Recipe of success for a start-up...from the horse's mouth

I am working in a company named Cendura corp, with offices in Mountain view, CA, USA and Hyderabad, India. My company is working in the area of configuration management. The CEO of Cendura is Mr. Pavan Nigam. A true and thinking enterpreneur in all aspects. He is of WebMD fame, which he grew from few people team to a team of 6000 employees. I am very much hopeful of same with Cendura, started somewhere in 2001.

Pavan Nigam is a visionary person. He graduated from IIT Kanpur, and moved to US thereafter. Since then he has been living in US.

Last week, Pavan was in India. Following are few tips from his side, and what I have watched since last couple of years while working in Cendura:

• A great idea is not the only sifficient thing. The other more important ones are great team, and great execution.
• Cost control is very important in the entire cycle of business. To acheive, do whatever it takes... Hire or Fire.:)
• Always good to have competitors. However, do everything to kill the competition.
• Proper positioning in the market. That is supported by quality publicity from time-to-time.
  
• Calculated and quality hiring from time-to-time. That includes calculated hiring of engineers, sales people, marketing guys.
  
• Having a couple of great board members always helps.
• One of the most important one is to have repeat business from same customer. That is possible by having greatly satisfied customers who could provide references.

I could firmly say that watching a growing start-up is better than any MBA degree from any university. Rightly said Pavan!