Not sure when to call it quits as an entrepreneur? NR Narayana Murthy reveals the secret in a candid chat with Kunal Bahl

To a founder, the business is his/her child. Failure isn't an option. The only way is up. But there comes a time when one is forced to make difficult decisions.

Father of India's IT sector NR Narayana Murthy, who co-founded Infosys, also had a moment to make one such tough decision.

In a candid interaction with entrepreneur-investor Kunal Bahl, Murthy shared the first time his first business failed.


In 1976, the 76-year-old returned from Paris with dreams in his eyes to become an entrepreneur. He started a company, called Softronics. Within nine months, he knew it was time to shut the operations and closed down his business.

"I realised there was no market for services in India at that time because India had very few computers, and most of them were in government organisations. I know that I won't be successful," NRN told Bahl in the four-minute-long video.

Titan Capital's official LinkedIn page shared a snippet of the video from the 2023 Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum.


According to Murthy, one of the key aspects to build a business is to have the ability to evolve, change and pivot the plan as needed. Time and again, he has stressed that it is important to learn quick lessons from failures and be able to recognise symptoms of failure early on. Murthy has always told aspiring entrepreneurs to never be attached or fall in love with an idea and have the ability to give up on it when the time comes.

So when the time came, Bahl quickly asked Murthy, "How does one decide when to give up and when to continue to build and fight? For an entrepreneur who is fully invested in his start-up, when does s/he know it's time to call it quits?"

NRN quipped, "Good question! I am not smart enough to give a general answer. However, I will try to share my own experience."

The Infy founder said that an entrepreneur should keep looking for "structural weaknesses" in his organisation. "If you find that there is a structural weakness in your idea - as far as the market is concerned - it is time to give up. A structural weakness is one over which you have no way of finding a solution. No matter what sacrifices you make, or hard work you put in or what team you have, you will not be able to overcome it," he told Bahl.

Talking about Softronics, which failed to take flight, Murthy said, "I knew that there would not be a change in the policies of the Government of India to allow the import of modern computers into the country in the private sector. I had no way to influence the government (not that I wanted to). But, this was my structural weakness. It can come in form of technology, talent and processes. That's when I gave up Softronic," he added.

The duo were talking at the 31st Nasscom TLF held in Feb-March this year. The title of their discussion was 'Building a Resilient Organisation that Scales Beyond Founders'.