As part of our endeavour to share unique and powerful startup stories from the ecosystem, we invited Mr Manoj Das – Founder and MD at InventON for an interview with BrilliantRead. In our conversation with Mr Das, he shared his entrepreneurial journey with us and how he sailed through some of the uncertain times to come this far. Let’s read his powerful startup story!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with him:
Tell us a little about yourself please:
I was born and brought up in the small industrial town of Rourkela in Odisha. I attended my schools in the local language of Odia. More than studies, sports was my choice. I got selected in the state joint entrance exams for engineering and also National Defence Academy twice. But, as luck would have it, I got enrolled in the first engineering institution of the state, UCE, Burla, Sambalpur to pursue my Mechanical Engineering in 1993.
After passing out in 1997, I worked in manufacturing for four years. After four years of shop floor experience, I got enrolled at IMT, Ghaziabad to pursue my masters in operations and marketing. After graduating from there, I had three options such as steel, automobile and my previous organisation as I had a study leave. But, I joined steel. After around three years in steel, I got a chance to be into B2B e-commerce. In a little under six years there from 2006 to the middle of 2012, I helped the company grab the business of more than Rs 600 Cr in the West region while growing the team and rolling out all the business units successfully.
By 2009, when I was completing a decade into the industry in various functions, I had made up my mind that this was going to be my last job and wanted to build an enterprise from scratch. InventON was started in 2012 and is taking shape as an excellent enterprise. My pet project is to start something called InventON Foundation and help in the cause of girl child and green ventures.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
While I always worked as an owner in my area, I realised there was plenty of opportunities in an emerging market like India. I thought the excitement of a hard and unknown journey would be a much better idea than a cushy and comfortable job. I choose an unknown excitement than known boredom.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
Uncertainty. That’s so good for getting you out of your slumber and bed as well. In such a career choice, every day is a new challenge. When you are doing good, you want to do great by making the best of the times. And, when you are not doing good, you must strive hard to do better. Both of these trigger your mind to get up and try harder every single day.
Why should people choose your products/services?
Clients should choose InventON as it has what we call an open architecture model. We as a service provider give the whole discretion to the clients to help us design the best model for them for selling/sourcing. We try to adapt to their needs rather than to build our model inside their processes. We customise their requirements so that we truly become an extended hand to them.
In the market side, we work closely with customers to give them the best choice of assets both in the manufacturing and financial domain. And, since we never charge them any fee, they are always happy to work with us and the relationship only gets thicker by the day. This creates a huge surge in demand and strengthens the marketplace model.
What’s your competitive advantage and why can’t it be copied?
InventON as a market player never looks at a competition as a reference. It tries to understand the various constraints and conditions in which the present transaction happens. The situation can be one of many resources and relations in the organisation and its stakeholders. We try to work closely with the client with a complete buy-in of our idea. Once, the idea is bought by the clients, they themselves work in collaboration with us to make the initiative a grand success.
On a macro level, we thought this industry is a huge blue ocean with organisations in India getting smarter by the day and want service providers like us to work for them and make them win. It’s a market and client-specific approach than a competition-specific one.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Getting a bunch of inspired and inquisitive people is the single biggest challenge. The next challenge is to build a sustainable business model to have a consistent cash flow. And, the last challenge is to delight the clients consistently.
What are your expansion plans/breakeven projections?
We have been in the business for the last seven years. Except for two years, we have been in profit. We have an enormous value of assets and activities to work on. We will keep on growing organically until we choose some large strategic partner. We may also go for an IPO and all.
Tell our audience more about your failures? How should one bounce back?
Failures are tremendous opportunities to learn and recalibrate. We need to be humble and calm to realise that the solution for the failure comes but with its lessons. And, that’s an excellent recipe for success.
What comes first for you – money or emotions?
Money is only a means of transaction. The whole process needs a strong value system to work and it’s not possible without emotion and/or passion.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I have successfully exercised the idea that whatever we choose, there would be a certain level of challenges. I try to figure out a way out whatever it takes. If it works fine, if it doesn’t, I let it be just like that. I stay away from the idea of stress.
What advice would you give to someone starting out, particularly to aspiring entrepreneurs?
The first thing is the passion for choosing a difficult and unknown road than one of comfort. Then comes the idea of doing something with a huge opportunity in place. And, the last but not the least is to get prepared for the onslaught every single day.
BrilliantRead is committed to bringing stories from the startup ecosystem, Stories that reshape our perspective, add value to our community and be a constant source of motivation not just for our community but also for the whole ecosystem of entrepreneurs and aspiring individuals.
Note: If you have a similar story to share with our audience and would like to be featured on our online magazine, then please write to us at [email protected], we will review your story and extend an invitation to feature if it is worth publishing.
