Don't be an Abhimanyu in Business and Life

I sacrificed 17 years of my Work Experience when I joined somewhere at the lower end of the ladder in an Investment Bank in Kuwait. I was known as an Educationist and this was hampering my career in Kuwait, where one can easily get type cast. Once an Educationist, always an Educationist is the motto in Middle East. There is no talk about transfering the knowledge of one sector to another.

It is another matter that I grew up very fast in the Investment Banking Sector, partly due to favourable market conditions, partly due to the Company registering phenomenal growth in the Private Equity Sector and partly due to good fortune. I have never looked back since. Though I have moved away from Core Investment Banking, I still think and act like one, and have not forgotten the lessons I learned during my stint as an Investment Banker.

Though I had been an entrepreneur once in the past, having been a franchisee of NIIT, I need to admit that it came too early in my career, at the age of 29, when in retrospect, I have to admit, I was not ready for the task. I did not have a good grasp of Finance, Costing, and was poor in man-management. I also thought there will be sustainable growth, and the higher revenue will justify the higher cost and paper over other cracks. When the inevitable downturn came, and the growth plateaued, I didnt have too many answers. And to boot, I didnt know where I went wrong.

I got the answer to this riddle during my stint as an Investment Banker. I am a sucker for new ideas, and whenever I get a good hair brained scheme that requires funding, I used to champion the cause and take it to my Chairman, explaining to the virtues of the project and the profit that will accrue to the Company. He will listen patiently and ask just one question 'Rajaaan, what is the exit?'. I didnt know initially what he meant. But later on learned that Investment Companies enter at an early growth phase, add value and exit when the time is right, making a tidy profit. The exit option is always important. This was drilled into me time and again. These days I dont encourage any investment proposal without a clear exit strategy.

Be it in business or in personal life or professional life, always have an exit strategy before you enter.

Remember the story of Abhimanyu, who learned while in the womb how to break into Chakravyuha, but did not know how to exit, and paid for it with his life. Whenever I have an itch to start a venture without considering the exit, I remember these stanza,

Veenithallo Kidakkunnu Dharaniyil
Kshonithavumanijallo Siva Siva
Nalla Marathaka Kallinotothoru
Kalyanaroopan Kumaran Manoharan