it s not business as usual for her

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Publication: The Economic Times Mumbai;Date: May 24, 2012;Section: Special Feature;Page: 8

Its Not Business as Usual for Her

Be it in the entrepreneurial heaven that is Silicon Valley or the rough and

tough terrain of India, some notions die hard. Indian women entrepreneursstill battle prejudices and stereotypes that their male peers dont have toendure

Silicon Valley

Home Advantage, Home Disadvantage Being a woman from India shapes their success. It also shapes the regressiveresponse of their own community towards them, reports Rituparna Chatterjee

In the 1990s, Pooja Sankar was a shy girl growing up in Patna. She was taught to stay away from boys, which made heryears at the boys-infested IIT Kanpur a lonely battle. Sankar, who found programming just as hard as making friends, studied

alone; she was too shy to ask her male classmates for help. Haunted by that experience, in January 2011, Sankar launchedPiazza, an interactive website that allows students to ask, explore and answer all kinds of questions under the guidance of theirinstructors. Her startup already has 200,000 users, and the backing of Silicon Valley movers and shakers like Ron Conway andMitch Kapor. Who I am today is all because I was a shy girl in India, she says. Sankars story highlights the unique situationsIndian women entrepreneurs are in, even in the entrepreneurial heaven that is Silicon Valley. Her story isnt much different fromthat of Aarti Parikh, a techie who co-founded mobile and Internet publishing house SachManya. Parikh is forced to use agenderneutral alias online to communicate more easily with engineers, both male and female. When they are talking to a man,they assume the person knows more, says Parikh. Another thing is that just because you are Indian, people assume you wil ljust do IT. They look upon us dismissively in creative matters. Parikhs iPad app for children, Being Global, beat Disney at the2012 Appy Awards. Indian women think out of the box because they have struggled so much, unlike most entrepreneurs inSilicon Valley who think like each other and develop similar stupid solutions like each other, says Vivek Wadhwa, anentrepreneur-turnedacademic, and a vocal voice in the Valley on female entrepreneurship. He points to the annual TechCrunchDisrupt conference, a mecca for web and mobile entrepreneurs. It is full of white males. You have 100 companies developing

the same solution. You dont see Indian women there because they dont fit in there. And this is why they are building differentcompanies in education, healthcare and really in every space possible.

Gender Divide

One such woman is Parvati Dev who, after researching medical e-learning for over 18 years at Stanford University, foundedCliniSpace. Her startup uses augmented reality to create immersive gaming-like virtual worlds in a medical learningenvironment. So, a CliniSpace interactive learning iPad app to train nurses treating wounded soldiers on a battlefield is set in amedical camp at a war zone with realistic depictions. In 1968, Dev was among a few girls at IIT Kharagpur. But her experiencewas the opposite of Sankars. At IIT, I lost any worry between man and woman, says Dev. She was almost never called by herfirst name; Dev became her college nickname. She is more irked by the reactions of some Indian community members. Indiansfind it amusing to see a woman in a sari leading a Stanford lab. Its as if its a question of credibility! says Dev. Even in anapparently liberal Silicon Valley, stories of VCs asking women entrepreneurs uncomfortable questionsmostly related to theircommitment after maternityare not uncommon. A woman co-founder being mistaken for a secretary is not rare either. And if

the woman is Indian, the situation gets more complex. Indian women are taught not to ask for things, says Kiran Malhotra,executive director of TiE Silicon Valley, a global network of entrepreneurs and professionals. As entrepreneurs, you have to askfor thingslike money from a VCall the time. So, it is at least twice as hard for Indian women entrepreneurs. Malhotra alsoleads the TiE Womens Forum. Sakina Arsiwala, a Google and YouTube veteran who just sold her social startup Campfire Labsto Groupon, learnt this the hard way. A candidate was selected unanimously for a critical technical role in her startup. AlthoughArsiwala felt he did not have the relevant expertise, she did not speak up; three months later, the startup started losing mon eyand the project was turning out to be a turkey. When Arsiwala later told colleagues she had seen this coming, they wonderedaloud why did she not speak up. Arsiwalas reply: As Indian girls, we are trained to please everybody and agree. Now, sheswiser. Sometimes you just have to take a stand, she says.

