Recently, Alok was interviewed by Mamta Bharadwaj for Vaahini, an online network for professional women supported by Accenture. The topic was Entrepreneurship!
Reproducing the interview here:
“I Want Everyone To Be A Businessman”
“Any country’s prosperity is judged by its GDP. The only way to increase GDP is to promote entrepreneurship. While it will have a magnifying effect at large, it will also give the youth a lot of independence. If you peak into the minds of youth today you will find not just anxiety but also a lot of mismatched expectations. That’s because jobs are not fulfilling especially high paying jobs. That is one reason why everyone should look at entrepreneurship,” Alok Kejriwal, serial digital entrepreneur and co-Founder of Games2win, told Vaahini in a recent interaction.
Alok who hails from a Marwari family joined the family business of manufacturing socks on completing his Masters in Commerce from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Mumbai. While helping his father at Hindustan Hosiery Industries, Alok learnt critical lessons in managing a business (at the ‘Marwari School of Business’ as he calls it) and got introduced to the wonders of the Internet.
In late nineties when Sabeer Bhatia sold Hotmail to Microsoft, Alok was fascinated by the possibilities of the Net. A small newspaper contest ad to win a car triggered the idea of setting up his first venture Contests2win, an online contest platform.
Japan’s Softbank Corp., a private equity firm which had picked up a stake in Contests2win.com, invited Kejriwal to China where the Internet was catching on really fast. He accepted and spent the next five years in China setting up Contest2win on a mobile platform hence Mobile2win in China. In 2006, when China started imposing restrictions on mobile contests, Alok sold his business there to Walt Disney at six times his initial investment.
In 2003, when mobiles were the rage in India, Alok set up Mobile2win.com, which uses SMS to manage contests and voting in reality shows in India. Unfortunately, when India was on the brink of a VAS revolution, Alok was asked by investors to depart. He was compensated well but the hunger to create something magical continued. Inspiration came when he noticed his daughters gaming on the net. Games2win was set up and is today among the Top 20 gaming companies in the world – In 2012, its ‘Parking Frenzy’ – a free, casual, mobile game became the No.1 ranked app on the iTunes store in the USA under the ‘Top Free games’ and more significantly ‘Top Overall apps’ categories.
Passionate about being an entrepreneur, Alok is now looking at getting involved with promoting enterprise. In three years he plans to quit Contest2win and be a full-time start-up supporter – not a VC, he is quick to clarify. He is planning to launch a fund called Rodinhood Venture Partners that will fund entrepreneurs.
“It will be a start-up supporter that is the anti-Christ of venture capital. Instead of giving money today and asking what the entrepreneur did with the money tomorrow or asking them how much share we would get in the venture, our approach would be one of saying we know where you are, we have been in your shoes, we don’t want you to suffer, so do it and then we will talk,” he clarifies.
“An entrepreneur usually either has an exaggerated sense about his business or underplays it. While a VC loves the exaggeration, we believe we need to partner with them to make it larger than what they thought,” he elaborates.
Q: Could you share your experience setting up an enterprise in China?
A: Much of the figures on the China dashboard are half true. I have lived in and out of China for five years and have seen three Chinas. There is the prosperous China, which is getting 100 per cent media visibility. They are using labour and wage advantage well. This highly productive and disciplined labour is the backbone of Prosperous China.
The second China is a state-led facade. It is pretty much window dressing.
And in the third China you come across an uneasy citizen who is not comfortable. How can you live in a country of 1.3 billion people where there is no Twitter, Google or FB in this age & time? How is this different from N Korea if people cant express themselves?
So it’s really like comparing apples, which is India to sour berries, which is China. There is no comparison. China should be looking at us and asking what they should be doing.
The most frightening aspect in China is the lack of a judiciary. In India Vodafone lashes out at Chidambaram, in our country, using our media and our courts. I wonder what they would do in China.
It’s like Hotel California (the song by Eagles)…you can’t check out and leave. You can build a company in China but cant sell it. Look at all MNCs in China…nobody understands how to do business there. It’s disastrous. The opportunity is because the market is so large so they don’t need to come out; they just need to stay there.
If a government is snooping around all the time, there is no transparency. People are very guarded.
Q: What are the key learnings from the various ventures you have set up?
A: I think the first learning would be not to launch too many similar ventures in similar domain. This will only fragment your efforts and is not a good idea – not in your mind nor in your venture. There is just you to manage everything. The second learning would be to never trust your local market to be the market of your destiny. India, unfortunately, has always been subscale. That is why IT has prospered outside India more. Subscale never works.
Q: What skillsets does being a Marwari bring to an enterprise?
A: Marwaris, because they had to survive in barren desserts, have developed acute business acumen. They also have the ability to mutate and change themselves to fit the circumstance. However, lack of education is beginning to hurt the community. Women in a Marwari home do not go out to work. When I compare that with the respect and opportunity that women in South India get, I feel there is huge potential lying untapped.
Q: What future trends do you see in gaming and social media?
A: Unfortunately, FB games were overdone by one company that killed the category by spamming. Mobile is where the future business is. It’s easy and less demanding. You can play a game for 10 minutes & be happy. At a Meta level people want to entertain themselves. The faster they can do that the better your chances are.
With Blogging, it’s hard effort. Even writing a FB post is not easy. That’s why 98% read 2% write. The attention span has gone down considerably. I think micro blogging is where the future is headed. Paras on Tumblr or FB using an idea to create a conversation is what the new blog is going to be.
Q: How did you feel when you made your first million?
A: Nothing. The message came just on an SMS. There was 0 % change. The Satori moment came with the realization that it was not the money but the work that really mattered.
Q: How does one stay grounded despite success?
A: It’s mainly self-policed. People I look up to – Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and Jeff Bezos etc. – are constantly getting pounded or punished. It’s about who you are never about what people can do to you. Benchmarking yourself is very important – not from a comparison point of view but from a humility point of view. Surrounding yourself with the right thoughts, not the people, is important. It’s a frame of mind.
Q: Will your passion for spirituality overtake your love for enterprise?
A: I think it is important to blend the two. There has to be a strong connection between being in the corporate world which motivates me and giving back. Even if we can get some spiritual values into business it’s a big step. I have been experimenting with it and have come to realize that spirituality does slowly begin to manifest itself at work.
Q: You are an ardent disciple of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. What’s your relationship with him like?
A: Every crisis in our life brings us closer to God. Sri Sri came into my life 12 years ago when my venture was going through a bad phase following the dot com bust. I respect him a lot. When I meet him he is all about who I am and what I can I learn from him. I see a reflection of who I can be when I am with him.