Volume 21, Number 1 Article by Suresh Bhagavatula March, 2009
Managing Networks for Entrepreneurial Success: Discussion
While networks are indispensable for entrepreneurial success, to be successful, entrepreneurs must put their networks to good use. Prof Suresh Bhagavatula's academic perspective maps the interplay between social and human capital which influences the opportunity recognition and resource mobilisation processes in networks. The concepts and issues raised in the academic note were animated by the round table discussion in which entrepreneurs shared their experiences of networking.
Through the experience gained in his many business ventures the business centre, Golden Square; E Club, a closed peer group of entrepreneurs; Business Gyan, a Bangalore business handbook aimed at filling the gap in the B2B marketing space; BusinessGyan.com and space4groups.com which make use of the Internet for professional networking; and Mentorsquare, an online platform for connecting entrepreneurs with mentors, Balaji Pasumarthy asserts the importance of systematic networks and different kinds of networks those with family and friends,with closed groups and with large communities.The right networks are very important in building trust and confidence.
Nirmala Sankaran,cofounder of HeyMath,a technology based,curriculum oriented online programme that provides teachers and students access to high quality teaching pedagogies and assessment resources,shared the stages in the development of a highly successful product which began as a quest to solve the problem of the global shortage of Mathematics teachers by a group which had little experience in education.The challenges included building academic and domain expertise,defining the user and positioning the product,identifying a pilot market and then scaling the business, coming up with an India strategy as well as a consumer model.A diverse network that included subject experts,teachers,parents,schools,students and former classmates helped develop the product while also providing an ecosystem to deal with conflicts and personal challenges.
Ashwin Mahesh, CEO and Co-founder of Mapunity, a social technology company that builds technology and solutions for civil society organisations engaged in development problems, shared the different milestones in the establishment of Mapunity, the company in itself being the network. In the process of co editing India Together,a free,online public affairs magazine (which now has 140,000 monthly readers, growing at 35% annually),Dr Mahesh developed an empathetic network of development groups in the country, where partnerships and commitments are based on trust and shared objectives,including with Egovernments Foundation (Egov), Bangalore, which led eventually to Mapunity.Dr Mahesh considers the expansion and strengthening of the people network around him as the core value that he can add.
For K A Srinivasan and his friends who started their first company in 1998, with little experience and no idea of what they wanted except to change the world, it was their mutual trust, some serendipity and very conscious, purpose-based networking that kept them going till in 2008, the same group co-founded Amagi, a media startup. Their pointers on networking for start-ups are that strong networks are very critical in finding co-founders, initial hires and customers; pre-existing social networks are very useful for non-core areas; the right advisor is critical and could be the gateway to the right networks; and that clear, purpose-based networking is more critical than building a generic networking base.
The discussion also revealed that networks are constantly changing in size and complexity, expanding across geographies, and different networks become important in different stages in the life cycle of a company. Further, networks are the affiliative byproducts of associated interests and cannot be built and nurtured artificially
Reprint No 09105b
