by Deepta Rangarajan (IRIS)

It is so true working for a while really makes so much of difference before you start your own enterprise. It doesn’t matter where you work. When you actually work and you deal with nuances of day to day situations, decision making and dealing with people, you imbibe a knowledge which is really helpful when you start being an entrepreneur basically.

I think, for us, much of what have done has not followed a well scripted plot. And this could be true for several entrepreneurs. You work with a board game plan. Depending upon the availability of resources and the opportunities that present themselves at each point in time, you flexibly modify your plans and move along. You alter. But you ensure that you keep moving broadly in the direction that you want. If you say, this is my scripted plan, this is what I am going to do, if it does not end up happening as per that script, you will be tremendously disappointed.

On the other hand, if you are open and flexible, you will have opportunity that you never even thought of. There was nothing called XBRL when we started, and it is becoming a huge opportunity. Like a colleague of mine was saying, you need to keep the sails open and then wait for the wind to blow.

One has to have a creative streak if one needs to be an entrepreneur. A strong desire to want to create something and to make that happen.

While we are not tremendously greedy, we don’t constantly compare our net worth with somebody else. Having said that, it is fantastic to create wealth. Because often, it is not only an endorsement of that fact that you have done well, it gives you tremendous opportunity to do other things as well.

Why so few women entrepreneurs? I think a woman has to do with the fact that women have primary responsibility for the children and family. If you have primary responsibility for caring for your family and you want to be an entrepreneur, in terms of balancing life, you could do something more cottage, may be from home. If I had kids I would definitely re-size and re-scale the way I could be involved with the company.