The below video is an example of how it would be if a person who has zero entrepreneurship knowledge/experience talks about entrepreneurship.
It is a speech by Gopinath (compere at Vijay TV) at SSCET College, Palani.
He says "The person who is talking is an Indian, the mike is not made from India. This is shameful".
What is shameful about it? This is globalization. Yes globalization has killed local entrepreneurs. If every country has to develop everything and supply everything this planet would soon be a heap of scrap.
The other point is who should be shameful here? Goldspot is no more available, Coke and Pepsi killed it. But who has to be shameful for this? The infrastructure and tax policies of this nation are absolute enemies for entrepreneurship.
Manufacturing and importing a skipping rope from China is cheaper than locally manufacturing it. Why is that? It is because of the several tax levied at suppliers end, transport and taxes after that. So obviously the MRP increases.
If someone has tried setting up a small business he would have known the challenges and bureaucracies and what a peaceful life it is to go for a 5 day job.
My father put it in simple words "Business is like catching a tail of a tiger. You cant leave it, you have to be constantly on the watch". How many people have that kind of perseverance?
Entrepreneurship is not something that everyone wants to bite. And why is it shameful to be employees? Without employees, where is entrepreneurship? An entrepreneur who looks down at employment can never understand the value of the employees he is employing. Once that is not there, the business is set to fail.
He talks "self-esteem" as an esteemed value required for youngsters.
Successful businessman and entrepreneurs do not need self-esteem. On the contrary, they need to understand the market needs and how to capitalize on it. If you have self-esteem and ego you are not going to be down to earth to understand realities.
First of all why do you look down at employment? Sincere, skilled and talented employees are as much required as entrepreneurs in this nation. What is the use of a country with all bosses?
Such idiots who become entrepreneurs because they look down at employment / employees only will become Hari Sadus, not a blessing to anyone, leave alone the nation.
He also says "It is an injustice to the country if we just be employees/labourers and not do businesses with all this intelligence". One side of the coin is that if there are not so many employees, where can you compulsorily collect the taxes? In some businesses, there is this black/white or whatever the color of money is in vogue these days. But in employment it is "Ala" white money that goes directly to feed this government not necessarily with the consent of the employee.
On the other side, if you go to a bank and pledge your intelligence do you get loan? There are VCs and angel investors. But how many can actually get through them? How friendly and encouraging is the nation towards entrepreneurship? So if one does not want to do some "vetti pechu" and actually want to work for the upliftment of the nation, one would work towards bringing support for entrepreneurship or be an entrepreneur and set a role model.
He says "It is an injustice to the college and the parents". Do I even have to nullify this idiotic statement? Which parent is encouraging their child to start a business right after college? And college, what do they teach about entrepreneurship? In fact, are they even producing employable if not capable engineers?
The heights is here "We should have more self-esteem to develop more products". What are the essential qualities for one to develop more products? From my limited knowledge I would say common sense of application, product knowledge, capable resources, marketing and sales expertise. What to do with this "upuku peradha" self-esteem?
He says " We are still being ruled inside by the White men though they have left our country". Oh if he is such a "true Indian" and wants to remove all blemishes left by the westerners, why does he cut his hair? (Cutting the hair in that style is sure western). First of all, pants and shirts are not meant for this climate and not of Indian origin. So why does he wear a western costume? This is hypocricy to put it bluntly. If you yourself cannot leave a western influence, you should not talk about it.
Ok I don't know whose purse he had tried stealing. Rs.3000 worth of cosmetics is not there in any of my friends or my known circle of women. This is exaggeration to the brim.
Why are we having cars, mobiles, etc not manufactured from India? Tata cars are indegeniously "designed" in india. However they are not manufactured in India. The reason for it is the economies of scale which the chinese manufacturers have. China, you like it or not, is 20 years ahead of India in its economic path. However, they have their own set of problems. Instead, we should acknowledge the fact that our engineers and designers are designing vehicles not just for the indian market but also the US market and even the US Military. Do you know that Tata Nano was appreciated all across the globe? It is the first car that is both affordable and safe.
Several of Google's products, Adobe's products and Microsoft products are built by Indians in the US and in India. There are companies in India like MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, RedBus, TicketNow, Burrp and a bunch of other software companies that are making their mark in the domestic market. But as an entrepreneur, we know how difficult it is to build and market a product in India. I would in fact argue that Indians are sufficiently entrepreneurial. If the government and the administrative bodies get the hell out of the way, the country would be much better. For example, software services rendered to indian clients attract a 10.3% service tax which is double taxed on TDS. However, rendering the services to US or Europe on higher margins is tax free. This is just plain stupid. Till such inconsistencies are rectified in terms of policies it is a great challenge for entrepreneurs.
But his answer is like a kindergarden's story of "pulla pudikravan varan". Guess what is his answer? "because the outside developed nations are subduing India's growth." Huh.
