High on the Entrepreneurial
Date: Friday , May 07, 2010
The history stands witness to the success of many a number of companies that were born in a garage. Perhaps that is the reason why Anupama Arya followed the tradition and started Mobera Systems in a garage in 2003 with six others. Their first product was an operating-room-of-the-future—operation room devices that connected a doctor sitting 5,000 miles away with the reports and pictures of the internals for the operation. Now seven years later, it is still like the early days, when each new product developed and launched brings envelops her in a state of euphoria. Today, Mobera Systems caters to global clients and has over 100 employees. “We do nerdy stuff, but it’s enjoyable. I love to play and experiment with technology products we develop,” she says. Hailing from a humble family, Anupama moved to the U.S. to pursue an MS in Computer Science from the Arizona State University. Post her studies the next decade was an adventurous one. Soon after her Masters, she grabbed an opportunity to work in engineering, developing new communication products for the network infrastructure industry, SynOptics Communications (now Nortel Networks). Here she rolled out services like buying products on the web and unheard-of telecom services like voicemail and SMS. She also worked on software products that added to the IP internet backbone, over which new-age telecom and datacom services are delivered today.
“Experimenting with technologies that have not reached the market has always been a high for me,” she says. The pace of technological development was much faster in industry than that introduced as latest technical topics at the university level and Anupama often found she being invited by universities such as University of California at Berkeley, and San Jose State University to share her wealth of knowledge in advanced communication technologies. For her the experience was equally enriching.
Post SynOptics, she joined Lucent Technologies in ‘98. “I was in the systems and architecture group, putting together solutions for customers who were rolling out voice, video and data networks at a national level,” she explains. It was here that she started toying with the idea of launching her own company.
The idea was earlier discouraged by several friends and family who kept pointing out the risks of leaving in secured and comfortable job. But Anupam had faith in her dreams and with the backing of a Tier 1 Venture Capitalist and she founded Viv-exchange in 2000 with her husband. “We had complimentary skill sets. He had mastered sales and marketing, while I was involved in the engineering segment,” says she. After a successful run, the company was eventually acquired by a global Internet major but what she took forward was her entrepreneurial bug. Later she also founded another company that was a roll-up of technology services.
A decade plus long successful career streak was cut short in 2003 when Anupama had to return back to India due to a family responsibility. “When I returned I felt it would have been very difficult for me to go back to the corporate job environment and thus chose to launch Mobera,” confesses Anupama. “Anyways I wanted to be my own boss and wanted to do create a difference. Being an entrepreneur gave me that freedom.”
But with the freedom comes the challenges too. Unlike being in a large corporate where your role is defined, it is essential for an entrepreneur to develop a varied skill set. A small company can not dispense resources for individual roles hence, it becomes important that while you plan the strategies and look over the operations, you also learn to balance the accounts, take care of human resources and more. As an entrepreneur she has always followed one rule. “You have to succeed if you are putting all your eggs in one basket.” She feels it is an added advantage to be a woman if you are an entrepreneur, as you learn the trick of doing more with less money and time. Being an entrepreneur brings in double the pressure of being in a large corporate but despite busy days and massive workload Anupama tries not to bring work back home. “Balancing work and home had been difficult in the early days, and it is tricky especially when you work with your spouse. Often the dinner time talks ended up revolving work,” she explains. But both have learnt to keep their difference in opinions affect their relationship at home or work. It is also the reason why they have not installed computers at home. When ever they want to discuss official matters, they prefer to stroll to a near by café.
But now after years of trial and errors, she finds herself in a comfortable spot, juggling the different roles of her life. When burdened by work, she takes a family vacation. An adventurer, she prefers to scale up hills and try new sports and activities for the thrill of it. One of the most exhilarating experiences she recalls is parasailing when vacationing in Mexico.
Apart from being an adventurer, the serial entrepreneur, is also an angel investor and a prominent member of TiE. She works quite hard at encouraging woman to pursue their dreams and passions. She wants to see more women in IT at each Nasscom meet. “I often find people who are stuck at doing some thing they are not passionate about and it is saddening. Even if it is a hobby, one must follow it passionately,” Anupama feels. She believes that it is important to share one’s thoughts because only then can one see the scope of one’s ideas. Hence, she encourages her peers to network, blog and take up opportunities in forums to talk.
Several awards have followed in her ten years of entrepreneurship, the most notable being the ‘Award for Excellence Woman Entrepreneur of the Year 2007-08’ by Software Technology Parks of India, and ‘All India Outstanding Woman Entrepreneur for the Year Award’ by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council.
For some one who risked everything to start all over with just one lakh rupees in her pocket and succeed Anupama exemplifies that risks are surely rewarding! |