Enabling Excellence

5 STEPS TO STARTUP SUCCESS

Innovator, startup evangelist and growth enabler, Sasi Kumar Sundararajan wears many hats successfully. Not only is he a platform gig, entrepreneurship-catalyst, guide, mentor and advisor to companies, startups, incubators, accelerators, PE funds and universities, but also deals with areas like Platform Economy, the Future of Work, Industry 4.0, Big Data, Digital Disruption, Startups, Mid-markets, Growth, Sharing Economy and Circular Economy. His extensive experience with PwC, Deloitte and EY as practice leader traverses assorted territory including public, government and private sector: Consulting in Growth, Restructuring, Investments, Technology and Capacity Building across several sectors in India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Bangladesh, the Middle-East, etc.

The pandemic, he believes, has long-lasting lessons to offer, especially when it comes to protecting the startups that will mobilise India towards a glorious future. An ultramarathon runner, he knows the importance of keeping fit. Sasi Kumar Sundararajan stresses on five areas that need to be focussed on – Possibility, Feasibility, Viability, Scalability and Sustainability that every entrepreneur must study and analyse en route to success. This and much more. Read on…

"My experience in the course of the pandemic has been to cope with the rapid changes in corporate thinking and newer ways of working, acquiring new skills and reskilling"

When Sasi Kumar Sundararajan waxes eloquent on the importance of building diverse competencies, staying relevant and learning continuously, most entrepreneurial hopefuls are sure to listen. After all, he walks the talk.

Corporate Citizen: Where did you spend your early years of life?

Sasi Kumar Sundararajan: I hail from the small town of Ramamadhurapuran, Tamil Nadu, close to the well-known city of Rameswaram. What a coincidence that I studied in Schwartz Higher Secondary School, the very same school that shaped the formative years of the former President of India, the much-loved and revered late Dr APJ Kalam. It is run by the local church and is one of the oldest schools in the country.

One of the most enduring facts of my childhood days is that I travelled across the country, thanks to my dad who was in the Army and was posted across India, including remote and unique stations. This was precious exposure indeed.

On completion of my formal schooling from my hometown, I went to Madurai where I pursued a bachelor’s degree in Engineering. My first job was with the auto giant Ashok Leyland in Chennai. Post this stint, I joined Symbiosis and completed my Masters in Labour Law (MLL). In those days, we had the option to complete a dual degree from Symbiosis-an MBA from Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIBM) and MLL from Symbiosis Law College. Both these qualifications complement each other and logically go hand in hand. After my post-graduation, I have been an integral part of the corporate world and have worked in different parts of the country. However, for over two decades now, that is to say, since 2000, I have been posted in Bengaluru.

CC: What was the reason behind doing an MBA after BE? And how did you benefit from these degrees in the corporate world?

The thought of pursuing my MBA came to me during my engineering days. I had the good luck of having an elder brother in the same college. At that time, I was a fresher and he was in the final year, a good three years older than me. This fortunate hierarchy provided me with a lot of opportunities to connect with his batchmates, most of who were busy debating over what to do post-engineering.

There were plenty of discussions with seniors on my career prospects which proved to be a most enriching, thought-provoking exercise. I understood that engineering alone may not be enough to build a long-term, satisfactory career for me. I had to study more and in a focussed way at that. Management education was something that intrinsically interested me, I saw a definite point to it. So, I made up my mind to take up higher studies in the field of management, thereby, building up a profile as a professional of diverse competencies, equipped to take on a wider range of duties.

"Today, you cannot do everything by yourself because it is costly and time-consuming. You should know how to smartly collaborate with people around you in the ecosystem so the time taken to do something is shorter, the cost of doing it is also more economical"

CC: You have worked with several Multinational Companies (MNCs). Do share your experience with us. At the time that you started off, I think getting a job in an MNC was considered a privilege…

Absolutely. I had a senior in Ashok Leyland, guiding me and counselling me, all through the early days of my engineering. He said that learning continuously is very critical for a serious career, and the art of networking and meaningful social relations are important for both personal and professional growth.

Both these learnings have helped me all through. I entered PricewaterhouseCoopers through a network. I was looking out for a meaningful and instructive internship during my MBA days. So, one day, I walked into their Chennai office and said: “I am a student from Symbiosis, Pune. I am looking for an internship post my MBA. Is there someone who I can talk to and get to know about the opportunities in PwC?” The receptionist was kind enough to put me in touch with such a gentleman. He was helpful and instructive.