The height of comedy was when he proclaimed 72% of world community's favourite food is "masala dosa". This sounded like Dove or Pantene proclaiming their results with a highly skewed sample set.
I get his point. Yes he is wishing murugan's idli shop to be international and some competitors for the same. This is a good product to be marketed. If he has such a great idea for business, why doesn't he start it and serve as a role model instead of urging the college students to sell idlis while he is happily employed as a compere in Vijay TV? That is the point I didn't get :-)
Well I am not a fan of patents personally. Patents are meant for blood sucking insects to find the holes on how to kill competition. It does not remotely support or encourage innovation or entrepreneurship. If some idiots are patenting rice, turmeric, tulasi should we go boycott it and challenge the idiocy or go ahead and prove to be one in the clan?
Let's create history. Ok I was there with him for that one bit and there came the next blast "bring the animal inside you." Oh did humans evolve to bring animals out? What an absolute irresponsible idiotic statement to say in a crowd of students! And by the way what a gross misquote of Vivekananda. "Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached" was not said to awaken the animal. It was meant to awaken the human if not the divine in you. Already humanity is dying, divinity is unheard of and everyone is turning as materialistic and individualistic as possible in the history of mankind. At this stage, what a call for the nation! I am sorry for the permanently/temporarily damaged brains who had sincerely listened to this speech and got brainwashed to become animals.
Yes these people are the ambassadors of India. But why do you need to have the pride and arrogance? Pride, arrogance and prejudice are taught as idiotic values right in your kindergarden. Why is he preaching these as great values here? Oh! Probably he is a rival to modesty, humility as it is shown in his body language and speech. He started his speech with the word "Tamizhan". Has he heard of "Adakkam amararul vuykum adangamai aarirul vuythu vidum"? or "Katrathu kaimannalavu kallaathathu ulagalavu". Where is the question of pride when one is realized of the fact that there is so much more to know. A learning and thirsty mind will innovate, not an arrogant and a proud head!
I would admire a person who is quietly doing his job, eating and dying rather than such idiots coming and tarnishing the growth of this nation with these misguided values and wrong perception of growth.
Lastly, in order not to be grossly misunderstood by the fans of this proud and prejudistic empty vessel, I would like to clarify that I understand and agree that entrepreneurship is required for the growth of this nation. But the values associated, examples given and the tone and derogation in the speech is just highly inappropriate and misguiding.
First of all, a college student does not have the required skills or an exposure to start a business. It is already so difficult for an experienced professional to set up and run a business. Where does an average college student stand a chance here? (I am not talking about the outliers). It is not shameful or low for a student to get to employment. It is the most sensible and safest option to get exposure which is not known till then.
India needs new businesses and businesses which are successful in the domestic context but the problem is not with entrepreneurs or with students. It is with the administrative system. If you need more startups and businesses, create an atmosphere that encourages it. Startups and businesses will anyway happen. In this capitalistic framework of our society, entrepreneurship is one of the ways we express our human creativity. As long as the government does not steal from businesses, business will do well. Why should I pay TDS for the money that I am yet to pay myself? Why are there no tax holidays for a startup in the first few years of operation? Why is TDS deducted for the Service tax I am paying? Why does a government charge a penalty and interest on Service Tax when it takes years to refund TDS and it refunds without interest? Ridiculously from this year onwards Service tax is on invoicing and not on receipt of payment. This means I have to pay tax for the money I may not even get or get quite late. Why are there frequent powercuts that affect the business? Why are there no incubator offices to support startups provided by the government? Why is online recurring billing made so annoyingly difficult or impossible in case of credit cards? I need to start a company in US inorder to have a recurring billing as there is no way in India to do that. It is impossible to setup the following businesses in India. Google appstore, itunes, Google adsense or ad products, amazon ec2 or Linode or any other VPS based business models. Why is it taking ages for technologies such as 3G and 4G to come to India? Why is bandwidth in India so costly? Why are there bandwidth caps for domestic and business usage? Why are leased lines so expensive and unreliable? These are just a few operational issues in our line of business operating solely out of India. Manufacturing industries has its own set of woes.
The problem in this nation is not with the silent job-goers who take care of their family. The problems are these kind of "aravekaadus" who know nothing and still talk all the nonsense and wrongly influence and tarnish the society. The very fact that the college has invited such a "TV personality" to address the students instead of an accomplished entrepreneur for a talk on entrepreneurship speaks for the college's quality.
Valid points all..
ReplyDeleteWe talk of so much of innovation in US and startups in US; this has been possible because there is a huge local market first. Unless Indian Government gets out of the way, and make it easy for startups for the local market also to flourish, we can't come to the level of US. In spite of all these issues bearing down on Indians, entrepreneurship in India is doing better than what one can expect - this has to be appreciated.