Meeting the 'Hungry' & 'Foolish'

Last October,the Entrepreneurship cell of IIT-Kharagpur,as the last lap of it's 20-day long country-wide Entrepreneurship Awareness Drive,visited our college,IISWBM.A talk-session on entrepreneurship was organized on this occasion,where the panel comprosed of renowned entrepreneurs like Sailen Chatterjee,Head of Lokenath Chatterjee & sons,Sanjay Jain,MD of TT limited and Abhishek Rungta,founder & CEO of Indus Net Technologies.All of them literally mesmerized the audience,comprising of b-school students from across Kolkata as well as budding entrepreneurs.

All the speakers pointed out the key-requirements to be a successful entrepreneur as:
1.Zeal to do something new & the preseverence to see through the odds.
2.Propensity for risk-taking.
3.Financial Backing
4.Networking Ability

While Sailen Chatterjee touched upon the pre-conceived notions of people that come your way,when you inherit a business,Sanjay Jain emphasized on the self-belief & dedication required to achive one's dream by giving examples like that of Rashmi Bansal,Founder-editor of 'JAM' & author of 'Stay Hungry,Stay Foolish',the best-seller on entrepreneurs,who incidentally was his classmate at IIM-A.Ahishek Rungta's speech was particularly inspiring as he narrated how one day's visit to a career-fair changed his life & his company was formed on the spot,which eventually has become one of the top emerging SME's of the country.The three self-made entrepreneurs,all form Kolkata,ironically a place not really known for whole-heartedly endorsing entrepreneurship,truely churned out an inspirational session through their stories of courage & determination in their own lives.

This session actually reminded me of the first seminar that I attended at IISWBM,where the guest was Navneet Beheti,who when the zonal manager of ICICI bank,was bitten by the entrepreneurship-bug,and left his cosy job to start a real-estate marketing company,Four Walls.In many ways,I could relate with the ordeal of leaving a comfort-level to pursue greater aspirations as I,myself,was going through the transition from an IT-professional to a b-school student.When you get used to getting salary every month & a definite lifestyle,suddenly if you see that you've stopped earning& your schedule goes haywire,it does take a toll.But,having said that,..it's all for the larger picture I guess.