I spoke to him for around 30 minutes and he gave me his business card. Please note, this was in the late 1990s; back then, e-mailing was far from the common or routine mode of correspondence that it is today. The face to face meeting helped.

I kept in touch with the gentleman I had met at the PwC. Even though four years had passed and it was now 2001, we were connecting through emails regularly. I made it a point to update him on what I was doing. Being in touch with him via emails and spending those 30 minutes of interaction led me to join PwC.

One day, he said to me: There are a few opportunities in Bengaluru. So, why don’t you come by my office and meet the leadership? I was in Chennai at that time and I travelled to Bengaluru and met their head. He asked me about my aspirations to work in consulting; I shared my thoughts and that’s how my journey started. Therefore, I repeat: networking and keeping in touch with people is critical. What I was doing, frankly, was unconditional networking. This was not something with an expectation that I would gain some benefit out of it. However, it’s a universally proven principle: you can choose to be helpful to somebody and somebody will also be helpful to you in turn. It’s a healthy, two-way relationship. This approach has worked all through my career.

Space and respect for each other

In a rapid fire question, Shivali Sundarajan speaks eloquently about life, marriage, children upbringing and her own philosophy of life

CC: They say, ‘behind every successful man is a woman.’ What role have you played in the success of Mr Sasi Kumar?

Shivali: It’s simple, you just enable and encourage your spouse to pursue what he/she is good at.

CC: You creatively utilise your time through cooking, interior designing, landscaping and events. How did you get interested in these, and how do you pursue them?

I have nurtured my interest in these areas from my school days and am just continuing as I enjoy the process.

CC: How do you manage your work-life balance?

Finding the time to connect with friends and taking quick breaks are something that I do to balance work and life.

CC: When did you meet Sasi Kumar and how did the relationship build up?

We met in 2003 in Agra through a common friend/relative and had a courtship for some time before getting married.

CC: What are your thoughts on a successful marriage?

Time, space and respect for your spouse.

CC: Please share your ideas on parenting.

Child upbringing should focus on value systems and encouragement to pursue one’s passion. At the same time, parents and children should enjoy a good friendship. We are facilitative parents and encourage our kids to pursue good purpose with passion and a sound value system.

CC: What is your idea about women’s empowerment? Do you think women are still given a raw deal in our society or do you think otherwise?

This is a complex question given the cultural outlook in our country. But it is a function of ensuring women get the choice, time, space and support to pursue their passion.

CC: Please tell us your philosophy of life in three to four sentences.

Prioritise your inner self. Try to stay positive and happy. Eat healthy food. Travel as much as you can.

"If somebody is building a new concept, I help them build a Minimum Viable Product from an idea to a Minimum Viable Product in the accepted market"

CC: When you were in PwC, what kind of exposure did you manage to garner as a young student manager who had just passed out of college?

I had four years of experience before I entered the Consulting Sector. What I love about the culture and feel of PwC is its positivity. It provided you with a very valuable and open culture of learning, exposure and networking.

I started off with a lot of work around the energy sectors reform in the country-a popular thing to be doing in those days. There was a huge requirement around the country to turn things around and make them profitable as well as ensure they emerged as a good service provider. To that end, I had the fortune of working for a number of states in the country. From Industry to Infrastructure to Urban Development and Tourism, various sectors were going through a major transformation in the early 2000s. This was a great time to be a part of such a process as it required you to work with the government in policy-making.

What’s more, this was a time when the open market was still evolving because telecom had just come in; there were no private players. Things were heavily regulated and dominated by government players. We had to work with a lot of regulators who were defining the roles of various players as well as the concept of what constitutes a fair business practice. It was an immense learning curve as the country was itself growing and I was lucky enough to be a part of that enormous wave.

CC: What was your designation and role at the PwC?

I joined as a consultant in PwC at the entry-level position and spent around 10 years with them. When I left the PwC, I was a Practice Leader who led the practice for social sector advisory service which was in software infrastructure like education, skill development, health sector, industry development and rural development.

My work involved interacting with a mix of stakeholders. At one end, you have government and regulators, at the other are private sector players, NGOs and investors. It is an enriching and useful exposure for any professional. In the corporate sector, typically, you get assigned certain sets of clients and a limited sector. For me, it just so happened that I had a wider canvas to play around with and learn from. At Deloitte, I did the same and built a practice from similar areas of consulting. Then I moved to Ernst & Young (EY) and repeated what I was doing at Deloitte. I was a leader for practice advising clients not just in India but also in neighbouring countries.

