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The
truly enterprising ones amongst the modern entrepreneurs have been
those whose indomitable spirit and, their belief to do things out of the
ordinary has, ultimately, led them to success and prosperity in their
lives. One can even say that they did what they really wanted to do
differently, knowing pretty well that there may not be much to write
home about it, or worse still, it may not succeed at all.
The
risk of being branded as out of league, an outcast, and even considered
as rebellious (revolutionary) - came gratis with it all. Ajith
Balakrishnan, the founder and serving chairman and CEO of India's
leading internet company, Rediff.com, is one who inhibits this streak.
For, when he passed out of one of the world renowned IIMs, he did not go
to the Levers (HUL) or L&Ts (which have so-long been considered as
the business leadership schools of India) like most of his peers at
college did. Instead, he decided to choose a path which was, at that
point in time, so un-heralded by Indians - advertising.
Being
different sometimes brings along a bit of stoicism and a touch of
recklessness to one's persona. In that, one runs the risk of thinking
way ahead of oneself that may often lead to failure. Balakrishnan knew
this pretty well, when he quit his first job only after ten months since
joining, to start an advertising company - at the very tender age of 22
years. This was called Rediffusion (known today as Rediffusion-Dentsu,
Young & Rubicam), which is one of India's largest advertising
agencies. Exactly a quarter century later in 1996, he was to establish a
company which would go down in the history of Indian Internet sphere as
a pioneering initiative, besides bringing much success to its founder
and the people associated with it, and raking in the moolah!
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Early Years
Balakrishnan
was born into a family of doctors - both, his father and his
grandfather were doctors with private practices, so there was nothing
enterprising, so to say, about his lineage that one can attribute his
inclination toward business, and the subsequent success as an
entrepreneur. Born in Cannanore (present day Kannur) in Kerala, he
completed his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Kerala
post his school education at St. Michaels High School in Kannur. He is
believed to have not been so much into studies as he was into sports. In
fact, his admission into the Indian Institute of Management (IIM),
Calcutta (Kolkata) was pure chance. He took the entrance test (to the
IIM) in Trivandrum upon someone's prodding as it is said to have
coincided with a trip to the state capital to play a football match. He
completed his Master's in Business Management from IIM(C) in 1971. (He
is also known to have attended the Owner/President Management Program at
the Harvard Business School).
Different spark in the young Ajith
Strangely
enough, for someone coming from a family which was not even remotely
connected to business or even media, Ajith Balakrishnan was attracted
towards the idea of starting a magazine at college. Where the idea
stemmed from cannot be established for sure. But, from his accounts of
his youth, one can presume that the tumultuous period in contemporary
Indian history around the time of his graduation from IIM Kolkata, may
perhaps have sown the seeds of bringing forth a magazine. Naxalism was
on the rise, India had lost its first and most influential (upto that
point in time) premier a few years ago, the country was yet to come to
terms with the psychological damage the brief war with China had
rendered it, and so on. The times as well as the land were fertile for
someone with an ignited mind such as the young and exuberant
Balakrishnan possessed. The entrepreneurial flair in him sought to
surface even as he was yet to face the big, bad world of business
(certainly, if one is not groomed properly for it).
India's
first internet entrepreneur wanted to be engaged in anything that had
something to do with media, communications, and technology. Thus, it was
that he joined an advertising agency for his first job at a time when
none of the technology companies had started in India (or the ones that
had started, TCS for eg. had not taken off yet).
But,
the unflinching belief in their own capability, besides the notion (say
it conviction, if you will) that the ads that were being made during
those days were not good. At least, not good enough to Ajith's liking,
and that of his friend and colleague, Diwan Arun Nanda's. The folly of
youth forced the erroneous thought in their mind that they knew better.
The young men could not be entirely faulted for this thinking, as what
was being dished out back then, in the name of creativity, was mere
imitation of ads from abroad. The two youngsters sought to address this
with their own brand of creativity and fresh thinking, to come up with
original work.
So,
Ajith along with Arun, who was many years senior to him, left the
agency where Ajith had been employed for only ten months and started an
advertising agency, which they christened as 'Rediffusion.' They had
also succeeded in bringing in another enthusiast by the name of Mohammad
Khan. And true to the founders' belief, their work was truly different
and creative - proven by the fact that they had won most of the awards
in the creative field that was up for grabs, in a matter of just 12
months since starting the agency. What's more, a couple of their
creations even went on to become sensations for a while.
The
ad agency was doing reasonably well and, brought to its founders the
much needed creative satisfaction that they had been yearning for, for
so long. One would imagine that that would be it for them. But, not for
Ajith Balakrishnan, who had always demonstrated a sort of geekish
tendency i.e. the techie in him could read code as easily as he could an
article.
