Hurix Systems: Corporate

Subrat and Hari, founded Hurix Systems Pvt. Ltd. in 2000. As designations go, Subrat is the CEO and Hari the COO, but the way Subrat likes to put it, they function as (CEO+COO)/2. In practice, Subrat is the geek and Hari the strategist. Hurix, today, is one of the fastest growing technology companies in the Asia Pacific region. Recognition for this growth has come in the form of being featured in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific list in 2004 and 2005, the Deloitte Fast 50 India in 2005 and the Red
spaces. Their commitment to creating client delight has won them a list of clients that includes the who’s who of the global publishing industry, Fortune 500 Corporations and national governments.

Neither Subrat nor Hari wanted to be entrepreneurs. Subrat wanted to be a teacher and Hari, a career banker. Hari also wanted to write on current affairs and soccer someday. After graduating from IIMA, Subrat joined a consulting firm and Hari and Investment Banking one. They shared a chummery during their first years in Mumbai. In 1999 Hari moved to Hong Kong to take up an Investment Banking job. By then, Subrat was involved in generating business for an Indian eLearning firm in the US. Subrat used to stop often at Hong Kong on his way back. It was during these meetings that the start-up idea came up for the first time. Those were heady romantic times for wannabe entrepreneurs, with both the business environment and the funding ecosystem for new start-ups looking extremely enticing.

Things came to a head in 2000 April, when Hari decided to throw his hat over the fence. He called Subrat one evening to “inform” that he was quitting the next morning and coming back to Mumbai. The next morning he walked up to his boss and announced his plans to quit and start a company back home in Mumbai. Subrat followed suit within a few weeks, giving up lucrative sales bonuses and massive client relationships he had set up, that too in a Tata company. That was that: With worried oms and no parachutes, support systems, or funding, Hurix or Oritam Solutions (with its Oriya and Tamil founders), as it was then called, was born. It should be mentioned, however, that a lifestyle guarantee from Subrat’s wife helped to make things a lot easier.

A dream materializes

Subrat has always been passionate about teaching, and knew someday he’d take it up. The only other thing he is as passionate about is technology. Hari shares this passion, besides being fascinated by the growth and evolution of individuals and organizations. They had both watched with keen interest, the growth and convergence of communication and computing technologies and its manifestation in the burgeoning of the Internet. One of the things that struck them about the Internet was the potential it had to become the medium of choice for storing and delivering learning and training content. Combined with its ability to facilitate assessment and feedback as well, and doing all this on demand, threw up immense possibilities. Long before eLearning became a buzzword, they saw the power of the Internet had to change learning. They recognized the business opportunity that this presented, but bid their time before deciding to take the plunge. That they chose the perfect time to pursue their dream is born out by the success story that they have turned Hurix into.

The next few months saw the entrepreneurial dream beginning to materialize and both of them started the ‘hard’ life of being entrepreneurs in an ANZ Chummery in Bandra, where Hari was staying with a junior from IIMA. As luck would have it, the neophyte entrepreneurs found a newly started venture fund set-up by some ex-colleagues of Hari and lo and behold – they had a term sheet and shareholder agreement in place! Only the signing remained. And all this without a written business plan. But the run of good luck turned out to be too good to last and one day, before the scheduled signing, the VC’s funding got pulled. Consequently he pulled out of Hurix. There they were, four months out of their jobs, savings running out, no funding, no business plan and even more worried moms and wife (Subrat’s).

In end August, they made a resolution: Figure out funding by 15th October or go back to their jobs. It was then that they got down to a more classical fund raising exercise. A business plan was made, revenue and financial models fleshed out, and prospective clients reached out to. Soon their luck turned again and they managed to connect with Kotak Mahindra VCF. Working with a tight deadline, things were closed at lightning pace and they had a cheque for US$1 Million in their hands on 13th October, 2000. Hurix was up and running.

Subrat and Hari acknowledge that the skills and knowledge that they acquired in IIMA have stood them in good stead in setting up and running Hurix, just as they did in their jobs earlier. But having said that, asking whether the Institute is conducive to entrepreneurship leads back to the more fundamental question of whether entrepreneurs are born or made. Perhaps the best way to answer both these questions would be to examine how many IIMA alumni are or have been entrepreneurs.

An individual choice

Also, to be considered is the profile of those who aspire to join the Institute. After all, it is up to the individual to choose how to use what they learn; the business and managerial skills that they acquire are equally useful, whether they work for a large corporation or strike out on their own. The fact is that to the overwhelming majority of them, getting in to the IIMs is the ticket to hotshot careers in the corporate world. Indeed, the environment at the Institute tends to reinforce or even breed a preference for the low risk, high-return and relatively high comfort option of becoming career managers. Entrepreneurship has to be a passion if it is to make you take the leap. If it isn’t, you are more likely to opt for the relative security of a regular job. This also begs the question whether someone who aspires to be an entrepreneur would bother to spend the time it takes to get an MBA, even from a world-class institution like IIMA. The chances are that they would strike out into the industry that interests them and end up learning from the school of hard knocks.

One way of what the Institute could do is to inspire students to become entrepreneurs would be to arrange regular interactions with successful entrepreneurs, who need not be alumni. Another might be to create a facilitation and incubation programme for start-ups. This would involve: