I still identify myself as someone who works for their own company. I go “Hi, I am Shravani. I have a small company and I work for it”. Word.

I don’t know if I can call myself an entrepreneur yet. My professor told me “Entrepreneurship is jumping into cold water and figuring out how to swim.” Jump I did and swim I did.

Picture this:
At one of the largest vegetable markets, in Hyderabad, hundreds of housewives come to pick mangoes to make mango pickle for the year. They buy probably fifty-hundred mangoes per person. Now, to make the legendary pickle, the mangoes need to be cut. And before they are cut, they need to be washed and dried. In this huge vegetable market, water is tough to come by. And if you don’t have the mangoes cut by the professional cutters at the market, it is really really tough to do it yourself. They charge about a hundred bucks. Mostly, the mangoes should be cut at the market, and they should be washed. But, there’s no water.

Now, when I was there, in 2010 I think, there was this little kid, about 10 years old. He had like a drum of water. Maybe two. I am thinking theres a pipe he bought and connected with the nearest government water tap. And he was charging ten bucks per a tiny bucket of water. Almost everyone had to use his water.

Because nobody bought any water to the market. Because nobody is going to walk to the nearest source. Because this little kid is sharper than the most deadly shoppers.To me, that kid is an entrepreneur. Sure, he wasn’t shaking the world with an innovative idea of supplying water. But he found a catch and capitalized on it. To me, he is smarter than most “entrepreneurs” because his investment is like almost zero. And he is making a profit out of a free resource, with a devil-may-care attitude.

Attitude, I feel entrepreneurship is something that mostly an attitude. Cajoling, Persuading, sometimes muscling for things to happen out of nothing. Or almost nothing.

There was this case study I read long back where a bunch of stanford students were given a hundred dollars and asked to show the highest increment. The winning team decided that their best resource is time, so they sold that to a company to come and pitch in front of a full-blown mba class.

You look at the drawing board, identifying every strength you have, and then the weaknesses and then you proceed

Entrepreneurship comes in all forms. Sometimes in a vegetable market, or a sophisticated business class. Because, it is the idea, it is the thought, and it is the attitude.

It’s a way of living in itself.