Indian Mindset

In many ways, Silicon Valleys Indian women entrepreneurs find themselves in a situation similar to what their male

counterparts encountered in the 1980s. They had then formed The Indus Entrepreneurs, now better known as TiE, which todayis the worlds largest entrepreneurial body. A handful of fledgling organisations like TiE Womens Forum and Women 2.0 arehoping to do the samehelp women entrepreneurs help each other. We were like immigrant entrepreneurs back then, with nopowerful networkslike say the Stanford alum networkto help us out. So, we made our own, says Angie Chang, co-founderof Women 2.0, which reaches out to over 30,000 women entrepreneurs. Sure, there are a few unique advan tages of beingIndian. Unparalleled family support in a foreign land is one of them. For instance, Sankar started Piazza out of her brothers

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garage. On another front, Reena Gupta, CEO of software-as-aservice (SaaS) company Avankiya, learned subtle, one-of-a-kindmanagement lessons early on in life, whilst growing up in a joint family with 21 cousins in Bihar. But the basics dont change soquickly, says Vinita Gupta, a rare Indian woman entrepreneur who broke barriers in the 1980s with her company Digital LinkCorporation which she took public. The Indian community itself remains judgemental, wherein conversations with women tendto be relegated to subjects like cooking, family and motherhood. The (Indian) community (in Silicon Valley) itself really needs toevolve, says Gupta. Parikh of SachManya adds the Indian mindset in the Valley is obsessed with success, as defined by statusand money. This is why you will see many Indian women in senior corporate positions, but not in entrepreneurial positions because it is so much about risk with no guarantee of money. Outside of the community, being different can be an advantage,says Gupta. When she was eight months pregnant, she had to travel to Minneapolis on urgent business. Two decades on, theclient still remembers the very pregnant woman with the strange accent. Now, thats a recall many entrepreneurs would be

willing to give birth for.

India

Can You Manage Business & Home?

Stymied by orthodox views, some women are taking

charge, report Shubha Sharma & Radhika Nair

When Avneet Makkar and A Saraswathy decided to raise funds to scale up their education technology start-up CarveNichelast year, being a woman appeared to be a liability. Venture capitalists doubted their sales strategy even though they had payingcustomers. It took us some time to realise the doubt was not about the strategy, but about two women man aging sales, says

Makkar. One potential investor asked us directly how we will manage family and business. This February, angel investorMumbai Angels invested Rs 1 crore in their firm While women entrepreneurs say their commitment to their enterprise is stillquestioned, VCs and consultants ET spoke to say women entrepreneurs do not seem to be breaking self-imposed barriers inspite of there being more opportunities. Very few women are even turning the ignition key. In our experience, not even 5%plans come from women. We see great ideas, but most are not even ready for the first round of VC funding, says SashaMirchandani, managing partner of Kae Capital and co-founder, Mumbai Angels. We need to go deeper and ask, Are womenmore risk-averse? How can we push them over the border? Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Indias bestknown woman entrepreneur,agrees. There are enough opportunities, but many women are content running small, boutique businesses, says Shaw,chairman & managing director of biotechnology firm Biotech. If they think big and have a strong business plan, they will getfunding. Women cannot blame society and others. In the tussle between managing a family and a business, the family oftenwins, says Aditi Balbir, who runs Bliss Inns, a resort-managament company. As the CFO of her company, Balbir has often beenasked to take over as CEO, but says she would be happy to hire someone for the post simply because the job requires a16-hour commitment everyday. If I could reschedule a meeting to attend to a family need, I would. A man wouldnt, she says.There are others like Makkar and Saraswathy who are willing to go the extra mile to build businesses of scale, but are stymied

by outdated views on women entrepreneurs, especially from the investment community.

Overcoming Barriers

It is here that tangible barriers come up, says Anjana Vivek, founder, VentureBean Consulting and guest faculty atIIM-Bangalore. Questions like whether women can travel, whether theyd be able to spend money or commit enough are asked.This is a lens that belongs to the traditional manufacturing business, says Vivek. Today, there are intangibles like how peopleuse technology to work from home, or what women bring to the busi ness that is different. These need to be looked into asenablers. Many women are even asked if their husbands or fathers will be the guaran tors, whereas men are not asked similarquestions, says Zankhana Kaur, programme director of Stree Shakti, a dedicated platform for women entrepreneurs started byTiE (formerly The IndUS Entrepreneurs), one of the worlds largest entrepreneurship organisations. Vrinda Rajgarhia hasexperienced many shades of being a woman entrepreneur in India in her 10 years as one. For a woman to be taken seriously,she has to work harder than the average man, she says, adding it is women who set limits on what they can or cannot do. In

2002, Rajgarhia started Sweet World, a chain of candy stores that has 40 outlets today. The buck stopped with me, she says.For the first two years, I put in over 18 hours a day. Even while on vacation, I had to be on call. If, all those years ago, shelistened to the people who discouraged her, I would never have had the business I have now, she says.

