ENTRPRENEUR SPECIAL...LESSONS FROM A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR Mohit Goyal

LESSONS FROM A SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR Mohit Goyal

In the Excitement of Building Your Company, Don’t Forget to Keep a Wary Eye on Risks

Don’t allow risks to creep in. If they do, no one will buy you. And never lose that personal touch with your employees

Mohit Goyal
CURRENT DESIGNATION
Founder-Director of Indian Angel Network Director, TiE, New Delhi Director on a few IAN investee companies
COMPANIES FOUNDED
IIS Infotech, Scicom Infotech
ONE THING I’D DO DIFFERENTLY
I would have raised more money and accelerated our growth organically and inorganically
THE MOST EXCITING SPACE TO BE IN
Mobile telephony
Entrepreneurship has often been called a lifelong marathon because, irrespective of the obstacles you may face, you will always come back for more. I guess my entrepreneurial journey of over two decades reflects that. We started IIS Infotech to address what we felt was a huge pain point in the UK in the early ’90s, which was the double whammy of a recession coming on the back of major deregulations in the British financial sector. How could financial institutions in the UK juggle budget cuts with a major revamp of IT systems? Enter IIS! So, a huge pain point somewhere became a huge opportunity for a startup somewhere else. Entrepreneurship flourishes in tough times. However, it requires a particular mindset to think positively and opportunistically when bad things could be happening around you. Keep your entrepreneurial eye open at all times. I remember two exciting milestones in IIS: one, when we crossed Rs 1 crore in billing in our first year and, two, when we got a buyout offer nine years later. As a startup, our biggest challenge was to recruit skilled staff. Convincing key staff to leave the comfort of their jobs and cities to relocate to Delhi to join a startup that had very little money was, to put it mildly, horrendously difficult. Hence the euphoria when we crossed the Rs 1 crore revenue milestone. The second milestone was when we got a buyout offer from Xansa. We had had a great growth period: entering the US, growing to over 2,000 employees, taking the company public, etc. We had built new delivery centres in Mumbai and Chennai and had gained a reputation for delivering quality projects. However, I distinctly recall the nervousness mixed with euphoria when the buy offer was tabled by Xansa. I was nervous because it was my first experience with such a rigorous due diligence process. However, the deal went through without a hitch, with ours being the first IT company in India to be acquired via an open public offer. So, lesson No. 2 is, in the excitement of building your company, don’t forget to keep a wary eye on risks that could inadvertently creep into the system. Risks, if not managed, will creep in and, if they do, they will grow and, if they grow, no one will buy you. After a brief respite post my IIS exit, I was keen to get back into the game. So, we started Scicom Infotech in 2000, which specialised in visualisation. The opportunity was that specialists such as geologists, designers and engineers require data to be presented in visually appealing and relevant multi-dimensional formats. The challenge was that the interaction with these highly specialised and individualistic persons needed to be in their own ‘domain’ language. There was no useful buffer like your traditional IT manager to help. So, perforce, we had to recruit and train a very different breed of engineers, which was a major challenge in itself. In 2007 we got a buy offer from SAIC, a US-based, publicly listed major. Because of earlier lessons learnt, we remained ahead of the curve on recruitment, processes and funding. Finally, a word about employees. I have heard many CEOs boast about how they manage their entire workforce with just a set of half-a-dozen metrics. Then they complain about high attrition! Never lose that personal touch with your employees as you grow.

 Tips For Aspiring Entrepreneurs
Look for and address a definite pain point in the market rather than following a ‘me too’ approach
Manage risks by taking on board advisors who bring in specific skills. More importantly, use these resources Follow an open-door policy by ensuring that appraisals and criticisms are not secret. Employees respect honesty
Build a promoter group, build an ‘A’ team, share equity and authority

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