His
indomitable self was still in the quest for something that promised so
much for this world, and the way it was going to move ahead. He wanted
to do something in technology. So, he asked his friend, partner, and
co-founder of Rediffusion, Arun Nanda, to take over the mantle of
running the company while he invested his thinking, time, energy, and
money at making good of the promise that technology held. There was also
another aspect that had sparked the ambition in him to take the
internet route. The years preceding the economic liberalization had been
somewhat hazy for the country in general, in terms of the business
atmosphere and its stunted growth. He realised he had to do something
about its impact on Rediffusion, and enrolled for a course at Harvard.
There he is believed to have stumbled upon a case-study on CompuServe, a
pioneer in what was then called the information services business - and
the founder's struggle to set up the company and how a new competitor
called America Online emerged. The business apparently fascinated him a
great deal. But the general view at the time was that information
services were not taking off because computer screens were too complex.
When he learnt of attempts by the University of Illinois to create a
browser - Mosaic - he realised he had an ace up his sleeve. He had
played around with the earlier version i.e. tried his hands writing
programming code for a browser, and succeeded.
The advent of Internet and the technology boom
Along
came 1994 and the world-wide-web (internet) had started to spread
across the length and breadth of the world. The following couple of
years can be termed as the heydays of internet in India. Balakrishnan
was both alert and capable enough to spot this huge opportunity. Coupled
with technical know-how (he could code, remember) and management
learning and the wealth of experience he had gained after running the ad
agency for almost 25 years, he decided to drown himself into
internet-related business activity. He invested Rs. 2 crore out of his
pocket to start 'Rediff.com,' an internet company in Mumbai, in 1996. It
is said that Rediff.com did not bring in any revenues for three long
years since its inception.
But,
he didn't let go off it. He had resolved to make it a success, not
because he believed it would; more because he had very rightly
identified the potential the new age technology had in it. Especially
for India, a country which had just broken the shackles of the
License-Raj and had started to transition towards the phenomena called
liberalization and globalization. If India had to make good of the path
it had opted to tread along, then technology had to be the enabler of
quite a good chunk, if not all, of its success.
As
those three initial, almost listless, years trudged along Rediff.com
was able to make both the business world as well as commoners, realize
the power and possibilities of the internet. And, as the so-called,
dot-com fever started to grip the world, scores of venture capitalists,
investment bankers and lawyers came knocking at the doorstep of his
office (in a low-rent area of Mumbai) urging him to take his company
public on New York's NASDAQ stock market.
Being
the entrepreneur he was, Balakrishnan was awake to the prospect of
floating the shares of the company that would, apart from raising
capital for further investment and expansion, make his company global
--something that he had neither planned nor aspired for. It just
happened.
All
this wasn't as easy as it is recounted here. As much promise and
opportunity at it had in it, the advent of the internet age in India was
anything but a bed of roses. He had to battle it out with adversaries
many times his size; fend off scheming lawyers who were always on the
look out to extort money through class action suits (in the tough courts
of lower Manhattan); and even rebuffed investment bankers who tried to
stage-manage the sale of his company, and so on.
The
latter half of the first decade of the millennium brought along yet
more challenges and tougher competitions with global giants spreading
their wings in the sub-continent, looking to cash in on the booming
middle-class of an ever-bulging population. That besides the constantly
changing face of technology and models, within a very short period of
time would be enough to drain out even the most enthusiastic of
technology buffs. But not Balakrishnan; the fact that he did not even so
much as bat an eye-lid when investing a princely sum of Rs. 2 crore, at
the almost ripe age of 46 years (by Indian notions), speaks volumes of
the courage of conviction and vision this man from the then non-descript
place possesses.
Not
even the paranoia that the world was driven into the two major events
of the last decade (a man-made catastrophe in the form of 9/11 and, and
the out-and-out man-made economic crisis of 2008) right after the
much-talked about dot-com bust of 2000, could dampen the man's spirits.
He continues in his Endeavour of taking forward company in the
information age when businesses the world over are transforming, to
align with the dynamics of people's lives. The access and bandwidth
constraints hindering the growth of internet notwithstanding, he at 63,
is still gunning for Rediff.com to play its part in the most happening
spheres -social networking - the next big thing that is already starting
to make an impact on our lives.
Other Associations
In
addition to shepherding Rediff.com into the 21st century and beyond,
Ajith Balakrishnan has also assumed responsibility of many other
entities. He is also a director of Rediffusion Holdings Private Limited,
Rediffusion Dentsu Young & Rubicam Private Limited, Quintrol
Technologies Private Limited, Rediff Holdings Inc., USA, India Abroad
Publications, Inc., India In New York, Inc., India Abroad Publications
(Canada) Inc., Rediff.com Inc USA and Value Communications Corporation.
Mr. Balakrishnan is also Chairman of the Board of Governors of The
Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Chairman of the Working
Group of Internet Governance set up by the Government of India.
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