CC: At what point in time did you start an independent consulting organisation?

I did that four years back, in 2017. I moved out of my corporate career and became an entrepreneur myself.

CC: Which was your last job?

My last job was at Ernst and Young. I worked there for five years between 2012-2017. I was the Practice Leader for Economic Development Advisory. In 2017, I was getting some opportunities to look at global postings; that is when I thought let me do something on my own, which was brewing within me for a long time. So, I decided to become an entrepreneur and leverage my learning in the startup ecosystem. I also became a mentor as well, to a number of companies. There has been no looking back ever since. I have founded two companies apart from advising a bunch of startups in assorted stages of their growth trajectory.

"My advice to entrepreneurs would be to look at the five areas of possibility, feasibility, viability, scalability and sustainability. If you consider and study all of these in-depth, there is a high likelihood of your venture doing very well"

CC: Without a doubt, your startup consultancy is so rich and diverse, right from food tech to fintech to edutech. Do tell us more.

I have worked across these sectors whatever the technology. Earlier, technology was kind of stand-alone and was considered a vertical. Today technology is horizontal too.

The digital phenomenon has been happening across the sectors. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to work in many of them from a sectorial consulting point of view. Over the last few years, technology adaptations have been very significant. That’s when I thought let me leverage the combination of sector knowledge and technology knowledge that I have imbibed over the years to help these companies.

As far as the startup ecosystem is concerned, my work consists of evaluating brighter ideas that can be scaled up. To that end, I have worked with a few incubators and accelerators who run periodic campaigns to source and identify promising startups and help them in funding and growth. I am a part of the entire mechanism of outreach evaluation to identifying and handholding those bright startups.

The second thing that I do is one-on-one with certain startups depending upon the stage they are in. For instance, if somebody is building a new concept, I help them build a Minimum Viable Product from an idea to a Minimum Viable Product in the accepted market. We discuss the trajectory they should follow and address the question of how to build a product with the fundamental principles of meeting customers which in itself is dynamic. The other part of support includes help with collaboration and partnerships. Today, you cannot do everything by yourself because it is costly and time-consuming. You should know how to smartly collaborate with people around you in the ecosystem so the time taken to do something is shorter, the cost of doing it is also more economical. In short, this is how startup companies can leverage time and cost factors in building a product and reaching out to the market.

For example, if you want to go to a market, building a full-fledged marketing team is expensive and time-consuming. Things get easier if you identify your value chain, all the partners with whom they can work with, how you can partner with those with a complementary product. This is a very interesting approach that is evolving now and I am helping a number of companies on strategic partnerships and collaboration so they go to the market faster, target the clients more effectively and so on.

I also help in Intellectual Property Rights or IPR management. When you build a product, it is an important intellectual property to be protected adequately. Whether it is copyright, trademark or patent-it’s a sensitive ground for companies to cover. A lot of organisations do not have the ability and the competency to protect their Intellectual Property Rights, which is rather risky. These are some of the areas where I have worked with startups across various sectors.

CC: Am I right in surmising that you deal with young entrepreneurs?

To a large extent, yes. The reason being, if you look at the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem, the significant chunk of it would comprise young entrepreneurs-age-wise, experience-wise and exposure wise. But increasingly, people with a good amount of industry experience are coming out too. They comprise mid-career professionals who have reached a stage of stagnation or nurture an innate desire to discover themselves. While young talent brings in a lot of bright and promising ideas, it is equally important for seasoned professionals to become entrepreneurs as well. This is because their experience is able to validate their ideas and provide a smarter approach to building an organisation because they have been there, done that. Thus, when you have a mix of entrepreneurs, it actually contributes to the overall benefit of the ecosystem.

CC: What is your advice to young entrepreneurs who are not as seasoned as their seniors?

There are a lot of positives to becoming an entrepreneur if you educate yourself on the pragmatic dimensions of it as well. To begin with, you need to carefully size up your risk element. The first thing that you’ve got to take in your stride is the opportunity cost of not being a secure, salaried professional anymore. Accept that you are not going to be paid for a very long time, a few years, perhaps. All in the name of the future possibility of earning well.

