The Desh Connection

Today, I met my first billionaire. With an estimated net worth of 4.3 Billion dollars, Mr. Deshpande is probably richer than the top 10 (legally) richest people in Pakistan combined. And then some.

He is an interesting case-study. Born to very middle class parents in India, Desh got into IIT on sheer merit, and then went on to get a Masters and PhD from Canada. That sounds like a pretty desi thing to do, get all the degrees you can get, and then find a tenure track position in academia or a corner cubicle in a laboratory. Desh did neither. Instead, he went and took the plunge into startup land, failed, started again, and has never looked back.

During our round-table lunch, I was surprised by two things: 1) How humble he is. and, 2) How practical his advice was.

When you ask an entrepreneur, any entrepreneur, if you as a young professional should jump right into the next-big-thing venture, or if you should join a big company to build a “profile”, the immediate response you get is: “What’re you waiting for, go start something up”

The advise I got from Desh was both practical and well reasoned. His response was to first ask yourself if your idea is bootstrappable or not. If it is, then go do it. If you feel the idea needs substantial capital, then you need to build a profile before financiers will trust you with their money. Some maturity, some gray hair are a plus. How do you build a profile? Well, its simple enough, you have to achieve something worthwhile, like launching a successful product, or being part of a winning team. The best place where you can get such experience is in a “good young company” as opposed to a “mediocre large company” or a “lousy startup”.

I mean, just think about it. In a large company you would be pigeonholed and specialized to a point where you’re useless outside of your little function, and in a lousy startup, you’ll probably have stupid people to work with, and the owners probably started the company because no one would give them a job. What you really need is a Good Young Company.

How do you know if a young company really is good? Just meet the people. Talk to the CEO and CTO, ask them about their backgrounds, and ask yourself if these are people you’d like to work with, people you can learn from. You’ll know the answer.

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