Prof. Handa - The Alchemist

What would you think if about 100 IIT Kharagpur students on a Saturday afternoon file in an auditorium to attend a lecture, you would think that the person delivering the lecture is seriously something! Yes Prof. Sunil Handa, visiting faculty at IIM Ahmedabad and Founder of Eklavya Education Foundation, is indeed that kind of person. He taught people like Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Narendra Murkumbi and several other leading entrepreneurs in India, entrepreneurship. He took a class in IIT Kharagpur on Entrepreneurial motivation on Saturday, 8th August from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and on Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. He also had half an hour one on one session with 8 people who have started a venture of their own in the IIT Kharagpur campus. He started the class by giving a brief description of his career, which started in BITS Pilani, then he went on to join IIM Ahmedabad. After graduating he joined a company, where he felt he could realize, “only 2% of his potential”. Feeling frustrated he left his job and started a consultancy company with his brother with a loan from their father. They experimented with various ideas with varied success and failure. Finally, after experimenting with about 8 ideas they finally “struck oil” with their 9th idea. His Core Emballage, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company became the largest manufacturer of IV fluids in the second year of its operation and went on to become third largest in the world later. The net worth of the company was over $240 million by 1998. Hence, through his own example, he was able to show that an entrepreneur may not gain success with the very first venture he starts off with. What is necessary is persistence, not giving up if an idea isn’t working, there are always opportunities lying around somewhere, one has to keep one’s eyes open.

He elucidated his point by giving example of one of his student’s Narendra Murkumbi, who started a factory which made neem insecticide, a thing which was unheard of. He was relatively successful with the venture, but he wanted to be more successful. So he bought sugar mills which was a sick unit and started a sugar making company named Shree Renuka Sugars. Today, he is a man worth 1600 crores rupees.

Prof. Handa kept on stressing on the fact that doing a job is limiting one’s ability. He described people from IIT, who take up jobs, as “Glorified Technical Clerks”. He, through examples from his own life and life of his students, was able to show the ability of the human mind and its infiniteness, and how entrepreneurship is able to draw it out. He exhorted people “not to prostitute yourself for a petty amount which service pays”, he told people to expand their horizon and startup to earn big. According to him, an entrepreneur doesn’t have to be a good orator or a very outgoing person, even a shy and reserved can be successful, the most important entity is passion to reach the top. Prof. Handa spoke about his batch mate at IIM, Raghavendra Rao, he was an average student with a vernacular education background and a very reserved person. Now he owns a big pharma company, Orchid Chemicals.

Next topic he spoke upon was the importance of a mentor in an entrepreneur’s journey to success. The mentor should be someone who is old and experienced, the person should know you very well and should be an emotional support, with whom you can share everything without any reservation. The person should also be very honest with you and should not give you false assurances. Mentors are really important in the early rigors of an entrepreneur’s career.

On being asked, which thing to chose “Value Creation or money”, he replied that both entities went hand and glove. If one is creating something which will add value to the society then the idea is bound to create wealth. He also discussed about the fact that choosing partner(s) is a very crucial decision. While starting up its really difficult to manage things all by oneself, so its always better to have a partner or two so that the storm can be weathered much easily, but not more than that. However, the problem is when the partnership breaks, it’s normally very depressing and it takes the individual a lot of time to recover from it. He also took swipe at people selling their successful ventures for instant money. He compared selling one’s company to selling one’s soul.

He also took up the topic of what to do just after completing college so that one is better equipped to start-up in 2-3 years time. He advocated for an M.B.A degree from a reputed institute like the IIMs. According to him, an M.B.A degree does a world of good to an individual’s development and outlook. As for jobs, he said there are primarily 3 kinds of job people interested in starting up at some point of time, should do. First, being a part of a new project, one can understand the dynamics involved in putting up a new project in motion and it would be really beneficial when he starts up. Second, a small company which is in its growing phase, it would provide the individual with a great insight. Thirdly, one can become an executive assistant to the CEO/MD in a mid-sized company, one can learn all the nuisances of running the company being an executive assistant to a top brass of the company. Prof. Handa also said that opening up a consultancy is also a great option just after graduating, through which one can have a great insight of the market and industry as a whole.

His life-story, right from a tough childhood to a belligerent entrepreneur with an appealing personality, has inspired over 250 people to become entrepreneurs. If people listening to him ever had a doubt about what they wanted to do in their life, I guess all their doubts must have vapourized into thin air, as for me I never had a doubt!!