- Jay Maharjan

After catching up on much needed sleep I am starting to reflect on my five week trip to London, Delhi, Mumbai and Kathmandu.

It was great to be able to connect with students and faculty at London School of Business and London School of Economics. I found entrepreneurial spirit to be high among students but not as high as you would find in Silicon Valley and Irvine (if you are in Southern California). The city is wrapped up in the old way of doing business and I have found that institutional entrepreneurship has more clout than individual entrepreneurship. The UK government’s recent effort to pump in 1 billion dollars in venture funds has yielded little short term return. In spite of higher unemployment rate the US economy is bouncing back strongly while the EU economy is seriously hurting, with an exception of Germany. As I often like to ignore the macro aspect of economy and am more interested to hear stories from the trenches, here is my quick positive take on EU entrepreneurship scene.

Even though rags to riches stories in the EU are not as common as you would find in the United States, I found London as a business hub to be quite impressive. Due to great geographic location, London is home to over 500 International banking and financial institutes, more than New York City and Los Angeles combined. EU also has that ease of mobility for entrepreneurs within member nations that can potentially give quite a competitive edge. With leading innovation hubs and the long presence of remarkable higher institutions, the world continues to see innovative enterprises like Nokia and IKEA emerging from small EU nations.

The Latest on our 4entrepreneur Initiative –

Over 30 entrepreneurs/alumni from London Business School and London School of Economics have teamed up to explore opportunities in nano-technology, mobile technologies and social media. Our goal is to create an ecosystem that innovation emerges from Trans-Atlantic collaboration along with an active participation in the ecosystem from entrepreneurs from around the world. I will post updates on our effort via this blog and through our twitter accounts.

Next Stop…Mumbai

My visit with many Indian entrepreneurs reminded me of Khnna’s book – ‘Billions of Entrepreneurs How China and India Are Reshaping Their Futures–and Yours’. The difference that I found between this trip and my last trip to Delhi fours years back is that the raw entrepreneurial spirit as a whole is shifting to a structured approach to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are more readily realizing the need for sustainability, a structured approach to starting up companies and more interestingly they are realizing the need for larger awareness and to create a properly trained workforce. The closest analogy that I can think of – could be comparable to the emergence of knowledge economy in early 50s in the United States when Corporate America struggled to get their workforce ready – the movement officially labeled during that time as the ‘industrial discipline’. India and other parts of Indian sub-continent are seeing a movement comparable to the era of industrial discipline and that is great news for the entrepreneurs of the world.

What India needs right now!

What India needs right now is a flock of Western trained management consultants. With 60% of Indian college graduates focusing on engineering and medical fields, India doesn’t lack innovation. With the population exceeding billion mark, India doesn’t lack workforce for menial labor force either. What India lacks are the high level executives for medium size companies. India has its share of smart management consultants – McKinsey types for large enterprises. But, the majority of mid-size organizations (20 -500 employees) are seriously lacking higher caliber management – and these companies are open-minded and seeking help!The real opportunity for entrepreneurs is that consuming capacity of India is quite staggering. It’s more than the place where call center calls are answered.  The rate that infrastructure development, housing development is taking place is quite noteworthy. Just like any rapid economic growth – this raw exponential growth brings about enormous opportunities for savvy entrepreneurs. While upwardly mobile Indian community by culture tends to focus on higher brands, firms with name recognition – there is an opportunity for smaller firms to think strategically and capture the market from the bottom up.

Future entrepreneurs

The best part of my trip – I had a chance to guest speak to MBA students at 2 of the innovative colleges in Kathmandu – something I was wanting to do for a long time. Even though it was a short encounter it was a great homecoming for me as I had received my own earlier education at St. Xavier’s school when I was young. Speaking to a highly motivated group of students at ACE Institute of management and Kathmandu University School of Management had me thinking how small the world has got. This has truly become an era when ideas can emerge from any corner of the world. Barrier to entry has come down so sharply that students are taking on an amazing feat. Himal Karmacharya, an MIT graduate recently returned to town to collaborate with a local Bank to introduce mobile cash – the idea floating around in Silicon Valley for a while that actually got implemented successfully. The concept that makes more sense and find more practical use in this tiny country with over 10 million cell phone subscribers – (3.2 million subscribers joining just within this last year).

As I often write that being a successful entrepreneur is not about following glamour but it is about being able to find pain points in the areas that nobody else is looking and be savvy enough to fulfill the void in the most pragmatic and economical way.And there is always that emotional aspect of being an entrepreneur – of doing the right thing, trying to make difference while at it. Interacting with the students at ACE and KU to explore ideas to make life better – is the type of project that keeps me motivated to be an entrepreneur.

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