1. What mothered your invention…In other words what embarked your interest towards starting up your own venture?
I see an engineer as a problem-solver. A venture was always on the cards. The idea of Aspiring Minds (www.aspiringminds.in) germinated, when I found out that out of more than four lac engineers in India, only one lac end up getting a job. On the other hand, the industry continues to struggle to search for talent across such a large country. This called for a GRE/SAT like exam for jobs, through which talented candidates can highlight themselves and companies can easily spot them. This needs some very efficient large scale assessment, which is where an artificial intelligence engine with advanced statistical pattern recognition comes in. At Aspiring Minds, we are experts at employability assessment: identifying talent and pointing out areas of improvement.

 2. What do you think are the qualities of a successful entrepreneur?
I am not sure if I am successful yet! Here is my hypothesis. An entrepreneur should be a strong believer and very positive in life. He or She should be in for the long haul and not think that the world will change in a day. It takes hard-work, persistence and patience to build a successful business. To add on to this, ego should be strictly pocketed and humility towards people and learning new things is the mantra to success. The ex-CEO of Compaq said a statement to the effect that 'If you are sitting in a room with your team and find that you are the smartest, then you has probably chosen the wrong team.'! Team building skills are crucial!

3. What were the roadblocks you faced in this direction?
Roadblocks were plenty. Where do you find seed money for proof of concept? Where do you recruit a team? Where do you find co-founders? How do you handle disagreements within a team? You keep questioning yourself, if you are convinced of your idea... These were some examples, best is to jump in and experience. Besides this, of course social pressures have a role to play!

4. Describe a typical day at work
At war. A typical day consists of manning product development, performing status updates, looking after the sales leads, conducting interviews and procedures to recruit people every alternate day. Lastly, spending fifteen minutes trying to visualize the big picture.

5. Opportunities you would recommend students to explore while at N.S.I.T.
First and foremost, I get put off when I hear the 'outdated courses' rhetoric or the 'useless courses' stereotype. Courses are very important. It is my firm belief that one needs to do all the courses very well. That is the primary reason for which you are in the engineering school. Do not study them for sake of exams, read the right books and understand the subject well. Once you have a handle on them, try some projects; replicate some stuff people have already done. Gain confidence and then innovate. It is a flat world and the sky is the limit.

6. Some points a budding entrepreneur or for that matter any individual should consider in this phase of global recession?
Do not lose hope, do not change long term plans and continue to follow your passion. View recession as an opportunity. Necessity is the mother of invention; recession has given you an opportunity to excel. Use it! Make sure to keep a back-up option and then take the plunge.

7. How do you justify the importance of networking by relating it to some anecdote of your life?
When I was planning to come back to India in 2007, I was meeting various people doing work in India. One fine day I met Prof. Tarun Khanna from Harvard Business School who works on entrepreneurship and businesses in India. I briefed him about what I intended to do, two emails and one call later, Prof. Khanna became the guiding force behind Aspiring Minds. Bottom-line remains make lots of relationships, the most unexpected would work!

8. Some books/movies/music that inspire you and would recommend.
My personal choices are quite 'non-engineering'. Currently reading the second volume of biography of Vivekananda and the 'The Wonder that was India' by A. L. Basham. For engineers, I would recommend 'The World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman and 'Banker to the Poor' by Yunus. For my beloved NSITians, see if you can get hands on the autobiography of Netaji, i.e. "The Indian Pilgrim'.

9. The parting message…
"Talk less, do more."