Interview

An
Entrepreneur

Sana Noorallah
048/2/2015

Interviewee Name: Salim Bhagat

CIE ID: 048/2/2015

Business Name: AG Tyres

Business Sector: Automobiles
Entrepreneurs Name: Salim Bhagat
Audio Recorded By: Noorallah
Report Submitted By: Sana Noorallah
Date of Submission: 31st Oct. 2015
Assignment Number: 1
Duration (hh:mm): 1:36mins
Checked By: ________________________________

Introduction

Would you tell me about yourself before you started your first venture
(demographics like family, education etc.)?
Whom else did you know while you were growing up who had started or owned a
business & how did they influence you?
Were your parents, relatives or close friends entrepreneurial? How so?
Did you have role models?
What was your education? In hindsight was it helpful? In what specific ways?
Did you have a business or self-employment during your youth?
In particular did you have sales or marketing experience? How important was it or
a lack of it to start your company?
When, under what circumstances & from whom did you become interested in
entrepreneurship & learn some of the critical lessons?
How much do you consider yourself in terms of innovativeness, proactiveness and
risk taking?

Execution:

Describe how you decided to create a job by starting your venture instead of taking
a job with someone else?
How did you spot the opportunity? How did it surface?
What were your goals? What were your life style needs or other personal
requirements? How did you fit these together?
How did you evaluate the opportunity in terms of critical elements for success? The
competition? The market? Did you have specific criteria you wanted to meet?
Did you find or have partners? What kind of planning did you do? What kind of
financing did you have?
Did you have a start-up business plan of any kind? Please tell me about it
How much time did it take from conception to the first day of business? How many
hours a day did you spend working on it?
How did your family support you in initial venture creation? In managing the
business? In running finance? Acquiring managerial skills?
How much capital did it take? How long did it take to reach a positive cash flow &
break-even sales volume? If you did not have enough money at the time, what
were some ways in which you bootstrapped the venture (bartering, borrowing &
the like)?
Tell me about the pressures & crisis during that early survival period.
What outside help did you get? Did you have experienced advisors? Lawyers?
Accountants? Tax experts? Patent experts? How did you develop these networks &
how long did it take?
How did any outside advisor make a difference in your company?
What was your family situation at the time?
What did you perceive to be the strengths of your venture? Weaknesses?
What was your most triumphant moment? Your worst moment?

Did you want to have partners or does it solo? Why?

Growth: (once you got going)

What were the most difficult gaps to fill & problems to solve as you began to grow
rapidly?
When you looked for key people as partners, advisors or managers were there any
personal attributes or attitudes you were particularly seeking because you knew
they would fit with you & were important to success? How did you find them?
Are there any attributes among partners & advisors that you would definitely try to
avoid?
Have things become more predictable? Or less?
Do you spend more time, the same amount of time or less time with your business
now than in the early years?
Do you feel more managerial & less entrepreneurial now?
In terms of the future, do you plan to harvest (sell)? To maintain? To expand?
In your ideal world how many days a year would you want to work? Please explain
Do you plan ever to retire? Would you explain?
Have your goals changed? Have you met them?
Has your family situation changed?
What do you learn from both success & failure?
What were/are the most demanding conflicts or trade-offs you face (the business
versus relationship, children & personal hobbies etc.)?
Describe a time you ran out of cash, what pressures this created for you, the
business, your family & what you did about it? What lessons were learnt?
Can you describe a venture that did not work out for you & how did this prepared
you for your next venture?

Conclusion:

What do you consider your most valuable asset, the thing that enabled you to
make it?
If you had it to do over again, would you it again in the same way?
As you look back what do you believe are the most critical concepts, elaborate a
bit.
Skills
Attitudes
Know-how

1, 2, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5
1, 2, 3, 4, 5

(Rank the options, 1 being the lowest & 5 being the highest)

What will be needed for the next five years?

To what extend can any of these be learned?

Some people say there is a lot of stress being an entrepreneur. What have you
experienced? How would you say it compares with other managerial jobs such as
the head of the big company or a partner in a law or accounting firm?
What things do you find personally rewarding & satisfying as an entrepreneur?
What have been the rewards, risks & trade-offs?
Who should try to be an entrepreneur? & who should not?
What advices would you give an aspiring entrepreneurship? Could you suggest the
three most important lessons you have learnt? How can I learn them while
minimizing the tuition?
Would you suggest any other entrepreneur I should talk to?
Are there any other questions you wish I had asked, from which you think I could
learn valuable lessons?

