“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett’s words in “Worstward Ho,” published in 1983 sound like a life lesson. This tenet fully applies to virtually every domain of human activity, especially in markets where it might represent an aspiring entrepreneur who tries, fails, tries again, and eventually succeeds. The path of most successful entrepreneurs is marked by a number of failures. But the failures don’t deter them from following and achieving their cherished dreams.
Entrepreneur is a French word, first used in 1723, to describe a person who organizes and operates a business by taking a financial risk. Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a start-up company, offering a product, process or service for sale.
The literature on entrepreneurship has described entrepreneurs having a number of characteristics viz initiative, risk taking, leadership, business and profit orientation, unconventional or out of the box thinking, never say die attitude, willingness and ability to follow the new technology. The entrepreneurs have capability to turn their ideas into business. Many of them are daring enough to take a break from traditional jobs and venture into wholly new fields and make a success of it through their own ingenuity or with some institutional or State help.
Entrepreneurship in agriculture is termed as Agriculture Entrepreneurship or Agripreneurship. Agripreneurs thus do not differ from entrepreneurs in their basic traits. Agriprenuers may take up activities such as Horticulture, Bee Keeping, Mushroom Cultivation, Floriculture, Fish Farming etc. In livestock sector too there are a number of entrepreneurship opportunities such as Dairy Farming, Sheep rearing and Poultry Farming etc.
With respect to entrepreneurship in poultry sector the name of KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) instantly comes to mind. But people seldom remember its founding father-Colonel Sanders. He was an American, not a military man though, but given an honorary title of Colonel. His life was full of struggle and marked with repeated failures and he achieved success very late in his life. He lost his father at the tender age of 6 and tried his hands on multiple jobs without success. At the ripe age of 65 he started KFC franchising proving that age is just a number! By the age of 74 he sold KFC for 2 million dollars and when he died at the age of 90 he was already a billionaire. It is said that his idea of a new recipe was rejected 1009 times before being accepted. But despite failures he kept on trying and ultimately achieved his goal. His life is thus a classical example of ‘rags to riches’ and the principle ‘failure breeds success’.
When we read the success stories of entrepreneurs we realize that all of them had to struggle in their life. Be it BV Rao the father of poultry farming in India or the Soundararajan brothers, the owners of Sugna Poultry Company. They didn’t achieve overnight success, but faced challenges in life. The Hyderabad born Banda Vasudeva (BV) Rao was the founder of National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC); was inducted in International Poultry Hall of fame by World Poultry Science Association and received number of awards from GOI. He established the Venkateshvar Hatcheries Pvt. Ltd. in Pune in 1976. Today the group is popularly known the world over as ‘Venky’s’. It has a worth of around 2 billion US dollars. But B. V. Rao struggled a lot in his early life. Initially he worked at low level jobs. He started his business venture with just 500 birds. He had some ancestral land and sold his wife’s jewelry to start his business.
Similarly the Coimbatore based Soundararajan brothers who currently own the Sugna Poultry Company had a modest beginning. They established their enterprise on their ancestral land. To start their business their mother gave them Rs 5000. They introduced the concept of Contract Farming wherein they acted as Integrators and provided inputs such as Chicks, feed and medicines to the poultry farmers and the latter only provided the necessary infrastructure. The farmers would grow the chicks for around 40 days and return them to be sold in the market. The Suguna Poultry evolved into a Rs. 4200 crore company, working with 18000 farmers all across the country and became Asia’s fourth and world’s 15th largest Broiler Company.
Recently in Karnataka Kishore Indukuri, a graduate in engineering from IIT Kharagpur who has Masters and PhD from University of Massachusetts came into limelight for his success in dairy farming. He left his lucrative job in the USA and arrived in India to start a dairy farm in year 2012 with just 20 cows initially and delivered milk at the doorsteps of his customers. By 2018 Indukuri catered to 6000 customers. Today he delivers milk to nearly 10000 customers everyday and has 120 employees with annual revenue of Rs 40 crore.
The example of Colonel Sanders wherein he tasted success after 1009 attempts illustrates that “failure breeds success”. But in this fast evolving competitive world the aspiring entrepreneurs can’t become complacent. Why get to the age of 65 failing at every single thing you do? There is a reason why such people may not have succeeded. Maybe they were not so smart, lacked discipline, had a poor concept of business, no staying power, no backers, no customers, no luck. A better theory is that “success breeds success”. The story of Colonel Sanders sounds great and is very motivational. In reality it legitimizes a lot of poor-quality entrepreneurs chasing ill-thought dreams with inadequate business plans.
Before venturing in any field the aspiring entrepreneurs should make it sure that they have the requisite interest to do the particular activity. There is a saying: do what you love, and you will never work another day in your life. Aspiring entrepreneurs must do proper study of the said field. They must get in touch with the experienced people who are already into that field. Take feedback from them. Learn from their mistakes. Prior planning and proper analysis is a prerequisite. Would-be entrepreneurs should consult experts and get clear cut business plans or project reports from them. The agriculture including livestock sector presents numerous opportunities to aspiring entrepreneurs. Initially they can start with routine activities. Subsequently the entrepreneurs can go for value addition and product diversification. They can also undertake activities such as Organic farming and get better returns from health conscious people for their produce.
Unemployment and underemployment is rampant here in Kashmir. Being an agriprenuer one can not only be self-employed but also generate employment opportunities for others too. There are various schemes in agriculture sector and Dairy, Poultry and Sheep rearing schemes too which the youth can avail for establishing income generating units. But there are no short cuts to success. Hard and smart work is the key!
Dr. Zubair Ahmad War, Alumnus, SKUAST-Kashmir