Background:
Suhas Gopinath is an Indian entrepreneur; he built a website in a cyber cafe in Bangalore and around the same time incorporated his own company, at the age of 14, just after completing his eighth standard, thus becoming the world's youngest entrepreneur and CEO at the time. Currently Suhas is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of Globals Inc., an IT multinational company. Suhas had visited our office, SAP Labs India, some time back and here are some anecdotes which he shared with us from his personal experiences.
Just after completing his eighth standard, Suhas was not interested in school anymore and had decided to take a job and start working; when applying for jobs in companies, he had to provide his curriculum vitae (CV)/resume and this is what he wrote in it, under 'academics':
"eighth pass, ninth class".
He never got selected because he was "not qualified". Companies rejected his application citing he is only fourteen years old and should be concentrating on his studies.
During this time, while appyling for jobs, when he had to prepare his resume, he began to wonder what a CV is, what it looks like and what exactly it should contain. He came across many suggested formats on the internet, and observed that almost all of them had 'academics' section before 'skill sets'. But he felt that skill sets should come before academics in a resume.
Finally, after continuous rejection, he decided to start his own website making company in the same cyber cafe where he used to browse the internet regularly. The service he offered was to build a website for any company that needed one. He started running his new company right from that cyber cafe itself. The cyber cafe became his office. He would attend school during the morning and afternoon, and attend to business in the cyber cafe in the evening. The cyber cafe owner became a close friend.
It used to be very tough for him during the exams, because he could not manage his studies very well together with the running of his company. However he somehow managed to keep clearing all his exams, until finally he flunked his mathematics paper in the CBSE board preparatory exams. That was the first time he had failed an exam in his life. His parents received a letter from his school saying that Suhas had performed very poorly in the preparatory and would have to work very hard to have any hope of getting through the looming final board exams. His mother, an orthodox south Indian lady, confronted him at home that day:
Suhas' Mom: Suhas, I am very unhappy and angry that you have failed in the exam; promise me you will not go to that cyber cafe again until you finish your board exams!
Suhas: Mom, come on, even Bill Gates did not complete his education and yet he is a very successful person and one of the richest men in the world.
Suhas' Mom (very seriously): Ya that may be true, but then Bill Gates and you dont have the same Zodiac sign! :)
Meanwhile, he still kept on trying to get contracts to build websites for US companies. His way of working was simple; he would find the email IDs of companies from google search, send an email to certain US manufacturing companies for which there were no websites, and would ask them whether they required a website and whether he could make one for them. Most of them were fifty to hundred year old companies and they would reply - no sorry, we have run the company until now without a website; so as long as we are meeting our sales targets, we dont need this. Being an entrepreuner, he had been taught very early in life, that rejection will be common. But then when he saw this trend with many companies, Suhas began to panic; if he did not get any contracts, then he would become a failure and he could not take rejections anymore: finally he decided he had had enough; he devised a clever strategy to win these contracts; he did a search of the best manufacturing companies in the US and picked out the ones which did not have a website - these were listed with just email ID and phone number. He created an anonymous email ID account and from this account, he sent out similar mails to all such companies: "I am interested in your products, please could you give me your website address?". To which the companies would reply something like "Thank you for your interest, but we dont have a website, so we have attached the list of our products. Please let us know which ones you would like to purchase". Then finally Suhas would reply back "Sorry it is against our standards to trade with a company which has no website". The plan obviously worked and he started getting contracts, lots of them. But when the companies finally came back to him for a website, he wrote each company a mail telling them the truth and he said I am the same person who asked you for a website development contract and got rejected; and then I was the one who wrote to you from an anonymous email ID to force you to give me a website development contract; if you feel I have inconvenienced you in any way, then I am willing to develop your website for free. However most company executives would mail him back "Thank you for informing this, it is nice that you have told us the truth, but there is no inconvenience, infact you have actually made us realise the importance of a website".
When Suhas was studying his third year engineering, he was invited by The World Bank, to attend their board meeting. It was related to a study being initiated by World Bank, where the objective was to explore how Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) could help in improving the quality of education, increase employability and also foster ICT skills in students in the emerging economies like countries in Africa. The World Bank executives felt they should include a young entrepreuner like Suhas who was from India, who could provide a fresh perspective to the project. Suhas was completely thrilled when he got this news. He immediately went to his head of department (HoD) and told him about the World Bank's invite. He requested the HoD to give him some lenience on his attendance in college, since the university mandated a minimum 75% attendance for passing the semester. However the HoD very bluntly replied "I dont care if its world bank or state bank, you definitely should have 75% attendance". That was the moment Suhas decided to quit his education.
The same evening, he came back home and told his Mother that he had decided to quit college and concentrate on his business. His mother was already resigned to the fact that this was going to happen someday or the other. All she said was "Ok Suhas, I knew this day would come soon. But if you really quit your education then you have to be prepared for one hard fact - nobody will give their daughter's hand in marriage to a person who has no degree; if you are ok with that, then fine, go ahead." :)
From there, Suhas has never looked back. Today he is the CEO of a very big multinational, but he cant resist visiting that cyber cafe now and then, where it all began.
