Partnership may fail or succeed, but a bad partnership should never lead you to go solo.
Dinesh Tejwani has spent 3 decades towards the conceptualization and growth of ventures spanning across five diverse fields. After a short stint at ONGC, he practised as a Chartered Accountant for the following 8 years before venturing into the business of merchant banking and share transfer agency.
In early 2000 Dinesh co-founded Fast Facts, which rapidly rose to become the market leader in the fields of TDS, Payroll, Fixed Assets Management and Income-Tax filing. In April 2012, the business of Fast Facts was acquired by Thomson Reuters.
Currently, Dinesh acts as a co-founder of three ventures, a mentoring platform for entrepreneurs called ‘Enlight Enablers’, a Jain Tourism portal GoJainYatra.com & GST filing software SahiGST.com.
Where did the idea for SahiGST come from?
India decided to move towards one of the most transformative indirect tax idea of GST, which is possibly unparalleled in the world. This opens up a big market of 8 million tax payers who have to learn and adopt new compliance regime. That is where the idea of SahiGST a cloud based GST filing & compliance platform was born as I thought of utilising my past 2 decades of running a tax solutions company.
What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?
I like to observe fixed office time routine, keeping aside sufficient time for leisure. I avoid reading mails on my phone and start my day by reading and working on emails working on my big screen all in one desktop. I avoid unnecessary travelling for meetings and use Skype calls extensively. My typical day starts at 10:30 AM and ends at 6 PM
How do you bring ideas to life?
For any serious work, I decide on a no-communication time zone where I put my mobile on silent mode and work on my idea by preparing a detailed note. I rely on primary research, secondary research and customer surveys to substantiate my idea.
What’s one trend that really excites you?
India’s move towards digital economy with Aadhar based KYC, UPI based payments and electronic compliance makes a very exciting time.
What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?
A very good time management and absolute adherence to calendar for meetings and appointment. I do end up with substantial time wasted, when others do not maintain time discipline and arrive late on meetings.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Have a mentor, who shapes your decision making capabilities.
Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on?
Instant and overload of communication has made us less productive.
As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?
You need partners to bring your ideas to life. Partnership may fail or succeed, but a bad partnership should never lead you to go solo.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business? Please explain how.
Keep all stakeholders engaged and motivated. When I was running my previous company Fast Facts, I realised that success of my business depends on how motivated or successful my distributors and employees are. I created positive work culture and win-win policies for distributors. When each distributor grew, my business grew automatically.
What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?
In one of the ventures, where one of the co-founder had critical domain expertise, he opted out all of a sudden after other co-founders had spend good amount and time on it. I was very young then and this sudden shock was quite destabilising. But being optimistic, I was able to get over it soon and started working on other ideas.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
I have found that small & mid-size tour operators in India struggle to fill all their seats for a given trip. This is a major loss to them. A priceline like platform that can help them sell last moment discounts for such tours can be a good idea.
What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?
I subscribed to Biteable 99$ for one year. It is awesome way of creating videos, explainer, promotional or just fun!
What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
Todoist. It is a simple task management tool. It keeps me organised and productive.
What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?
The Professional by Suboroto Baghchi.
It really defines what a professional is and how he conducts himself in today’s work culture.
What is your favorite quote?
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
Connect:
SahiGST on Twitter:
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GoJainYatra on Twitter:
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Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.