It all starts with an idea in your mind
Colloquium by Mr. Praveen V S
Date: 11th January 2007
It was indeed a great privilege for the future managers from Amrita School of Business to have an interactive session with a budding entrepreneur, Mr. Praveen V S, who was more than willing to share his life experiences with us. Everybody dreams of becoming an entrepreneur, but here we saw a man who has realized this dream by inventing not one but three projects all through sheer hard work and determination.
He started off his talk by introducing us to his inventions and explaining how they worked using images and video clips. He began with the Rectangular Beam Light, which was capable of constraining light to a defined rectangular area and would thus save up to 50% power. Then he explained the Linear Bicycle, which had reciprocating pedals and was based on the maximum torque principle. But his favourite invention is the world’s first Foot Powered Centrifugal Pump, for which he designed and developed a prototype with his own investment.
The specialty of the pump is that it requires no power, fuel and maintenance while producing no sound or pollution. He believes that this would be an ideal workout in the mornings and could replace conventional exercise machines, which were expensive. A unique feature of all his inventions is that all were developed with ‘Green Technology’. He believes that this is the way to go because the demand in future would be for eco-friendly technology. Therefore he feels it would receive more publicity and coverage from the media.
After a brief summary of his inventions, he discussed about entrepreneurship and his life experiences. “It all starts with an idea in your mind”, were his words. Once an idea develops it has to be evaluated to verify its feasibility- both technical as well as financial feasibility. This was a tough process because there was no readymade process to facilitate this. Then comes the biggest problem, i.e. arranging for the initial investment. Usually one would have to take a risk and make the initial investment himself. Once the prototype was ready came the process of marketing it. In his case, he received support from various newspapers that wrote articles about the pump and also from various television channels. He also demonstrated at various trade shows and exhibitions where he attracted large crowds. For international marketing he considers the Internet as a powerful tool and used this to his advantage by posting videos on websites. Finally came the process of manufacturing and selling the product. His advice was that one should never be in a hurry to take orders because there might be startup problems and those have to be sorted out first. The first customer was very important and must be carefully chosen so that both parties get maximum benefit. Once everything is in place, production starts. “Once the production starts, there are no problems, only opportunities”, was what he said. A variety of options would open up and there would be opportunities to either expand or sell for a good price.
Finally he wrapped things up with the advice that India was the best place for technical based entrepreneurship. There were lots of opportunities emerging in our country that it was easier to succeed here than anywhere else. One should not fear failure because if done right there would be no failures. But always have a backup plan in mind. He concluded by saying that he hoped to receive support for his projects in the near future and that he would continue his efforts to develop more projects in the future.
A. Sujit Anand
Ist Yr MBA
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