware of it. Socrates went a step further, to also differentiate between this quest and other self-help processes. Like the contemporary self-improvement trend, there were the Sophists in ancient Greek, who Socrates felt were more driven by imparting worldly knowledge that could be used to further one’s own interests and not really interested in searching for the truth. Like many other philosophers and sages, he believed searching for the truth to be the deepest purpose of human life.

As Patanjali, the great Indian sage, said, “The Self is pure, free from decay and death, free from hunger and thirst and free from sorrow. This is the Spirit in man. The only thing this Spirit desires is truth. This is the Spirit that we seek and know: we must each find our own Self. When we have found our Self and gotten to know about it, we have reached the ultimate, and there is nothing more to desire.” In that context, any baby steps we can patiently take towards learning mindfulness, connecting with awareness, gaining equanimity, or striving towards the journey of truth, can greatly help us experience inner joy and peace. With that, more of our actions also tend to arise from pure motivation rather than from desires of gain and loss. We then also no longer need a reason to be happy!

(http://personalalchemyblog.blogspot.com/)

Excerpts from Accidental CEO – David Novak

Is ego every CEO’s biggest  enemy? 
Ego leads to arrogance and arrogance leads to blindness. So you have to create an environment where people keep your ego under check. I believe that you don’t look up or down when you deal with people. Just look straight at them. 

Wisdom from Warren Buffet
 The things that Warren said have definitely left a big impact and will have an even greater impact as we go forward. He said—‘Put your ego in your business performance, not your stock price’.

And he said, ‘Make sure you constantly do what’s right over the long term’ and ‘If you do the right thing, you’ll ultimately get rewarded in the marketplace’.

When I met him for the first time, I did not have much experience of dealing with Wall Street. So I asked him for advice on that. He said— ‘Tell people that you’re in a very competitive industry’. Be very honest about that fact. Tell them that you’re not going to be right everyday, but you’re going to be more right than wrong because your business is solid and you’re ultimately going to end up on a winning place.’

He said that in a retail business, you’ve got to be right every single day. There’s a day-to-day intensity associated with retail. He said to ‘just tell people the good, the bad and the ugly’, so we’re totally transparent with our investors. We tell them what’s working and what’s not. That was very, very helpful. 

Click here for the  article @ Economic Times

Praveen Travels

Read this amazing growth.  Parveen Travels, which opened shop with just over Rs 50,000 in the bank in 1980, did business worth Rs 120 crore last year.

As a 14-year-old, Afzal enjoyed going on rides in his father’s lorry. Often on these trips, the boy would dream of owning a fleet of cars and buses. Afzal’s father, Allah Baksh, ran a taxi service out of a small office in Purasawalkam, with a few cabs and lorries to transport cargo.

Afzal graduated with a bachelor’s degree in zoology and joined the family business.

In 1981, the company purchased its first bus. “We were not keen on seeking financial help as we knew the bankers would not support us. So, we explored options that were within our limits, based on how much we earned in a given year,” recalls Afzal. To purchase new vehicles, the company put in half the amount and got loans for the remaining.

Later on introduced night service or point-to-point operations. 
   
A Logistics division was added in the late 80s. Cargo was initially transported on the roof of the vehicles and later in cargo trucks, when the company bagged sufficient number of orders.

Parveen today owns and operates 1,000 vehicles, of which 750 are buses

They introduced online ticketing four years ago, allowing passengers to print their own tickets.

 
Despite its success, the family is wary of investors. “Many investors had approached us. But once an outsider comes, they will have their own ideas about running the business. We may not be able to take decisions on our own,” he says.

The company employs 2,000 people, 37 branches. As part of its employee welfare activities, Parveen Travels runs an institute for its drivers in Madhavaram where they are trained in driving skills, fitness, yoga, and undergo regular eyetests. Every year, the top three performers among the children of company drivers are provided financial support.

Rajagopal started his career as a cleaner in a hotel… Today Saravana Bhavan has 25 outlets in India and 22 outlets in 7 countries.

First he  started a provisional store in K K Nagar in Chennai.

The sales representatives who came to their shop, one day said casually , “Sir, dispose of us quickly.  This is lunch time. There is no hotel in this area” triggered his thinking.

He was running the store successfully, but fell into debts after he purchased and built a 2 storied building. 

A person was running Kamatchi Bhavan in his building unsuccessfully and looking for buyers.

While eating the Prasadam (food offered to Lord), returning from Thiruthani an idea was born to takeover the Kamatchi Bhavan and discussed the same with his friend Ganapathi. Rajagopal is believer of horoscope and there are some indications he will prosper in hotel business.

Then he sold the building to Rathna Nadar with agreement that he can still run the store in the same building by paying rent. He bought Kamatchi Bhavan and made some changes.

He named the hotel “Saravana Bhavan” since the idea came while eating the Prasadam (Saravana is another name of lord Muruga).

The first hotel was opened on December 14, 1981 by Rathana Nadar. Because of no experience in running a hotel he and his partner Ganapathi worked very hard from 6.00 am to 11.00 pm.  His wife Valli also helped him.

Rajagopal desired to run a hotel which would earn a name for excellent food.

He used quality grocery and oil and incurred a loss as predicted by others.

He set apart Rs.50,000/- to compensate the loss. He incurred a loss of Rs.10,000/- every month.

From 6th month the sales increased.  For the first anniversary he supplied 23 items for just Rs.5 and there was too much of crowd and police has to control the crowd.

Then it is all history now….

In his own word “This success was not success easilty achieved.  The success was due to the hard work put in by me and my partner Ganapathi.  I should refer to my devotion to God also in the same breath.  It is no exaggeration to say that I achieved this success only because of of Lord Murugan’s grace”.

His autobiography “I set my heart on Victory” is available in Saravana Bhavan book stalls.

Ramani has been an entrepreneur in the Software industry, from 1985 to 2006.
He is the Founder-Chairman and Managing Director of Future Software – a company based at Chennai and specializing in high technology communications software development.
Ramani is also one of the Founders and Co-promoter of Hughes Software Systems in New Delhi.
He is also the Founder Chairman and CEO of Future Communication Software in U.S.A., based at Santa Clara, California.

After selling his shares in Future Software & Hughes Software Systems to Flextronics Corp.of U.S., he has advised on the integration of these companies as a director and resigned from the Board of both the companies in April, 2006.
He was the Charter president of the TiE (The indUS Entrepreneurs) – Chennai Chapter from Jan 2001 to Mar 2003.

K.V. Ramani is now focused on directing and managing Shirdi Sai Trust founded by him in 1996, to spread Shirdi Sai’s teachings and helping needy persons for food, clothes, education and medical assistance, with pioneering efforts as a social entrepreneur. He is also mentoring a few start-up companies in the information technology and communications space.

Mr Ramani has donated equity shares worth over Rs 100 crore to Shirdi Sai Trust, a religious trust dedicated to Sai Baba, which he manages.

If you are interested to know more about him, then have a look at www.kvramani.com

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