A farmer from Madhya Pradesh (India) and his son (who had passed out from IIT and has worked in Google at Mountain View for 8 years), are having an interesting conversation.
Son is considering starting-up a high-tech product company.
Son: Father, I want to leave job and do my own start-up.
Father: So do it, what is the issue? I have never worked on others' farms. I love working on my own.
Son: I feel it is a big risk, I do not know what will happen?
Father: It cannot be bigger risk than what happens to our crops, we are fully dependent on nature god for rains.
Son: That is ok, what about taking care of family health - I will have no insurance for my wife and kids? What will I do in emergency?
Father: I and your mother had no insurance for whole of our lives. When you were child, we did not miss going to a doctor despite no-insurance, so why are you worried?
Son: Ok, what will happen to my monthly salary?
Father: I get no monthly salary. Many times I have financial losses for 2 years due to poor yield or price, I take loans and repay. You can talk to govt or other parties; you are educated and should be able to get bigger loan/investment than what I get for crops.
Son: That is Ok. How will I get people to work for my company. It is very tough to hire good people in India.
Father: Please hire only few key people like what I do. I outsource major farming activities like seeding, harvesting and ploughing. My key people focus on the selection of crops, selection of right seeds, and they timely arrange water and fertilizers. My in-house team focuses on just core; rest is outsourced/executed through contract workers.
Son: I am very worried, how will I sell my product?
Father: If you produce good quality product, people will come and buy. Last year we produced high quality Basmati Rice; all produce got sold on phone. Why can you not do that for your product?
Son: I will not have office space? Where from to work?
Father: I manage my work from my home for so many years, why you need office space when your work is small at this point.
Son: I am not aware of legal side of business, Not sure if we should register the company or not.
Father: Start small. When I just had one field - we had no tax to pay. In fact I registered my first field after 6 months of use.
Son: I have only 200,000 USD (1 Crore Rupees) savings, I feel it is too less to take care of family's future needs and to invest in company.
Father: You are farmer's son. A farmer does not have even 200,000 Rs(4000 USD) savings in his life time. He still does his work, takes risk - some time he succeeds and some time he fails. I am not sure as to why you are having these doubts. You must rise & start your venture ASAP!!
Son is considering starting-up a high-tech product company.
Son: Father, I want to leave job and do my own start-up.
Father: So do it, what is the issue? I have never worked on others' farms. I love working on my own.
Son: I feel it is a big risk, I do not know what will happen?
Father: It cannot be bigger risk than what happens to our crops, we are fully dependent on nature god for rains.
Son: That is ok, what about taking care of family health - I will have no insurance for my wife and kids? What will I do in emergency?
Father: I and your mother had no insurance for whole of our lives. When you were child, we did not miss going to a doctor despite no-insurance, so why are you worried?
Son: Ok, what will happen to my monthly salary?
Father: I get no monthly salary. Many times I have financial losses for 2 years due to poor yield or price, I take loans and repay. You can talk to govt or other parties; you are educated and should be able to get bigger loan/investment than what I get for crops.
Son: That is Ok. How will I get people to work for my company. It is very tough to hire good people in India.
Father: Please hire only few key people like what I do. I outsource major farming activities like seeding, harvesting and ploughing. My key people focus on the selection of crops, selection of right seeds, and they timely arrange water and fertilizers. My in-house team focuses on just core; rest is outsourced/executed through contract workers.
Son: I am very worried, how will I sell my product?
Father: If you produce good quality product, people will come and buy. Last year we produced high quality Basmati Rice; all produce got sold on phone. Why can you not do that for your product?
Son: I will not have office space? Where from to work?
Father: I manage my work from my home for so many years, why you need office space when your work is small at this point.
Son: I am not aware of legal side of business, Not sure if we should register the company or not.
Father: Start small. When I just had one field - we had no tax to pay. In fact I registered my first field after 6 months of use.
Son: I have only 200,000 USD (1 Crore Rupees) savings, I feel it is too less to take care of family's future needs and to invest in company.
Father: You are farmer's son. A farmer does not have even 200,000 Rs(4000 USD) savings in his life time. He still does his work, takes risk - some time he succeeds and some time he fails. I am not sure as to why you are having these doubts. You must rise & start your venture ASAP!!
Very true... It appears as we get educated more ... it simply adds more doubt in mind than help us achieve greater heights...
ReplyDeletevery nice
ReplyDeleteAccomplish your work and you will be depicted everywhere...
ReplyDeleteIts Impressive and I do agree with Father rather the Son's wala part.
ReplyDeleteBecause, I always expects the unexpected thins in my life. And that is Risk.....
So, my summation to this article is to "Grow Up Once Again", if anyone fall down while taking Risk....
Simple answers for complex pondering by a learned son! With more knowledge, we tend to over-complicate decision-making!
ReplyDeleteThanks Rajat, Arun, Vishal and Anirudh for your comments.
ReplyDeleteVery true Rajeev. Good one..!
ReplyDeleteKumar
Nice one and quite inspiring.
ReplyDeleteSuper read! Half way through, I felt as if it was a work of fiction ;) (pun intended). Inspiring and eye opener!
ReplyDeleteGood one Rajeev. Becoming an entrepreneur, when one has a cushy well paying job, is the toughest thing to do! The farmer in your writing, by design, is an entrepreneur.
ReplyDelete