It takes monumental effort to build a business, even more minds to develop a business strategy and a highly efficient team to execute it. However, it requires an entrepreneur to combine them all succinctly.

An entrepreneur is a business’ foundation. siliconindia presents the entrepreneur of the month. Management gurus recommend Steven Covey’s Seven Habits Of Successful People, to clearly define a successful person’s own effectiveness. After meeting with him I have come up with Seven Habits of the Successful Rajesh Setty.

Habit 1: Persistence: As a nine-year-old, Setty wrote his first novel and it took him four years to publish. He recalls his efforts of pitching query letters to publishers as a source of strength. One of India’s youngest writers, Setty persisted in publishing his novel. As an entrepreneur, he often recounts his experiences as a child. “If you persist for long enough, good things will happen,” he said.

Habit 2: Strong Relationships: “There are only two kinds of relations, one is long term and the other very long term,” he said, “Trust takes a long time to build. If you give enough value and honesty, your relationships will last longer.” He refers to Epson; Cignex’s first and still one of the largest customers, as part of this philosophy.

Habit 3: Patience: Setty cites Newton’s third law—of Action and reaction are equal and opposite; and modifies it with the his addition of “time delay.” He suggests that instant gratification in business is rare, and considers every situation to be unique and attempting to apply similar solutions may not be feasible. Setty suggests unique business plans and solutions suitable to individual business needs.

Habit 4: Implement IT Right: Following the best practices saves time, energy and most importantly, money. When entering the Cignex office, the tag line “Implement IT Right” is very visible. He suggests learning from examples where the most efficient business practices were not followed is important.

Habit 5: All Our Assets Go Home at Night: As professionals transition among companies seeking better opportunities, retaining talent is often a challenge for tech firms. Hence the phrase Setty often states— all our assets go home at night. “In the last four years, only two employees have left the company,” said a proud Setty. Setty believes in being surrounded with good company, while escaping a definition of what makes a person agreeable. “If you bring a lot of good people together, then good things will happen,” he said. “Good people being together helps figure out a new strategy”.

Habit 6: Higher Goals: Individuals must set higher goals. “Setting realistic goals take you only so far, to go beyond that one needs to set higher goals, keep the end in front,” he stated, borrowing from Steven Covey. This is also applicable with habits one and three, patience and persistence, respectively.

Habit 7: Honesty: Simply providing the best solution in an honest way is important.

“Cignex is not only a open source firm. We also do commercial software implementation. We are a company who is neutral and provide services in both areas. With Eli Lilly, we do both commercial software implementation and open source. With this background our customers understand we are neutral," he says.

Setty, along with four other co-founders, started Cignex in 2000, the company started with a sole customer Epson. Today, their customer portfolio includes Eli Lilly, Cisco, Epson, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and the University of North Carolina.

His upcoming book, Beyond Code: Learn to Distinguish Yourself in 9 Simple Steps! Provides the necessary tools and insight to assist professionals mature from good to outstanding in the workplace. With a forward by Tom Peters, Beyond Code has received admirable endorsements from business gurus such as David Maister, Daniel Pink, Tim Sanders and Marshall Goldsmith. Avid blog fans can examine his thoughts in http://blog.lifebeyondcode.com

Rajesh Setty lives with wife, Kavitha, and son in Santa Clara, California.