The Story of Krishna Rao...from Career launcher.

This is the story of Krishna rao...the best speaker I ever know.

Sorry for copying it from somewhere..

The Spirit of Entrepreneurship


Education to a Successful Enterprise: Entrepreneur Krishna Rao displays a mix of Risk taking element, Self-assurance and Well planning in his success story

Earning while learning and turning it into a profitable entrepreneurial venture is the story of Krishna Rao. Branding and differentiating a product offered by multiple providers and developing one's own niche is what is demonstrated by the story of Krishna Rao, an important lesson for entrepreneurs who need to think this through in their own ventures.

Enabling students to pursue their dreams and doing it profitably is the mantra of Krishna Rao. Krishna Rao is the CEO of Found Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd. based in Nagpur and is serving the education needs in Hyderabad and Nagpur with a vision to achieve ‘parentless parenting’ for his students as a core purpose in building his educational corporate. A young, dynamic, and ambitious personality who has been an entrepreneur since the age of 17, is now leading a business of over Rs.4 Crores. Krishna Rao is representative of India's new entrepreneurially oriented generation.

The Journey
It all started as a 17 year old when he realized his parents could not support his tuition fee for engineering. He started taking tuitions for two cousins, which soon became a class of 16 with others in the neighborhood joining it. The fee from the 16 kids sufficed to pay his college fees for the 1st year of engineering. Encouraged by one of the mentees, he started of his own coaching centre. As an 18 yr old, he rented a place, recruited a couple of friends as employees on a part time basis, and started off with enthusiasm. However, the first 15 days went by with absolutely no business, leaving his team disheartened and ideas of closing it down were on top of their minds. He says with pride in his voice that he stood by himself to see 60 odd students enrol in the next 10 days and proved that it could work. By the time he was in the final year of engineering, and two years into the business, it rapidly grew into a big institute with 250 students and 7-8 employees, each earning around Rs. 20000 a month, a big sum in 1999 for a fresh engineering graduate.

While he was planning his MBA he happened to meet Mr. Kamlesh Sajnani the CEO & Chairman of IMS who offered to recruit him. He joined as an executive unlike many of his peers who went to the US for higher studies, did good work and got promoted as assistant centre manager of Thane. Here is where he made a difference. He took an Rs 11 Lakh centre to a high of Rs 64 Lakhs in 6 months. The company rewarded this young man and promoted him again as head of operations for Vidharbha region to handle Nagpur which was running in losses. Within the next four months, Krishna Rao turned it around. He believes that this jump in 1 year and the success he had achieved in turning stable or stagnant businesses around, gave him the confidence to become an entrepreneur. He expresses gratitude to his mentors Mr. Kamlesh Sajnani and Mr. Nilesh Sarawate from whom he learnt the nuances of the education business.

At this juncture, Career Launcher offered Krishna Rao a franchise and the entrepreneurial instinct in him made him pounce on the opportunity. So in 2002, together with a friend, he started Career Launcher in Nagpur and took the Rs 27 Lakh centre first to Rs56 Lakh and to Rs 1 Crore in a short span of 3 years.

In 2003 he established his own firm called Inspire. He recognized the need for a good engineering entrance product in the Nagpur market for AIEEE and Maharashtra local entrance. Inspire also saw 100% growth year on year. In other words, he was always on the lookout for what students actually needed, rather than offering coaching for each and everything.

It is interesting to note that despite his remarkable commercial successes, he valued the importance of acquiring a formal education in management as the basic requirement for funnelling his future ambitions. In 2005, Krishna Rao Therefore, he went on to Oxford (and no less!) to pursue an MBA with intentions of understanding how large business houses work, understanding how international business works, and to get an opportunity to see everything firsthand for himself. He also thought that he must get some more corporate experience in order to have a scaled up business in future. He got an opportunity with Nestle. In fact he had a short stint at Nestle in USA and later then gave in to his entrepreneurial instincts which sensed a big opportunity in the growing economy of India.

He came back to India thus, sold his stakes in Career Launcher at Nagpur, with the intent of settling in Hyderabad. On being offered to take over the Hyderabad business of Career Launcher he gladly accepted it. He successfully runs both Inspire in Nagpur and Career Launcher in Hyderabad.

