Tuesday, August 30, 2011

eWIT – Do what you love :)

It was indeed an inspirational last week…Came across Steve Jobs video http://on.ted.com/9bj6. Explained to my 6 year old couple of key lessons from his video for her age as (i)Do what you love ! and (ii)Do things only if YOU want to do and not because someone else asks you to do

And she began to narrate a story her class teacher had told – The fox and sheep fable where a fox fell into a well and the passing sheep too falls into the well listening to cunning fox’s words and how finally the fox escapes from the well by climbing over the sheep and sheep is finally left stranded. Moral of the story she said was that – We should do things only if we want to do and not because someone else like the fox asks to do. Oooff…Children do grow up too fast !!

It was Aug 23rd 2011 and it was the eWIT(http://www.ewit.co.in/) monthly meet. Landmark’s founder Hemu Ramaish was the speaker and she was to talk on the topic “Bring out the Entrepreneur in You“

Wow ! It was a great feeling for Srividya, Nandhini and myself to go to a community meeting where atleast 85 % were women:) . It happened within the city too opposite to the Anna centenary Library !

Overall Hemu’s speech showed the amount of subject matter expertise she had based on one core concept – “her liking for books”. Here are some of the key lessons that I learnt from her speech


  • Measure what you want to do in your own space
  • No need to be a topper to become an entrepreneur (I liked this !!)
  • Do not do something because of latest trends
  • Stay in space that you Enjoy or Excel (Hemu always liked books and was used to libraries and decided her work was definitely going to be around books)
  • Do what YOU want to do
  • Trust your gut
  • As you draft your business plan also plan for an exit plan (At 50 no matter what we have sell it was her decision)
  • Pick up one feature that is different and cannot replicated
  • In personal life depends on how convinced and determined we are with our lives that others will change to adjust to us
  • If you have an idea, have a business plan and nail it till the base unit. Account for risk and whether you will be able to manage it
  • Attend courses in topics where we think we are not comfortable or get a partner to complement (like how Hemu married a CA :) because she was not so comfortable with numbers as she says !)

Am sure I am going to see Landmark in a new paradigm the next time I visit the place !!

Currently among the many things she does Hemu also runs the “Chennai angels” whose inspiring caption is Nurturing Passion, Mentoring Success :)

Next speaker was LS Ganesh Sir from IIT Entrepreneurship cell. Below are the key lessons from his speech


  • All progress depends on unreasonable person (Really liked this ;) )
  • Our efforts needs to be Purposeful, directed and Persistent
  • Entrepreneurs are of 2 kinds – Pioneer Entrepreneur (with a unique concept) or” Me too “entrepreneur with a slightly different variation to an existing concept
  • An aspiring entrepreneur needs to possess
  • Competence/be persistent/risk taking capability
  • Energy - Need to have both physical and mental energy
  • Expertise - Complement strengths and form good teams – people skills
  • Enthusiasm or passion
  • Effort or hard work
  • Empowered – No power can stop you
  • Endurance - Do you have it in you!


After the session (which we really did not want to end ) Ganesh Sir was also so patiently listening to our questions and giving us advice. Guess this is also another form of social outreach – giving away knowledge for free :)

Overall it was a very inspiring session and we parted with the thoughts – No matter what “Do what we love and follow our intuition and Gut”

Thanks to eWIT for organizing these meets. Look forward to much more.

2 comments:

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    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Suresh for your kind comments

    ReplyDelete