At Times, the Way Out is to Start All Over Again
By Dr.Romesh, T. Wadhwani, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Symphony Technology Group (STG)
Symphony Technology Group (STG), started in 2002, is a private equity company chasing the goal to transform high-potential firms into market leaders. Through a combination of capital and hands-on operational expertise, they help the data analytics-focused and SaaS companies develop innovative product offerings that will appeal to high-growth markets.
There are several critical qualities or lessons that every entrepreneur should possess, which I have learnt from my entrepreneurship of forty years.
Being Creative
The first aspect about a good entrepreneurship is all about creativity, entrepreneurs have to be creative with respect to their products and business objectives. I would say combining opportunities with creativity, and bringing in passion and tenacity to stick to the goals, even during the ups and downs in business, differentiates an entrepreneur. I believe, it is this creativity that helped me when I began my entrepreneurial journey by setting up a canteen in a Mumbai hospital, during my days as a student at Mumbai IIT. The roadblocks ahead included lack of capital and resources, which I managed to solve by securing funding from friends at IIT, and hiring people from a poor background for affordable wages. Looking back, I consider this as my first exposure to talent acquisition.
Learning from Failures
The second lesson I learnt is about failures. I would advise entrepreneurs to view failures as the seeds for future success. I had an encounter with failure during the stint with my second company. Later on, I founded another company called Aspect Development Inc, which was among the first companies to venture into content and analytics on an entrepreneurial platform.
Those days, I never felt confident about big data, and six months into this new project, I realized that it is not possible for me to make it into a successful venture. That moment of realization made me concentrate on my dream of being at the top, which I have achieved. It was the time when I decided that the way out is, to start all over again. Also, I learnt that before venturing into a start-up or progressing to the succeeding level, business leaders should evaluate and understand the market. Disruptive trends surface often, and you have deal with it and think about it.
Renovating Yourself and Motivating Your Team
It is not only about starting a company, which many could do, it is about realizing that time changes, technologies change and renewing yourself accordingly.
During my tenure with Aspect Development, I was trying to re-motivate my employees to refurnish all of our products line so as to make them more web and internet centric because this an area in which we had fallen behind. By doing so, I expected to follow the dream of taking our share price from 6 $/share to 100 $/share. As it turned out, my employees started executing the plan rather quickly and our shares went from 6 $/share in April 99 to 200 $/share nine months later. I would describe this stint as one of my best experiences, where I learned the importance of willingness to renew ourselves.
Yet another aspect I got to learn from this experience is the need to motivate your team irrespective of good and bad times, about keeping honor.
Chasing Big Dreams
By the time my stint with Aspect Development ended, I had learned a lot and had good knowledge in combining creativity and passion into entrepreneurship. My areas of focus were big data, content, analytics and software. I intended to implement the best of these technologies into vital sectors such as healthcare, natural services and package services. I had and liked the opportunity to build a different group. So it ended up like this- I had a group with several companies, each having their own CEOs and management team, and it was possible to share technologies and ideas among these. Doing so, I got the opportunity to work with a broader view, instead of handling just one company. Today, the group, has 14 companies, which together have created a total revenue of $3 billion in the current year.
Today I am proud to say that all the companies we started are real ones, with real revenues, real business models, and real profitability. Moreover, each one of them are sustainable and would be in the business arena for many years from now, unlike several others with a short life span.
Adhering to Values and Innovation Requirements
What I have learnt from my years of experience is that values have the potential to bring about remarkable improvements. By values, I refer to the ways of dealing with customers, talents, creating innovation and a positive culture. Coming to innovation, it is fundamental to an organization's success, which often is the driving difference. For instance, today, Symphony is both a rolling company and private equity firm. If we were just a traditional private equity firm, for every 1 dollar we invest, the outcome would have been 2 dollars, which is the maximum level of performance by private equity firms. If you look at our performance, the outcome is 4 to 5 dollars per dollar, the result of not restricting the company to a conventional private firm.