Funding
While starting off Career launcher in Nagpur, it took an investment of only Rs 1L equally shared by Krishna Rao and his business partner. He says that starting off in a market in which he was known well and also because of his previous employer's background, was not very difficult. Therefore, be it infrastructure or advertising, he got long credit periods. He was confident that he would definitely do enough business to pay back everyone and even otherwise he could manage with the help of near and dear.

Come the first 20 days of the business and it had already done a business of Rs 10L. Krishna Rao is a proud man when he speaks of this achievement and says, "This is because of my planning". This made life much simpler and the Rs.50, 000 he invested to start up is root to his business of Rs.4Cr today.

It was no cake walk all the way through. Problems are for everybody, and Krishna Rao was no exception. There was a time when he was only 1 year into business and money strangled him to an extent he has to close the business or mortgage his home for a costly private loan. But he was confident he would earn every penny back in 6 months. Even as early as last year when he launched a new brand in Nagpur, a business of a Crore of rupees still left him behind with a debt of Rs. 23 Lakh. It was all about the "gut feel" and for Krishna Rao the debt has vanished and the new company is a cash surplus of 40 Lakh today. When in the debt there is doubt, for Krishna Rao the doubt was in the minds of those near and dear, stake holders of the company, associates but he was sure the obstacle was to pass. He says his intuition was not super natural, but the confidence on his calculated risk knowing the seasonal nature of the coaching business.

Major Achievements
Turning around of the Nagpur business of IMS is one of Krishna Rao's most celebrated achievements because for him it shaped his life as entrepreneur. When asked about as some as an entrepreneur of his own making, Krishna Rao says that it will be success of his new brand called "Found IIT". He launched it on the 27th of March, 2007 and by the time it was 27th of May, 2007 they had done a cumulative billing of a Crore. It was a big risk for him for he had invested lakhs of rupees in it and it paid off brilliantly.

Biggest Challenge
As an entrepreneur Krishna Rao feels that the biggest challenge has been in managing people. In an industry that is highly people driven, Krishna Rao admits that though it's the people around him that were the reason for his success, managing them has been personally been his biggest challenge.
On a managerial level, being a person who concentrated totally on building the business, Krishna Rao feels that he is weak on operations. He always looked forward to one of his team members to take the lead to take care of operations, which never happened. One key operations issue for him was finance, and to find the right finance controller to take care of it has been a concern.

Starting Sustaining & Expanding
Starting was never a problem for Krishna Rao. It came with him. The challenge always has been in sustaining and expanding. He cited his personal temperament as may be one of the obstacles where his ventures have become one-man shows. The second rung which can concentrate on sustaining while he focuses on expanding never got built and hence feels the pressure getting to him. Management succession has been the key obstacle in impairing his growth plans.

Critical Success Factors
"Risk taking element" Krishna Rao feels that it is the single most important quality of an entrepreneur. He feels that, had he not taken the risk of "Found IIT" he would have never been where he is today.
Outlook on the Education Industry
E-Learning is the next big thing. Krishna Rao feels that those investing into technology today will see good results soon. Education outsourcing is another trend he observing and feels that will grow in the times to come.

about starting a startup

here is an awesome link of a company I admire

Associated with a startup. Stuff that i have always wanting to do.

blogging after a couple of years now. I am no associated with a startup . For the first time in my life I am seeing real time..all those things that I have been reading for almost 1/2 a decade now.

Good news for start-ups.

One more obstacle gets cleared
Vasai is plagued by 7 hours of power cuts every day.
But for the past few days the amount of load shedding has been reduced drastically with certain days experiencing no power cuts at all.




while the times writes about power procurement at Rs 8 per unit. I wonder ...whether is electricity is also provided to us at a subsidy.


Here is what the DNA has to say.

A Busy cluttered world

Business today, Dalal Street, Books and a Few more Books

Erratum: Dizzy Valuations

Educomp Solutions...A content provider to the education sector is being valued at Rs4000+ . I don't know why or what makes people cuff up so much money to buy a single share of Educomp solutions. The company is NOT new and may have demonstrated its mettle in the education sector but it still does not deserve such High valuations . Clearly a right example for "Too quick to rise , to quick to attain correction . "

Dizzy Valuations

Educomp Solutions...A content provider to the education sector is being valued at Rs4000+ . I dont know why or what makes people cuff up so much money to buy a single share of Educomp solutions. The company is new and has yet to demonstrate its mettle in the education sector. clearly a right example for "Too quick to rise , to quick to fall. "