“It is a wonderful time to take smart risks and solve great
problems”, Vaidyanathan, CEO, Classle, shared the mood of the
entrepreneurial zeitgeist which embodies Bangalore, India’s answer to
the Silicon Valley. He chronicled his entrepreneurial journey, sharing
his cherished dream to bring social transformation through education and
learning.
With the “crest of the pyramid” getting access to the best of
the worlds in education, he shared his motivation to ensure that the
“rest of the pyramid “are also empowered through a technology platform
which bridges social, linguistic and digital divide in the country. He
attributed his success to the excellent infrastructure provided by AWS,
which unbundled various architectural elements and provided them on
demand and engagement with national initiatives such as NPTEL in the
educational domain. He also confessed his worst decision was to
outsource the entire development of the technology platform. He advised
the entrepreneurs to have a multi-year road map with secondary revenues,
drawing from his wealth of experience in creating an innovative insight
based recruitment services out of the social learning network.
“Entrepreneurship
is not an ego trip”, he cautioned the entrepreneurs, highlighting the
raison d’etre of business to create value for customers. “Just because
you have passion, VCs aren’t obligated to give money”, he advised the
entrepreneurs to focus on the essential business fundamentals,
irrespective of the superiority of the technology platform used in the
business.
PS: Wrote this post for Yourstory.in on the occasion of Cloud Conclave 2011