Who Wants To Be An Entrepreneur?

In today’s India, the biggest risk is in not taking one.

There was a time in India when being your own boss meant having to deal with the image of being a member of a not entirely agreeable crowd, where hiding behind oversized dark glasses, wearing ill-fitting polyester safari suits, nursing a drink and handing out business cards that detailed “Import-Export” (memorably presented as “idhar ka maal udhar aur udhar ka maal idhar” in countless memorable movies) as your job description was de rigueur.

It was assumed especially by the educated middle classes that one had to be either born into a wealthy business family or one had to be a denizen of the underworld to be in business. “Businessman” as a term was, therefore, largely associated with its pejorative connotations, barring a few notable exceptions.

Being in business was, therefore, not something that the educated middle classes consciously chose as a career option. Government jobs, academia, foreign shores and MNCs were the only ones worth aspiring for.

A “businessman” as a son-in-law would make many a parent-in-law cringe in the company of peers whose next generations were all in predictable and aspirational job roles. The socio-cultural barriers were therefore quite considerable. There were, however, millions of traditional “forced entrepreneurs”—those who are on their own due to circumstances. For instance, the dhobiwalla, the newspaper agent, the operator of the local PCO, the local grocer and so on… These are the income substitution entrepreneurs, not the wealth creators.

However, all that has changed in the last 24 years since 1991. Today, more and more of India’s young and middle classes are considering being their own bosses driven, of course, by the well documented changes all around. But the biggest change has taken place internally—in-side the minds and hearts of this group of people.

Confidence, awareness, and passion are the drivers here.

It is no surprise, therefore, that students and professionals today are open to the idea of entrepreneurship. They carry no baggage of the past. The media too is increasingly using the word “entrepreneur” to describe this breed of business people (of course, we still have to contend with the fact that scions of multi-billion dollar inherited businesses are also called entrepreneurs).

Interestingly, the word entrepreneur is of French origin meaning to “undertake”, but to undertake with a sense of obsessive immersion.

Because, being an entrepreneur is a demanding business. In those lonely mornings when you wake up and ask yourself “what the #@** am I doing with my life,” you realise there are no committees behind which you can shield yourself and not too many people you can blame when things go wrong. There are very few ambiguities about where the buck stops.

Yet, that’s also part of the charm of being an entrepreneur. It may be a roller-coaster ride but at any given moment you know where you stand.

Entrepreneurship often boils down to an individual’s passion to make things happen.

With India in the throes of historic changes, there are opportunities all around for the entrepreneur willing to take the chances. With so much money waiting in the wings to be deployed into Indian entrepreneurs, the financial risk too is minimal.

In addition, the current and projected job market offers a safety net to those did-not-succeed-the-1st-time entrepreneurs who want to temporarily park their ambitions. Socio-cultural barriers to entrepreneurship too are definitely fading away as role models abound in various domains and entrepreneurship becomes the chosen path for many. The only remaining risk therefore is the one in the mind—of fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD).

Entrepreneurs know that the FUD factor in their minds can be addressed through knowledge, teamwork, and a can-do attitude. As the tired cliché goes, in today’s India, the biggest risk is in not taking one.

So, who wants to be an entrepreneur?