15/11/2020
Sometimes, failure can be a good thing. In the case of Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, it led her to pioneer a new industry, build a world-class company and set her on her path to great success.
“It was just fate that got me to start my business. It was the failure to get a job as a brew master that saw me start a biotech company. It was not a career path I chose myself,” she says.
Mazumdar-Shaw came back to India after completing her studies from Australia in 1975 to pursue a brewing career. But companies were unwilling to take a bet on her since brewing was considered to be the turf of men.
After two years of trying to fit in, she gave up and was headed for a career overseas when a chance meeting with an Irish entrepreneur making enzymes sent her on the journey of being an entrepreneur instead.
Wanting to start her own business as a 25-year old woman came with its own set of challenges, but she was well-prepared to face them.
“In a way, the challenges I faced when I set off to become a brew master had prepared me for the hardships I would face as an entrepreneur,” she shares.
Biocon was incorporated on November 29, 1978 with an investment of ₹10,000. Back then, there were not too many women who wanted to pursue even a career, let alone entrepreneurship.
To illustrate how restrictive the scenario was for women, Mazumdar-Shaw narrates the story of when she approached Karnataka State Financial Corporation (KSFC) for a loan; the institution told her that since they had clubbed women entrepreneurs with the physically challenged and the backward class, she could apply for a loan under that category.
But, Mazumdar-Shaw flatly denied. “On principal, I refused to apply for the loan and told them neither am I physically challenged or nor do I belong to a backward class. I told them to process my application under the general category,” she recalls.
Raising a credit line from a bank was almost impossible. They would want her father to sign a bank guarantee on her behalf, since she was not married. She told them that her father had nothing to do with her business, so they would have to base their decisions on her credentials.
Most banks weren’t willing to take that leap of faith. Finally, a manager from Canara Bank took that risk and she managed to secure a credit line.
Adding to this, there was the challenge of recruiting people. Nobody wanted to work for a woman and the fact that she was operating out of a garage didn’t impress prospective recruits either.
Her first two employees were tractor mechanics who were about to retire, but that didn’t deter her. She taught them initial enzyme processing, and eventually got a founding team in place, some of whom are still with her.
“Entrepreneurship is a grueling journey. Most entrepreneurs give up at the first couple of pitfalls. That’s giving up too easily. It is an endurance test and you must endure. I have gone through a number of pitfalls in the early days of business and I managed to scale up because I didn’t give up,” says the inspiring woman.
Source: TheBetterIndia
