"You Must Have an Attitude of Generating Options in Every Situation."

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1. Tell us more about your company and your journey.

I am Kaustubh, I'm an entrepreneur-turned-Innovation evangelist & academician, and a speaker at TEDx platforms. I founded three companies from 1990 to 2005 in the domain of Machine tools and automation.

I sold my commercial interests in these companies in 2005, took a year off to learn the science of Yoga during 2005-06.

I explored Yoga at the Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Sanstha, Bangalore; Kaivalyadham: Yoga Institute, Lonavala, and later at Bihar School of Yoga, Rikhia-Jharkhand and then plunged into academics & research from 2006 onwards. I have mentored 150+ startups since then.

Currently, I consult large corporate like Daimler India, Mercedes Benz, Citibank, Mahindra Group, HP, Capgemini, CEAT Tyres, etc. on ‘How to Enhance their Innovation Quotient’. He trains executives in Design Thinking and Breakthrough Concept Creation.

2. How did you come up with this idea and go about executing it?

Initially, when I started my Machine Tool manufacturing business, I started by manufacturing different types of presses. However, soon I realized that customers came to us not for buying presses, but they came for finding solutions about how to enhance the productivity of their factories.

With this insight, I started looking for end-to-end solutions that could enable customers to increase the output of their assembly lines. We then began to supply our customers with Automated Conveyor belts, Indexing Tables, Automatic feeders, Pick and Place units, etc.

This gave us an entry into a whole different business that was much more value-adding for the customers as well as us. We could command our price back then since the competition was low and our offerings were complete solutions, note piecemeal equipment.

3. What has been your biggest challenge that you faced and how did you overcome that?

Initially, the Big challenge was to convince customers about our new offerings. We collaborated with our customers with the promise of enhancing their productivity rather than trying to sell them our products.

We offered them payment options that enabled them to pay as per the achievement of the milestones that we would promise. Sometimes, we were able to fulfill our promises, sometimes we were not.

However, we were always transparent with our customers, and more often than not, they were willing to experiment with our offerings because they saw our earnestness in finding solutions and appreciated our transparency. Due to this, we built solutions for them.

These customers became our best spokespersons and hence, marketing tools that enabled our growth. Later on, as we scaled up, managing people was a big challenge. Understanding that for you to win, others don’t have to lose was the tenet on which we built our teams.

4. What do you think are the most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

The most important qualities of a successful entrepreneur, I think are Perseverance, Perseverance, Perseverance. You must have an attitude of generating options in every situation.

5. What are some of the most important factors for running a successful business?

Relentless focus on the customer – understand your customer’s needs well and satisfy them to the best of your ability. Sometimes, this may lead you to take cuts in profits, but in the long run, this approach always works.
Always, try to create win-win situations, be it with your customers, vendors, channel partners, or your employees.

6. What are your tips for the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs?

Tips I could give to the first time and aspiring entrepreneurs are:

Identify an unsolved, pressing pain point of a user.
Create an offering that helps the user overcome the pain point(s).
Collaborate with the users and get them to trust you.
To be open and willing to tweak your offering based on user feedback.
Keep upgrading the offering ( because if you don’t, competitors will).

7. How can one overcome a hurdle of lack of funds when starting up?

Funds will always be a problem for any business. Initially, focus on building a great product rather than look for funding. As I said earlier, try to get customers who are willing to try your product because you are solving a real problem faced by them.

Many a time, you will get some funds from them to service their needs, i.e. a customer-funded business is the best way to start. Once you prove your product, then funding will be easier to obtain.

But most start-ups today make the mistake of trying to get funding even before they have built anything of value. That approach will never work.

- Kaustubh Dhargalkar
Founder at Potentials & Possibilities
Linkedin

- Interviewed by: Foram Thakkar