And, over the years, I have learnt the importance of Philanthropy activities is making a difference. Therefore, my view on celebrating success in best way possible is to apply the wealth into philanthropy activities. Some of the suggested areas include healthcare, job creation, relief works or education. In my case, I started the Wadwani foundation 10 years ago with ultimate focus on job creation, building entrepreneurship programming, mentor networks, skill development and economic acceleration.
There are several critical qualities or lessons that every entrepreneur should possess, which I have learnt from my entrepreneurship of forty years.
Being Creative
The first aspect about a good entrepreneurship is all about creativity, entrepreneurs have to be creative with respect to their products and business objectives. I would say combining opportunities with creativity, and bringing in passion and tenacity to stick to the goals, even during the ups and downs in business, differentiates an entrepreneur. I believe, it is this creativity that helped me when I began my entrepreneurial journey by setting up a canteen in a Mumbai hospital, during my days as a student at Mumbai IIT. The roadblocks ahead included lack of capital and resources, which I managed to solve by securing funding from friends at IIT, and hiring people from a poor background for affordable wages. Looking back, I consider this as my first exposure to talent acquisition.
Learning from Failures
The second lesson I learnt is about failures. I would advise entrepreneurs to view failures as the seeds for future success. I had an encounter with failure during the stint with my second company. Later on, I founded another company called Aspect Development Inc, which was among the first companies to venture into content and analytics on an entrepreneurial platform.
Those days, I never felt confident about big data, and six months into this new project, I realized that it is not possible for me to make it into a successful venture. That moment of realization made me concentrate on my dream of being at the top, which I have achieved. It was the time when I decided that the way out is, to start all over again. Also, I learnt that before venturing into a start-up or progressing to the succeeding level, business leaders should evaluate and understand the market. Disruptive trends surface often, and you have deal with it and think about it.
Renovating Yourself and Motivating Your Team
It is not only about starting a company, which many could do, it is about realizing that time changes, technologies change and renewing yourself accordingly.
During my tenure with Aspect Development, I was trying to re-motivate my employees to refurnish all of our products line so as to make them more web and internet centric because this an area in which we had fallen behind. By doing so, I expected to follow the dream of taking our share price from 6 $/share to 100 $/share. As it turned out, my employees started executing the plan rather quickly and our shares went from 6 $/share in April 99 to 200 $/share nine months later. I would describe this stint as one of my best experiences, where I learned the importance of willingness to renew ourselves.
Yet another aspect I got to learn from this experience is the need to motivate your team irrespective of good and bad times, about keeping honor.
Chasing Big Dreams
By the time my stint with Aspect Development ended, I had learned a lot and had good knowledge in combining creativity and passion into entrepreneurship. My areas of focus were big data, content, analytics and software. I intended to implement the best of these technologies into vital sectors such as healthcare, natural services and package services. I had and liked the opportunity to build a different group. So it ended up like this- I had a group with several companies, each having their own CEOs and management team, and it was possible to share technologies and ideas among these. Doing so, I got the opportunity to work with a broader view, instead of handling just one company. Today, the group, has 14 companies, which together have created a total revenue of $3 billion in the current year.
Today I am proud to say that all the companies we started are real ones, with real revenues, real business models, and real profitability. Moreover, each one of them are sustainable and would be in the business arena for many years from now, unlike several others with a short life span.
Adhering to Values and Innovation Requirements
What I have learnt from my years of experience is that values have the potential to bring about remarkable improvements. By values, I refer to the ways of dealing with customers, talents, creating innovation and a positive culture. Coming to innovation, it is fundamental to an organization's success, which often is the driving difference. For instance, today, Symphony is both a rolling company and private equity firm. If we were just a traditional private equity firm, for every 1 dollar we invest, the outcome would have been 2 dollars, which is the maximum level of performance by private equity firms. If you look at our performance, the outcome is 4 to 5 dollars per dollar, the result of not restricting the company to a conventional private firm.
And, over the years, I have learnt the importance of Philanthropy activities is making a difference. Therefore, my view on celebrating success in best way possible is to apply the wealth into philanthropy activities. Some of the suggested areas include healthcare, job creation, relief works or education. In my case, I started the Wadwani foundation 10 years ago with ultimate focus on job creation, building entrepreneurship programming, mentor networks, skill development and economic acceleration.