When professors turn entrepreneurs

How many of us became doctors, engineers or artists simply because of a school teacher who displayed faith in our abilities and inspired us? We remember them because we owe them a large part of our professional success. However, the tables have turned here. We showcase three powerful thinkers (and professors), who not only kindled dreams in their students’ minds, but also ventured out into their own businesses. Read on to know how these professors-turned-entrepreneurs realised their dreams.

Dr Vijay Chandru

Dr Vijay Chandru CEO, Strand Life Sciences, who taught Computer Science at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) before founding Strand Life Sciences, India’s first life sciences informatics company in October 2000.

He believes: Reinvention is the key and that requires a complete submission of one’s ego to become a student again. When an academician sets up a business venture, how much of it is for innovation and how much of it is for business?

“When we, a group of four IISc computer science professors (the others being Ramesh Hariharan, Swami Manohar and V Vinay) embarked on our ‘entrepreneurial journey’ in 2000-01, we launched two companies; Strand Life Sciences and PicoPeta Simputers.

“With the latter, it was a case of wanting to take our invention – the Simputer - and a host of innovations in software to the market. Strand’s objective was to unearth value from the cutting-edge of decision sciences and algorithmic solutions applied to target and drug discovery. From a business perspective, it seemed really absurd that drug discovery should be such an expensive trial-and-error process, when so much data and information about biological and biochemical systems is now available. There seemed a clear opportunity for smart computer scientists to make a difference!

“Yes, there were challenges. Understanding both the scientific and market opportunities from a distance wasn’t very easy. Our work doesn’t have enough of a market in India. But my 20 years of interaction at knowledge centers like IBM’s T J Watson Research Center, MIT, IISc, gave me access to an enormous network of very talented people.

“I guess that the propensity to take risk is inherently there in an educationist. I took a lot of reputation risks to work in inter-disciplinary topics every 7-8 years, learned to write proposals, raise funds for my research and lab, etc.”

Dr. Sankaran P Raghunathan.

He teaches International Management at Universitas 21 and is the founder of Blueshift Inc., an information systems services company. An entrepreneur since his school days, Dr. Sankaran’s ventured into five start-ups since 1974.

He believes: In business, it is the mundane and not the esoteric that makes money. I start businesses to see how my ideas succeed. The kick that I get is more from such a success than from the money that I make.

“It was around 1991 that we started Blueshift. When all nine founders met in the US, our vision, back then, was to start a company in which NRIs would invest in dollars, start operations using Indian resources that are inexpensive and export the output to earn in dollars. It so happened that we started a software company, because that is what we knew. An educationist can see opportunities when others don’t! My work in the area of strategy lets me offer frameworks for understanding an opportunity and turn it into reality.

“My teaching career in the US helped. US universities encourage professors to be involved in the clinical side of their fields of specialisation. So there was no bar on my starting a company. This is the difference between being a professor here in India versus being a professor in the US. The daunting part was and continues to be, people and money. Two things that I learnt – never run out of gas (read money) and pick the right team (read people).
As for the future, I plan to sell white shirts on the web and become the biggest seller of white shirts in the world.”

Dr. Kumar N Sivarajan

Dr. Kumar N Sivarajan, former Associate Professor in the Electrical Communication Engineering Department, IISc and now co-founder and CTO, Tejas Network.

He believes: Branding is not selling; it’s about understanding market needs and then working towards evangelising a product that would fit in.

“The transition from one world to the other wasn’t easy. Challenges assume different facets, the first one being the task of doing something new, and then measuring it in business parlance. For instance, Tejas is into telecom products – a segment that already exists. So we have to be standard compliant and at the same time, bring in value addition by innovating within a certain boundary.

“My colleagues across the world, especially in the Silicon Valley, were jumping into their own start ups. I talked to a few of my friends and they advised that I initiate my venture in India. That worked for me!

“People management was perhaps the most daunting challenge, because first I had to get used to people! For seventeen years of my life, I was working on my own. Now it was about constant meetings with people, talking to customers, branding etc. But being a teacher helped. You know all the whys, whats and hows. I have seen network technology evolve from its roots. People still tell me that I go back to my academic self when I’m ‘explaining’ things to them.”