Voila!!! Venus…!

Entrepreneurship is a hot topic today. It has never been easier to start a business in India. And women are not being left behind in the race to convert their passion into an exciting, money spinning venture.

The Entrepreneurship Cell of SCMHRD celebrated this spirit on the 19th of September with fervour, inviting three women entrepreneurs to share their unique experiences with the MBA batch.

Ms Revathy Roy, Forsche Cabs

Ms Roy started Forsche Cabs, the first exclusive ladies’ taxi service – driven by ladies, for ladies. Amidst great personal tragedy and with dwindling finances, this gutsy lady combined her passion for driving with a business idea to script her own success story.

Besides the exclusivity for women, the cabs are unique in themselves. They have a mini cosmetic kit, women’s magazines, larger mirrors and talcum powder. Ms Roy is an ardent believer that if you have a great idea, everything else falls into place, in spite of the umpteen difficulties in the process.

Quoting her, “When you have a vision, you just work to make that vision come true”. She shared with the students her obstacles and how she got around them with nothing but a firm will and basic business acumen. She dispelled the glamour image that’s associated with the job; “12 hours of driving in Mumbai is no joke”, she says. And in classic entrepreneur style, she does not stop there.

Hers is the first lady’s taxi service being offered at the new Mumbai Airport Terminal.

Ms Suhasini Kirloskar, Ad Astra Media

Ms Kirloskar’s entrepreneur stint began after her MBA when she founded Da Vinci Engineering Services with husband. Ten years later, she got the itch to do something creative. The tremendous feeling of restlessness resulted in the birth of a magazine, Winning Edge.

Winning Edge is a magazine focussed on Marketing. Ms Kirloskar sighted the need to share marketing knowledge in a non-textbook fashion. On passion and ideas, she says, “You do need a passion. You do need an idea. The idea cannot be ‘I need to make a lot of money’. That’s not an idea. It should be your talent, your peculiar perspective, your love because when you do that day after day, you need to be able to draw on that passion to bring quality to whatever you are doing”. Then she clarifies further, “There are two aspects to that passion, you have to have a passion and there also has to be a market for it”.

She also spoke about what she considered were “stages” of entrepreneurship. Stage 1 is Investment mode, where the entrepreneur is putting more into the business than what is coming out. In this stage, a lot of businesses are not able to sustain at this stage and they wrap up. In stage 2, either the business is profitable and is generating cash flows or you the entrepreneur engages a Venture Capitalist for further funding.

Ms Madhuri Datar, Language Services Bureau

Ms Datar’s entrepreneurial journey began in the 1970’s – a time where starting up a venture was a herculean task, let alone a venture being started by a woman. She shared her story and wisdom from overcoming initial hiccups with one foreign language to mastering 27 languages and starting her own venture after pioneering language translation and interpretation services at the Kirloskar Group.

Today, she also offers corporate training services apart from offering translation services to and from any language in the word. She proved that with passion, hurdles can be overcome and opportunities in the future will come to light.

The Entreprising Duo: Ms. Madhuri Datar and Ms. Devaki Kunte, Language Sevices Bureau

Ms. Revathy Roy, Forsche Cabs with her children, her pillars of strength

Ms. Suhasini Kirloskar, Ad Astra Media Adressing the gathering

Photographs courtesy Siddharth Singh, MBA - 1, SCMHRD