Pradeep Kar - Tomorrow never Dies... 

Pradeep Kar, firmly believes that more and more entrepreneurs are required for the economic growth of India. Who better to advice and talk about entrepreneurship than this serial entrepreneur, who has founded Planetasia, India's first Internet Professional Services company (acquired by a US software Sevices company); Indya.com, India's leading portal (acquired by News Corporation) ; and Net Brahma, a telecom Software company (acquired by a US telecom equipment company); and ITspace.com, India's premier technology portal in 1999.

Kar had been with the corporate world for a while when he realised that he wanted to be on his own. Neither the concept of retirement nor the predictability of how much you will make in your career appealed to him. But it was fortunate for him that Wipro provided him with a lot of start up experiences

His tips for a budding entrepreneur were simple yet profound. He firmly believes in the philosophy ‘nothing ventured nothing gained'. The IDEA is the key. The essence of the business must come from your own experiences. As we live our normal daily lives we see and experience a lot of things that bother us. The entrepreneur must be able to stop and question himself ‘ What would I do to solve this problem?' Then he has to work towards it.

Most entrepreneurs underestimate the power of capital. It is usually too late by the time they realize the need and start to raise the money. The entrepreneur should be able to raise the money before he needs it. Lots of times an entrepreneur who has failed will find it easier to raise capital. This is because VCs realize that they have learned a lot during their journey and are more ready to face the challenges ahead.

The entrepreneur has to always be optimistic and be able to pass on this attitude to the rest of his chosen team. He should also be clear about the role of the brand and work accordingly.

The entrepreneur should be able to raise the money before he needs it.

When it comes to hiring the key people a hands on attitude from the entrepreneur works best, according to Kar. It is important because the entrepreneur has a vision and he can convey his vision much better than the HR person. But another catch is that once you have hired the best, it is important to leave them alone. The entrepreneur should not be in a hurry to judge/evaluate the person too soon. Give people reasonable time to succeed. Attrition and retention of talent is a big issue and India is learning to deal with it. So Mr. Kar suggests "Always recruit for tomorrow, not today."

TiE is a platform which promotes entrepreneurship and Pradeep Kar is the President of TiE for a two year term. It creates an ecosystem for entrepreneurship, the awareness, mediation and mentoring required are made available. He feels that even if he is able to help 5 entrepreneurs along in their journey he is doing his bit.

We have the best talent, VC are enthusiastic and the times have never been better for a start up to start up !

But it has to be a niche area and the trick is to be able to find it before it becomes the rage. At the same time the entrepreneur has to have a watch on the pulse of the situation and keep a lookout for any changes. It is very essential for the entrepreneur to know when it is time for him to move on and have the guts to change gears. Once he realizes this there should be no doubts and delay. He should have the courage and conviction to figure out the rest as he moves ahead.

India being the back office of the world there is no dearth of opportunities.

This is what happened to Microland. When Mr. Kar started Microland he was focused on the domestic hardware market whereas the others were focused on the international software market. It was great in the beginning but with the coming of the internet age, he realized that they could become huge but not so big in terms of capital and profits. He had the guts to pull out in time and change course. Many others who did not collapsed. Today he is rebuilding Microland in terms of what they know best now. That is managing telecom Networks.

He says " We are expanding and are now in excess of 1800 people and opening 7 network operation Centres. We are ready and geared up to manage data centers globally."

Kar has now plunged headlong into the Remote Infrastructure Management(RIM) business. The RIM outsourcing model in India is expected to grow to $7 billion by the year 2010. This is an untapped market and Pradeep Kar pioneered this field in India when he set up the Global Operations Centre in 1999. Inspite of stiff competition already in this field from the Global Big 5 and the Indian Big 5, Kar feels the market is big enough to accommodate all of them peacefully. He also has the added advantage of being on the scene from the very beginning...

It has been a long and eventful journey for the never say die Pradeep Kar. He is still the same optimist who first started off with big dreams and he continues building on it. 

Article by Arathi P. Balaji