‘If in doubt, do not hire the person'

In this interview, Mr Satya Narayanan R, Chairman, Career Launcher India Ltd, shares the lessons learnt in his entrepreneurial journey and advises entrepreneurs that “building a successful business is a marathon and not a short-distance race”.

“To dream anything that you want to dream, that's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed.”- Bernard Edmonds

Nothing else could have described ‘Satya' better, who had a dream, which we now know as ‘Career Launcher', the leading education service provider. ‘Satya', is a cricket aficionado. So much so, that he dropped his Class XII Board exams to get that one extra year of playing for his under-17 cricket team! On completion of his Bachelor's degree from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, emerging the topper, he went on to study at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

After a stint in pharmaceutical marketing at Ranbaxy, first as a Management Trainee and then as a Brand Manager, Satya decided to follow up on his dual passion – Education and Entrepreneurship. In 1995, with help from friends, he started Career Launcher, with one goal – to enable individuals realise their potential and make their career dreams come true.

What are the mistakes committed by you in your initial stages as an entrepreneur?

The path of entrepreneurship is fundamentally one of taking an initiative. In other words, it is about being proactive (in glorious terms) or a needless thing to do (when it fails). I can say that I have made more errors, mistakes, failures than successes. The CL story is about a 20 per cent success and 80 per cent failures or mistakes. Some failures are:

A pricing decision in my first year of launch CL Educate's first programme called ‘Personality Development Program'. IIM-Bangalore, my alma mater should have recalled my degree for making such a stupid mistake.

Hiring a ‘hope' instead of a conviction. My rule thereafter has been – “if in doubt, do not hire the person”

I made the mistake of delegating too early, at times. In early stages, the person with the idea and the conviction has to drive the initiative. Delegating too soon is only a “hope chest” and does not happen.

I made the mistake of not scrutinising a co-worker's plan thoroughly. Perhaps, it was something that the person would have welcomed too.

Share two lessons you have learnt that stands out in your journey that has made you build a successful Career Launcher.

The journey of entrepreneurship is about credibility.

In my youthful exuberance, I recall making a promise of what I would deliver to a vendor in my first year. It was to do with SPS Datasystems that used to supply OMR sheets to the IIMs for the actual CAT papers. My innovation was to give the exact experience to the CAT aspirants who come to CL for their MOCK CATs.

I had promised him that if he is able to support a poor entrepreneur like me in my first year, I can do as many as 10,000 sheets per week in the next year (1996). While I was trying hard to negotiate a price that I could afford, my belief of growth was real. Mr Sudhir Jain, Managing Director of SPS, was sporting enough to be supportive of my project. I recall that it took me four years to get there instead of one . We do joke about it even today when we meet.

I became conscious of the fact that at the time of forging a new relationship, I would rather speak less and do more. It is not worth getting a breakthrough based on tall promises and that is short on performance.

The second biggest learning came from not a mistake but from missing making one. CL too came under (and keeps coming under) the income-tax process of scrutiny as per the norms of the department. The first such experience of it was about a decade ago when a large sum (equivalent of our profits of till date) was disallowed as expenses. All the sages, advisors, consultants have a simple solution to such pains – don't lose your sleep on it. Let us solve it and you focus on your business.

As a core team, we were clear that we have not done anything wrong and would not fall prey to this sagely advice. I even had a face-to-face with a senior income-tax official. I begged him to allow me to do the business the way I would feel pride in it. I told him that my respect in the eyes of my employee and in my own eyes is more important than all the money that we can earn.

I feel proud of my core leadership team which was steadfast to such a stance that we took in trying circumstances. We won the case. !

(The author is the CEO of Energeate, an advisory firm for early stage ventures and cross-border companies with offices in Chennai, Bangalore and New Jersey. He is a Charter Member of TiE Chennai.)