Help From Outside

Having a mentor makes the struggle a little easier. Vidya Nataraj, co-founder of the company that runs online jewellery retailerBluestone.com, has a strong retail pedigree. However, she says, more than this, it was her association with Meena Ganesh,co-founder of TutorVista, that helped her. Nataraj, an INSEAD graduate, was involved in her family business, the retail chainLandmark, before it was acquired by Tata Trent, and is married to Ganesh Narayan, the joint managing director ofBangalore-based jewellery retailer, C Krishniah Chetty & Sons. We were able to pitch to a number of VC firms, thanks to her(Meena Ganesh), says 30-year-old Nataraj. The company, which launched operations in January, raised $5 million from AccelPartners, Silicon Valley Bank and from Meena Ganesh and her husband, serial entrepreneur K Ganesh. Besides funding,women entrepreneurs need guidance on other business aspects of business too, and a number of educational programmes aim

to fill this gap. The Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at IIM Udaipur started a management development programmefor women entrepreneurs this year. In April, 21 women, 18 of whom were from Rajasthan, spent four weeks on campus fleshingout ideas, setting goals, understanding a business plan and sharing their concerns. An all-woman group made it easier for themto air personal problems, says professor Janat Shah, director, IIM-U. A similar programme changed the way Neelam Chibber,who co-founded Industree Crafts in the mid-1990s, looked at business. Hers was a small exportoriented venture till, in 2007,she undertook a scale-up study programme for social entrepreneurs conducted by Dasra Social Impact, a non-profit and social


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business-focused initiative. By the second week, she had a plan. I knew I needed a steady domestic market and could notdepend on just exports, says Chibber. She raised funds from Kishore Biyani, whose Future Ventures holds 53% in thecompany. Besides hands-on training, women need, Chibber says, a supporting ecosystem.

And From Inside

Women entrepreneurs are now coming up with solutions for their problems. Ruche Mittal, founder of design consultancyideaPerfect, started Her Enterpreneurial Network (HEN) India in 2011 to build a support system. Mittal had started her companyin Kolkata, but had to shift the business to Bangalore in 2010 after marriage. She did not know anyone in Bangalore and wasalso unsure of how to expand. She tried TiE, but says she did not get the mentorship she was looking for. She joined the

Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Entrepreneurs Certificate Programme, at ISB, Hyderabad. Mittal set up HEN to stay in touchwith other women in the programme. The network has over 1,200 members now. We use social-networking platforms tocollaborate on projects, help each other with contacts, share knowledge and inputs, and also meet in various cities forworkshops, says Mittal. The network has moved beyond being a support system and has become a market for each other.Mumbai Angels Mirchandani says if women persist, they will find enough people willing to guide and help them. Today, thereare no excusesthere is enough capital, and people are evolved enough to focus on the business and the opportunity, hesays. Mirchandani says he would any day bet on women entreprenuers, because they are very focused on goals, and lesspolitical. They also need to prove a larger point. Biocons Shaw says women should stop thinking of themselves as womenentrepreneurs and think as just entrepreneurs. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be willing to struggle andsacrifice and take risks.

talking heads

Indian women think out of the box as they have struggled so much, unlike most entrepreneurs in the Valley VIVEK WADHWAVP of Academics & Innovation, Singularity University

Just because you are Indian, people assume you will just do IT. They look upon us dismissively in creative matters AARTIPARIKH Co-founder, SachManya

The Indian community (in the Valley) itself remains judgemental... the community itself really needs to evolve VINITA GUPTAFounder, Digital Link Corporation

For a woman to be taken seriously she has to work harder than the average man but we are more than capable of doing thatVRINDA RAJGARHIA Founder & Director, Sweet World


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There are enough opportunities, but many women are content running small, boutique businesses and do not think big KIRANMAZUMDAR-SHAW Chairman & MD, Biocon


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it s not business as usual for her

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