Introduction:
Salim Bhagats age is 48 and his family is comprises of 2 sisters and 2 brothers
including him. He has only completed his Intermediate in education. His father is
involved in construction business and at age of 24 when he started his own venture,
about which he had no experience. His personality suits entrepreneurship because he
cant work under some authority. When he was at starting point there were lot of
people around him who had owned their business, they influence him through their
attributes of honesty and hardworking, thats why he started his own business
He didnt make any one role model in life whom he can follow because, he thinks that
people in this world are dual personalities, they cheat others and never took their
work seriously so, he want to build my own personality that people gets inspiration
from him. He was only intermediate passed even then also he observed his
surrounding and learns through it which helps him in his business. He said that
learning is always ongoing it never stops. he believes on reality and always trust on
God that he will give him better.
Before starting his business he had done job at Carron Company where he repaired all
computer parts and printers of that company. For his business this experience was not
enough but then he did very well because of his two strategies. First take risk and
second judge your customer and these two strategies makes him able to stand in the
market. He only knew that the tyre business is full of opportunities, you have to only
sale once and then that customer will visit after a long period of time if there is no
problem in tyre so started my business learn those critical lessons from time.
His business was completely based on credit which is huge risk but he took the risk
and always got payments on time, he even brought many new products from
importers for his shop. Like every individual he wants to do something innovative
every day by new learnings.

Execution:
Life is too short and time is the something which will never return. This makes time
one of your most valuable resources and we should treat it accordingly.
Entrepreneurship gives you the ability to balance your time. If you have family or
other life circumstances come up, you can decide to forgo any work for that day. You
dont have that kind of flexibility at a job. Your work should fit into your life, not the
other way around. The life part has to come first.
Salim Bhagat was always interested in creating a job instead of doing job with
someone else. He was bird who loves freedom. He belief that starting own business
needs certain amount of luck factor. His family situation was also very good. He spot
some opportunities by brainstorming the business that tyre is something which sold
one time and then it took long time for any complain. He have started a construction
business as his father do but it fails did not work out for him.

Finally after the few months he put base of business, he hadnt made any specific
goals or had made any business plan but his desired destination was to grow his
business. He start as an idea and as time passes slowly and gradually business starts
growing. His father supported him a lot and whenever he needed he took his advice
and implemented it.
He didnt involve any partners because he doesnt know that will his personality and
honestly working style matches them or not. Regarding the financing his father
invested all the all capital in his business which is 1.2 million to 1.5 million and today
his current position is only because of his father. He worked 14 -15 hours in starting
but then he start managing and now he is working 8-9 hours a day and after 5 years
he got positive cash flow and reached to break even.
In the initial days everything was smooth going there were no pressures but he faced
some problems like payment giving on specific time is very crucial in this business,
everyone in the market has same products but his personality, his style of doing
business and his knowledge makes him competitive in the market.
He took some help from friends who were experienced advisors, Lawyers Accountants,
Tax experts and Patent experts which he found through networking and took help till 1
year which improved his business a lot in terms of judging people and know how
about products but even then he thinks that today also he is in the process of
learning. He perceive that there were no weaknesses and once you make sale the
percentage of returning of goods is almost 0.
His most triumphant moment was when people start giving his example to others and
his worst moment he faced a huge loss in stock market as he invested almost all the
profits.

Growth: (once you got going)

He has to work day and night and he was not able to give enough time to his family to
fill most difficult gaps to grow rapidly. When he looked for key people as partners,
advisors or managers he always wants that the people must be honest with work so
that they would fit with him. For the growth he belief that cheating must be avoided.
After reaching to the growth his working time decreases and feels that less
managerial & less entrepreneurial now because as time passes your enthusiasm of
doing your own business decreases. But he wants to expand more in the future. In his
ideal world the working days are 365 days a year and the only holidays are
announced public holidays like Eid, Muharram etc. he want to do more and more work
and plan to retire.
His goals changes with time and his luxuries are also increasing day by day and now
his family situation has also changed in terms of luxuries.
He always learns from both success & failure as they are part of life. He never ran out
of cash and never felt any pressures from his business. The most demanding conflicts
or trade-offs he faced was sacrificing his family life for his business.

Conclusion:

He considers that most valuable asset that enabled you to make is your rapport in
market. No matter what you are you must be honest and committed towards your
work. In the next five years he wants one more shop and one warehouse. Currently he
has 2 shops in two different areas.
Throughout his business life he learned that if your belief is strong and your path is
correct then person is bond to succeed sooner or later.
There is a lot of stress being an entrepreneur as compare to jobs where there is fixed
salary at the end of month. Becoming an entrepreneur requires thought, planning
because it needs a lot of patience to reach towards profit. He learns that business is
more fun and challenging and if you do it from heart you will find it very easy. There
are a number of risks and rewards as an entrepreneur. Knowing what is important for
you will help you choose the right time to make the leap. The risks for an entrepreneur
not getting fix Paid, Sporadic Income, No Income, Having no retirement plans but
rewards are: Passion, Great Boss, Own time and location.
Here every individual is different; the one who is willing to take the risk of
implementing the idea, and who also takes on the role as leader of the company or
organization - assuming full responsibility for its execution, success, or failure is an
entrepreneur.
No matter what are you doing always say that you can do it. The 3 most important
advices he gave for aspiring entrepreneurship are: Honesty, Observation of people
and Punctuality of time.