Coimbatore: "It takes a lifetime of effort to build a company. There will be times where you will be taking no salary. That's what Entrepreneurship is. Are you prepared for it? If you don't have that kind of commitment, then you will probably quit," declared Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Vice Chairman and Founder of Info Edge as the virtually held 'Isha INSIGHT 2020: The DNA of Success' wrapped up on Sunday.
From fascinating conversations about entrepreneurship, efficient communication and investor relations, to risk management, trust-building and leading during a crisis, the three-day intensive leadership programme had everything to spellbind the more than 300 participants that were present throughout.
From small enterprises to large corporations, business leaders, including CEOs/CXOs, were given the opportunity to take away invaluable lessons from proven entrepreneurs who have experienced the ups and down of leadership.
The day opened with a Q&A session with Sadhguru in which he answered a wide range of questions from participants. These included questions on the way forward for the nation, what businesses should do to improve their agility and ability to respond to the new reality, what makes a good entrepreneur and the age-old question on work-life balance.
“Everything we that do, every single breath that we take, every thought that we have, every emotion we that have, every action that we perform- all this is Life. You can only do Life. The question is only how effectively you do it,” Sadhguru said adding that there was no such thing as work-life balance. “Work is Life, Life is Work.” He said that though ‘ease of doing business’ had improved significantly in India, the country can do a lot more to welcome investors and called for a complete overhaul of business laws to make them absolutely unambiguous. Asserting that “enterprise must be left free to function,” Sadhguru explained that entrepreneurs must be able to sell their produce wherever they want and such freedom would encourage them to invest in the country instead of parking their money offshore.
Sadhguru’s session was followed by an interaction between Raman Roy, CMD, Quatrro Global Services and Sanjeev Bikhchandani, a Padma Shri recipient who founded Info Edge, which is the low-key parent company of matrimonial portal Jeevansathi, job site Naukri, real estate listings portal 99acres and education website Shiksha.
"Thinking big, Starting small – Naukri was an experiment till it became Big," revealed Sanjeev Bikhchandani, who added that “The single most important character of an entrepreneur has to be to build trust across the table - among investors, employees, customers, public.”
Speaking about how leaders should manage risks, he said: "The difference between a good entrepreneur and a great entrepreneur is about how he understands and manages his risk. They are risk averse. They understand, mitigate, and keep moving forward."
“If they (leaders) want to build great companies, they need to prepare for the long haul. It's a marathon, not a sprint,” he added.
