TIE Houston Presents Entrepreneurship in Tough Times is about to begin! #TIEHouston #StartupHouston #LiveBlog
We are here at The Petroleum Club and the event is sold out! Following are some images of the crowd.
TIE Houston would like to thank their sponsor for this event: Continental Airlines
Kanwal Rekhi will be up to speak soon about Entrepreneurship in Troubling Times.
Ashokc Rao -President of TIE Houston is up on the podium providing introductions.
Walter Ulrich with HTC is here
General Introduction about TIE. The world's largest organization for Entrepreneurs.
TIE serves three purposes:
1) Foster Entrepreneurship
2) Mentor Entrepreneurs
3) Provide Networking Opportunities for its members
Introduction to Kanwal Rekhi
Kanwal Rekhi is speaking about overcoming stereotypes in college and work during the 70's.
He gave up a great job in order to pursue his dream as an entrepreneur. What motivated him the most was seeing another person quit their job and become successful and he said "He is not so good. I can do that too!"
At the time, he had a great salary, a house and two cars, a wife and two kids.
At first though, no one would buy their products.
Figured out that is was a Marketing problem. Decided that they needed to tell the world that they could network the early IBM PC with Unix machines
He offered a money-back guarantee and increased their pricing for their software from $50 to $15,000 (still half of what Digital was charging) and it worked !!
By the end of 1995 they were making $10 Million a year.
The next couple of years, they were making $20 Million a year, and then decided to IPO. However there were concerns of whether Kanwal should remain CEO.
Next came the crash of 1987, so they cut back on Marketing and Sales. This caused their sales to slow down, so they reversed course and regained Sales. They went on to make $37 Million in revenue in 1987.
They were courted by Microsoft and Novell and decided to merge with Novell.
Kanwal Rekhi's company name was Excelan. You can find out more here:
en.wikipedia.orgKanwal Rekhi is now talking about how TIE was founded.
Kanwal was also one of the first people to build a commercial datacenter
Kanwal has mentored over 2000 people and helped to provide funding to thousands more.
Talking about how you need to give back as an Entrepreneur
The Indus in 'The Indus Entrepreneurs' stands for India + US
Founded 30 chapters in 3 years.
Here is a picture of Kanwal speaking to the crowd.
The problem for India is poverty. The antidote for poverty is wealth. The solution to creating wealth is to foster Entrepreneurship.
In 1990, India only had $300 Million in exports. In 1996, India had $600 Million in exports. In 2005, exports (including outsourcing) were $50 Billion.
10 Years ago India had 1 Million cellphones. Now, India has over 600 Million Cell Phones.
Kanwal Rekhi has been very involved in helping to grow India's technology infrastructure and economy.
Now they are going to take questions. If you have any questions you would like to ask Kanwal then ask them hear and I will ask them to Kanwal.
First Question: Will the U.S. recover from the recent financial meltdown or is the U.S. starting a long decline?
Kanwal Answer: All of my investments are based on the US recovering. The US is going back to the basics. The best schools are still in the US.
Question: What do you see happening in 2015 / 2020?
Kanwal Answer: The future is in our youth. Technology is moving so rapidly it is difficult to predict that far forward. Who would have predicted social networks?
Question: How can nonprofits succeed in tough times?
Kanwal Answer: Non-profits never die, they increase their value.
Question: What does Kanwal think about the opening up of opportunity in India's education / university system?
Kanwal Answer: Believes the system should be opened up so that more India youth and families can prosper.
Question: Do you recommend that people step out of their comfort zone during tough times?
Kanwal Answer: Tough times are the best time to become an entrepreneur. Your competition is low and your resource costs are also lower.
Time for 2 last questions.
Question: What are you investing in now?
Kanwal Answer: I invest in Entrepreneurs. I don't invest in the Stock Market.
Kanwal: Being an Entrepreneur can be crazy at times, but its worth it.
Kanwal has finished his talk and is now being presented with a gift by Ashok Rao, President of the TiE Houston Chapter.
Thank You for joining StartupHouston for the LiveBlog of the TIE Houston event - Entrepreneurship in Tough Times. We will be posting the High-Resolution versions of the images to Flickr at:
www.flickr.com
