I spoke this morning to the young, bright winner of the business plan competition at Jai Hind College who wooed her audience with her plan to produce 'entertaining' toilet paper. I asked her to share her business plan with me, but she hesitated. "Are you going to publish it? I am scared that somebody will copy my idea," she wondered.
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| Dheeraj Gupta, founder of Jumbo King, shares key to success |
I wish she had attended the E Week evening session with Dheeraj Gupta, founder of the multi-dollar vada pav brand Jumbo King, at Shailesh J Mehta School of Management, IIT-Bombay. Her fears may have been laid to rest.
"We all have good ideas but we don't share it with people because we fear they will be stolen. That was the biggest mistake that even I made. My first few attempts at entrepreneurship were a complete failure. Looking back, I think they would have been successful if I had been more open with my ideas," Gupta said.
Gupta tried twice to brand Indian sweets, back in early 2000, but both ventures flopped. "If only I had shared it with others, they might have warned me that the market was not ready, or advised me to do things differently," he felt.
For Gupta, it was a lesson well learnt. So when he decided to explore the vada pav market, he shared his plan with everyone who came his way. "I even approached the supply chain managers of Mc Donald's, Subway and Dominos for their inputs. Their suggestions went a long way in planning my venture."
"I have come to realize that people are too busy implementing their own ideas, and nobody has the time to copy. It is an unfounded fear that many aspiring entrepreneurs carry," Gupta concluded.
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