Along the way, in IndiaWorld and Netcore, I made many mistakes – luckily, none were too serious to kill the ventures. As long as one gets the big decisions right, one will eventually win. A friend once asked me (after the IndiaWorld sale) – was I smart or just lucky? After some thought, my answer was that one has to be smart to benefit from luck.
Building a company focused on profits means making a different set of choices than one would if there was unlimited capital available. Of course, there have been very big venture-backed successes – most of the big tech companies today were all venture-backed in their early stage. But that does not make it the only route to growth and success.
In Netcore, we have survived many industry shifts. The company today is unrecognisable from the one 20 years ago, or even 10 or 15 years ago. I could never have imagined us having 600 employees, or a presence in many countries including the US. Yes, I did want to grow, but at each stage, it was climbing the next mountain – and then discovering there is one more mountain to climb! There is a long-term vision, but that’s only as good as the execution one can do over the next 12-24 months.
A friend once called Netcore a “survivor”. We have seen many challenges and challengers. Each has been overcome. We haven’t always been the first in a vertical, but our tenacity got us through. We worked hard to get it right. We failed in our expansion outside India for many years, but did not give up – and finally succeeded. As I see the Netcore flag planted across South-East Asia, it is such a joy to behold us helping customers beyond the shores of India. We did not get our initial foray into martech right, but have worked through it and now are competing with the best in class globally.
We can make these decisions because there is a long-term focus that we bring to bear. At Netcore, we live for our customers and employees. There is no third category (investors) that we need to worry about. And that, for us, has made all the difference.
Tomorrow: Building a Profi-corn (Part 5)
