Volume 1 - Issue 8 - ICTACT.IN

Entrepreneur speakThe Audacity of DreamsSanjay Vijaykumar,Co-founder & CEO, MobMEMobME is a young and vibrant Mobile Internet company with a track recordof providing Value Added Services for Mobile Phone users and Carrier GradeSolutions for Telecom Operators since 2006. Sanjay Vijayakumar , Co-Founder& CEO Enterprise shares his story of his dream startup MobME…It was a nerve-wracking Hamletian dilemma.Either I was to complete my engineeringdegree and get in queue ofjob-seekers or surge ahead of the lineto become a techno-entrepreneur. I listenedto the streaks of adventurismwithin me. Luckily, I had a few morewho were on the same page with me -Sony Joy from College of Engineering,Thiruvananthapuram (which is also myalma mater), and Vivek Francis, an alumnusof Sree Chithra Thirunal College ofEngineering. For the three of us, the engineeringdegree receded into backgroundas our zeal and passion to become startupentrepreneurs, straight from the campus,triumphed.Thus was born MobME Wireless, thefirst telecom campus startup in India. Itwas the power of idea – and we were fascinatedby it. But it did not come that easy.There were sleepless nights; there weregnawing feelings of uncertainty. But thenwe had taken the plunge and there was noquestion of going back. M o b M E ,a mobile media and entertainment firm,is now one of the fastest emerging 50 ITcompanies in India. It was rated as oneof the country’s top 100 innovative startupsby NASSCOM in 2006. A year later, itwas the youngest of the NASSCOM 100 ITInnovators alongside Texas Instruments,HP and Infosys. The icing on the cakecame from Wall Street Journal when itmentioned MobME as one of the10 startupsto watch out for in India in 2008.Significantly, it has triggered the dream ofIndia having its own Silicon Coast.For me, the bottom line is: we shouldnot stop dreaming. And if we have todream, why not dream big? Why shouldwe take life a tad too seriously? A decentengineering degree may fetch you a jobwith hefty salary. Surely a tempting proposition!But just think of it: you will still remainan employment-seeker, not an employment-giver.In fact, it was my dreamalso, initially. But during the first year itself,I realized it was not a big deal as this wassomething everyone could do. I was awareof the pitfalls and challenges of my decision.I had been earlier enrolled at Schoolof Architecture, Delhi, and Naval Academy,Goa, but could never finish the coursesthere. Could I afford to make a hat-trick ofincomplete degrees by dropping out of theengineering college as well? Won’t it be aninjustice to my middle class parents whohad pinned all their hopes on me? But theurge to pursue my dream was overpowering.Surely, I don’t regret it now.And how did we concretize our dream?We began by selling recharge coupons tocollege students. In three months flat, wemanaged to sell 14,000 SIM cards. Thatwas the stepping stone. We then startedselling T-shirts soured from Coimbatore inthe college. By the end of third semester,we could tote up a princely Rs.8 lakh -- injust eight months! That fulled our dreamsto launch a company. That is the history ofMobME.MobME is a pioneer in mobile governanceinitiatives. It has fulfilled the communicationsneeds of banks, governmentinstitutions, state governments and nodalagencies through SMS, voice, and othermobile technologies. It has now its officesin Kochi, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai andThiruvananthapuram. I would say thereare ways of doing things. For instance,when our parents came to know of our doing,they were shocked, but we convincedthem. We had to bunk classes, but we keptour teachers in the loop. They knew wewere pursuing our dreams and not bunkingclasses to while away our time in thecollege canteen. We convinced our parentsand teachers with the sheer convictionof our idea, our dream, our enterprise.I would also like to remove the misconceptionthat beginners have to fend for themselves.We still receive a lot of guidanceJune 2013 | 27