In September 2000 this magazine wrote a scathing article on indiainfo.com. Business world made us the scapegoat for the entire dotcom industry. As the markets imploded, we found it difficulty to get new projects because clients believed we would go under. Morale within the company was very low.

The Internet revolution that everyone had believed in and hyped up to the heavens had not taken off. But at the end of the day we are the guys who are surviving as opposed to a lot of Internet companies that have gone under. Today indiainfo.com is a profitable business. How many other dotcom companies can stake that claim? It is not a huge business, we're not valued at hundreds of millions of dollars, and it may take 10 years to get returns on investments instead of the expected two. But we are at least making money. That is important.

Leadership is a lonely road- it is lonely on the way up and it is lonely on the way down. When you're going up, everyone wants to be your friend: on your way down no one wants to talk to you. I did not understand how the Indian media worked. Based on my experience in America, I thought that the best policy was to speak the truth and move on. But it did not work out as I expected. There were times when I felt like giving up the entire business. " Let it go," I thought, " to hell with it." But it all comes down to either abandoning ship or trying to fix the problem and getting that ship to sail.

Raj Koneru, 32, a BITS-Pilani alumnus, exemplifies the aggressive breed of Indian entrepreneurs in the West. In the 1990s, Koneru set up and, later, sold two software services firms, Intelligroup and SeraNova, before investing in indiainfo.com. Undaunted by its poor showing early on, Koneru, has set up BPO company iTochPoint.

Lots of people do not have the time or the energy to stick to a plan. Or they get nervous. In my case, continuing to hold on to indiainfo.com was a bit of a personal challenge.

It was the first time in my career that I had hit a roadblock. Before this, I had built successful companies like Intelligroup and SeraNova from scratch. In indiainfo.com, however, we had made the same wrong assumptions as everyone else- analysts on Wall street, fund managers round the world, the media and other entrepreneurs. Looking back, I can take some consolation from the fact that some of the best minds in the world were also guilty of gross misevaluations!

We had made mistakes. We were latecomers to the dotcom space in India and spent too much money on branding our company. We wanted to quickly grab as much market share as we could. The expenditure gave us good exposure but was it good for the company as a whole? When the market imploded, we were left with a huge, high-cost network. I wasn't occupied full-time with indiainfo. I have decided never to invest in any business opportunity where I am not 'hands on'. Entrepreneurs and often go by an intuition that leads them to make constant and often critical changes to a fledgling firm.

But to do that successfully, you have to be in the field constantly. With indiainfo.com my role was more that of an investor and strategic planner. My job was to provide overall guidance to the company and to provide direction. I was not involved in day-today management, and that was not very enjoyable. I have realized that I am best at picking up the phone and talking to clients. That's what I also enjoy doing the most, Leadership falls into many categories. Some leaders are best at strategic management and providing an overall roadmap to an organization, others lead best when they are directly involved in the business. And while one type of leader can learn the skills of another type, it is best to stay with what you do well.

And I work best with start-ups. I am more comfortable building companies from scratch, fighting against the odds, working the phone, rather than running or managing an existing company. That's what I did when we started Intelligroup and SeraNova. Intelligroup was a company that we built from the ground up and took it to revenues of around $200 million. Then, the next venture, SeraNova, had the backing of a $200-million gorilla(Intelligroup), so to speak, but that company, too, was started from scratch.

And going forward in my career, I have decided that rather than doing many things, it is best to concentrate on just one. I now believe that instead of trying to grow too fast, it is better to grow at a healthy but manageable pace.

In the beginning, when I had started up my first company, Intelligroup, we paid no attention to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We were not thinking about becoming millionaires. We were focused on trying to grow the business- on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. We felt great if business in one month grew over business in the previous month. That whole concept of the 'value of the business', and how much we were valued at did not exist.



That would come later. When we went public, the environment changed. The stock market started booming and the Net revolution reached a peak, those very thoughts had an impact on our actions- unfortunately that happens. The fact of high valuations- at Intelligroup, SeraNova and indiainfo.com-began to affect our thinking.

Today I have taken a conscious decision to forget about the market from a valuation or a personal net worth standpoint, Enjoy what you're doing; it doesn't matter if you grow by 1% month-on-month or even year-on-year. If you've done your best and achieved what you've set out to do, you'll be a happier person than if you're trying to control what's not in your hands.

I have learn to focus very hard on what I'm dong. Don't be worried by what other companies are doing, don't worry about the stock markets, don't worry about the quickest way to make money. At the end of the day, you're going to make some good calls and some bad calls. Not everything you touch is going to turn into gold.

We began retrenching at indiainfo.com and were left with around 150 people. The question that came to my mind was: " What do we do with these people". Rather than say that these people are useless and pull out, we tried to utilize our assets in the best way. You can always say that the people you took on board are no good, and then close the business. But we thought, is that the right thing to do?

We were not alone in this predicament-lots of dotcoms had good people and assets and were faced with the same question. But we decided to deploy our assets to a different focus. That is how we came up with a business model that aimed at making each area profitable. We decided to concentrate on building our revenue streams and maximizing our returns from each opportunity.

And you'll be surprised by the number of new opportunities you can find for the same business once you've made up your mind to look for them. I should really take only 1% of the credit- 99% goes to the guys in the field. Mahesh (the CEO at indiainfo.com) and his team-Bhanu Chalasani, Giri Balasubramaniam, Namrata Shilpi and Sriram Hebbar- have done a wonderful job of managing the company. They have held the company together through a very challenging period. Now we are trying to expand into new areas such as e-learning and e-publishing. These days I am excited by a new company we've launched- iTouch Point, that is in a specific BPO niche. I will continue to remain an entrepreneur. I'm 32 years old, too young to retire, and not excited by the thought of holding down a job.

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