So, income security is something people must be very mindful of. Without assessing income security, please do not take the plunge. Anyone who wants to become an entrepreneur must put themselves through this system of checks and balances.

What’s more, look at the worst-case scenario. How will you manage to sustain yourself without a regular monthly income? Also, how would you secure your family’s lifestyle, their requirements for another two years because although you are feeding them now, the feeding part will soon stop as the level of the reservoir of resources becomes lower.

Thus, as an entrepreneurial hopeful, you must ask yourself: Do I have sufficient savings and resource pools? So far you have become dependent on your income. Now, your turning into an entrepreneur will change things. Secure yourself and your family in such a way that you manage to sustain and hold on for at least two years.

Do the basic math: how many resources do you have? Can you identify two or three founders to back you to bring in diversity and greatly bring down your risk level as it is being shared across all of you? Thus, the negative impact or loss per person is minimised.

The other aspect that an innovator must look at is a possibility. Ask yourself, how compelling or possible is the idea that has struck you? Importantly, is it feasible? Which brings us to an interesting question-what exactly is the difference between possibility and feasibility? A possibility is a prospect that has not yet materialised. This prospect will take shape only if it is feasible-a word that denotes the technical likelihood of a dream taking shape. For instance, the feasibility of a restaurant or a hotel to provide takeaway parcels to customers within a radius.

The third fundamental aspect to be analysed is viability. Sure enough, it may be possible but first, is it free of technical glitches and secondly, is it profitable? Thirdly, is it profitable enough to sustain in the long run? Once you have the third stage of viability within reach, that’s when you need to look at scalability.

"If you know your core strengths well, whatever be the worst-case scenario, you will know how to leverage your strength to your advantage. This is very important-as individuals, families and societies-to introspect on our core strengths-which is what will deliver us from tough times and uncertain scenarios"

CC: What is currently viable may not be scalable due to several reasons. Does the business have the inherent opportunity to scale up?

The next stage is that every business has to be ahead of its curve-a distinct player with sustainability. A sustainable business asks itself the following questions: What kind of impact will we have on the planet? Will we leave a carbon footprint that will adversely affect the environment? This is a responsibility that no serious entrepreneur may shrug off today.

To sum up, my advice to entrepreneurs would be to look at the five areas of possibility, feasibility, viability, scalability and sustainability. If you consider and study all of these in-depth, there is a high likelihood of your venture doing very well.

CC: What has been the impact on startups due to the Covid-19 pandemic?

Like the rest of the economy, the startup ecosystem has been heavily hit for many reasons. Most of them did not envisage this scenario and plan for it. Why just them, even established businesses did not foresee the pandemic or gear up for it. However, bigger businesses did have the resource pools to be able to sustain longer. But a lot of startups struggled and in fact, many of them wound up because they were not able to sustain a running business in the absence of revenues with a significant cost factor. Thus, the impact has been very heavy in the startup ecosystem. Barring the heavily & moderately-funded companies, most players lost out.

The silver lining on the grey clouds of the worldwide economic crisis is that there has been significant learning on the importance of building shock absorbers for tough terrain-much in the same way that there is health insurance for individuals and crop insurance for agriculturists. It is very necessary for startups to have some kind of a mechanism to absorb these kinds of shocks-this is something that we ought to be thinking about on a national level. The risk mitigation for unforeseen events like the pandemic needs to be thought through at a policy level. These protective mechanisms are hugely necessary to protect businessmen. After all, entrepreneurs are the catalysts of change, they generate value and employment. Right from inspiration, innovation, job creation, disruption to newer and better ways of doing business, all these are contributions coming from entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship needs to be encouraged and protected with the ability to absorb risk to a reasonable extent. Sure enough, there is no such thing as 100 per cent protection against risk, but creating an environment for businesses to ride out the storm will make the all-important difference between their life and death.

CC: On your professional and personal level, what has been the impact of Covid-19 on you?

Truth be told, this has been an intense and interesting time for me. As the pandemic unfolded, I realised how important it is for industries and organisations in societies and communities to build the ability to cope with uncertainty. Unfortunately, across the board, we have not yet successfully built that ability. We have continued to live within our comfort zones for way too long-and the pandemic has proved to be the proverbial moment of reckoning.

Personally speaking, my experience in the course of the pandemic has been to cope with the rapid changes in corporate thinking and newer ways of working, acquiring new skills and reskilling. I have gained critical knowledge along the way-something that is going to be ever-necessary in a rapidly changing world. At the same time, I think it is very important to stay focussed on your core strengths. If you know your core strengths well, whatever be the worst-case scenario, you will know how to leverage your strength to your advantage. This is very important-as individuals, families and societies-to introspect on our core strengths-which is what will deliver us from tough times and uncertain scenarios.

Another area of our lives to be considered, acknowledged and respected is our health. Whoever you are, and however lofty your aspirations, the vehicle to fulfil them is through a healthy body, sound mind and emotional stability. I am reasonably active when it comes to sports and physical activity.

"A student of finance, for instance, definitely ought to know something about the latest perspectives of CFOs around the world. Someone who is studying HR should be updated on the latest buzzwords and hotly debated topics of conversation"

CC: What is your opinion on MBA education in India today?

MBA education has evolved over a period of time. There’s a huge difference between the way the programme was conducted two-and-a-half decades ago and today. That said, I still feel there’s scope to improve and change even more. Here’s why: even the graduates from the finest business schools are not employable from the outset. No organisation gets a productive asset from day one. Instead, they have to invest anywhere between several weeks and months to make these people productive enough to be leveraged for business. The reason for this is that there is a huge gap between the reality of what the business needs and what is being taught.

On one side there is so much knowledge that is available freely. On the other hand, people don’t know how to leverage it. If you look at a student studying MBA Marketing, he has to grapple with changes happening with every quarter. The information is in the open-if only it reached the student. Different companies bring out their insights on the state of business. For example, Deloitte brings out the State of Marketing. Then there’s Marketing Trends by Gallup. These companies provide so much insight into the hard-core realities of the business world. Despite their efforts, what amount of that relevant information is being made available and embedded for a student to use? Very little, despite the fact that it’s an entirely correctable lacuna. A great pity to be sure because there is so much to learn from successful professionals in the field. A student of finance, for instance, definitely ought to know something about the latest perspectives of CFOs around the world. Someone who is studying HR should be updated on the latest buzzwords and hotly debated topics of conversation. The content and knowledge are freely available but business schools and students have to leverage that. It is possible to do so with some effort.

CC: Please tell us a bit about your family?

My wife Shivali takes a lot of interest in training people in the art of cooking. She is also a passionate interior decorator and makes some gorgeous candles apart from developing a beautiful home garden. These are her passions and interests and she does a fabulous job of balancing them along with the pressures of bringing up young children. Our son Mayank is in class IX while our daughter Sanvi is in class VI. They are studying in Bengaluru. As for the older members in the family, my parents live in Tamil Nadu and in my-laws live in Hubli, Karnataka.

CC: Please tell us about your passion for running the ultra-marathon.

A full marathon requires participants to run a distance of 42.2 km. A half marathon, on the other hand, is a distance of 21.1 km. An ultramarathon is any distance that extends beyond 42.2 km.

I have been a runner right from my school days. But long-distance running happened in 2010. I happened to meet up with a friend of mine who was also into long-distance running. I started running with his group, picked up the pace and completed a lot of marathons around the country.

Several marathons are organised around Mumbai; I have participated in the erstwhile Standard Chartered Marathon, which later became the TCS marathon. I have also run in the Pondicherry, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Coimbatore marathons. As I ran more and more, I aspired to up the ante: after all, there are super fit people who last well beyond these distances. And that’s how the passion for running ultradistances came to be. To that end, I have challenged myself over long and arduous distances such as the 80 km morning to evening run near Chikmagalur-a hugely demanding experience that required runners to cross multiple hills but one that helped us discover hidden reservoirs of strength within. Up North, I have also run from a place called Kaza in Spiti Valley, all the way up to the Rohtang pass. My friends and I came together to take up this particular challenge. We covered 170 km starting at 12,900 feet above sea level up to 15,000 feet plus. Absolutely exhilarating.

What I like about the ultradistance runs is that it helps the runner push boundaries physically, mentally and emotionally. You go deep inside yourself to realise how much potential is yet to be tapped. It is almost like meditation for me.

CC: What is the philosophy of life that you live by?

My philosophy of life is straightforward and simple enough: growth in all aspects of life. Growth has multiple dimensions. Getting to know people, learning new things, enriching myself intellectually and emotionally along with the ability to help others and making an impact are all part of the growth process and a part of my day-to-day life. I enjoy it very much, it keeps me going.