ETtechDitch the romantic notions that entrepreneurs are risk-takers and understand that most who are successful in the long run are financially very conservative, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge, told attendees of an annual conference held by the Isha Leadership Academy on Sunday.
In a candid virtual chat with Raman Roy, chairman and managing director at Quatrro BPO Solutions, Bikhchandani, who has built successful businesses such as Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com and 99acres.com, and more recently backed unicorns such as Zomato, said that entrepreneurs don’t take higher risks just because they can.
“Sensible entrepreneurs will take the least risky route to a goal. You understand risk, you know it’s there, you mitigate it, break it down, learn to deal with it and move towards your goals,” said Bikhchandani. “If you are not risk-averse, sooner or later you will flame out and perish. There are far too many uncertainties out there.”
He added that as an entrepreneur in 1990 when he quit his job to embark on an entrepreneurial journey, the biggest risk he took was social in nature, where his peers were earning much better than him, were leading lavish lifestyles, and for ten years after starting up, he couldn’t afford to mingle in the same social circles as his friends.
On the topic of mistakes, Bikhchandani said that making bad business decisions was a part of life, one has to learn to deal with them, but the bigger and more grave mistakes that one should try to avoid making are “people mistakes”.
“The mistakes that you make, which are big ones, are where you misjudge people, on issues of integrity, or on issues of how he or she treats other people,” he said, adding that as an entrepreneur he acknowledges that there were people in Info Edge, who if not individually maybe collectively, contributed to the success of the company more than he did.
In a candid virtual chat with Raman Roy, chairman and managing director at Quatrro BPO Solutions, Bikhchandani, who has built successful businesses such as Naukri.com, Jeevansathi.com and 99acres.com, and more recently backed unicorns such as Zomato, said that entrepreneurs don’t take higher risks just because they can.
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He added that as an entrepreneur in 1990 when he quit his job to embark on an entrepreneurial journey, the biggest risk he took was social in nature, where his peers were earning much better than him, were leading lavish lifestyles, and for ten years after starting up, he couldn’t afford to mingle in the same social circles as his friends.
On the topic of mistakes, Bikhchandani said that making bad business decisions was a part of life, one has to learn to deal with them, but the bigger and more grave mistakes that one should try to avoid making are “people mistakes”.
“The mistakes that you make, which are big ones, are where you misjudge people, on issues of integrity, or on issues of how he or she treats other people,” he said, adding that as an entrepreneur he acknowledges that there were people in Info Edge, who if not individually maybe collectively, contributed to the success of the company more than he did.
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