Vivek Narayan
Class of 2010
Product-Vice President, Meritnation


 

Previous Occupation: Product Manager, Clickable
Present Occupation: Product-Vice President, Meritnation .
Sector: IT Products
Work Experience: 13 Yrs

Digital books or digital publishing is the new industry which is coming up in India, is it here to stay?
If you look at established media publishing houses, their bread and butter is book publishing. Ever since Amazon started it in the west, they have been struggling to figure out what is their role in the field. It opens up new challenges in the traditional media space, on how do I monitor the industry, do people still read books or buy e-books, about piracy, are people willing to pay online, all these chaos is only limited to the people who are running this industry.
The other side, the people who are just beginning to use the internet which pretty much covers a bulk of the Indian population who just in the learning process, these problems are next to nothing. So reading actual books is still a big thing and maybe limited to people who are above 50. But the digital books also have their advantages, the benefits are amazingly high and so this industry is here to stay.

Academics aside, what were the extra-curricular activities that you were involved in?
Well, everyone here wants to be part of some or the other club, so peers of my batch were the ones who started one of the clubs, and I was the operations coordinator for this club. Due to a surgery in my knee I was pretty much done on the sports front. However, I would've taken advantage of the pool, but it was always dirty with the cake and all.

Since you are working for a startup, the hours you put in will be obviously high. How about your work-life balance? Is it difficult?
I might not be the right person to answer this because in my free time I read books on technology, do courses on design etc. So work life balance really gets a meaning when work is something you do not enjoy, life is something you do enjoy and you will have to balance both or when they are not aligned.
However, when work itself gives you tremendous amount of freedom as far as startup is concerned then this phrase doesn't come into the picture. For instance, for the next three months, I am going to be piloting a sales team of around 10 people. I'm going to hire 10 people, hire a sales manager, discuss on where to recruit, how to train the new recruits, how much should we pay them etc, this is something I love. I love doing this and also love the fact that I'm able to do this. Startups cannot afford to hire people who come with the expectation of a proper work life balance or the concept of off hours and things like that. But people who are interested in working for startups already come with an understanding that work is life and life is work.

There are many students here who aspire to work in startups. What are the qualities you think one needs to have to be successful in a startup.
More important than qualities, it is based upon what you really enjoy. The people who are aspiring to work in startups are generally first timers who never worked in startup before. They would've been working a descent job before, where they felt they weren't pushed hard enough, never been challenged or were never given the right kind of exposure. If this was something that bothered them then that is the single largest trait any startup would be looking for.
That being said, there are people who would like to excel in their area of interest alone, they would not like to have too much on their plate, then the big companies would be the place for them. They would have a good work life balance. So it's basically up to yourself to decide what is the best place to work for.
Other qualities required to enter and sustain in any startup is the ability to do anything and not limit yourself to your job alone. You must push yourself to think big and out of the box, have interest in reading many books which might help you get ideas to better the startup.

You were one of the few ISB powered couples. How did that feel and how do you feel now?
Well there were 7 couples in my batch. However don't be hasty to see yourself as a couple on your graduation day as many couples break up and some continue to be together. Give it a few years and then make the right decision. It's a very wonderful feeling to meet someone on campus, you get to see them every day and I met my wife on day 1 and took almost every elective together.

If you should come to ISB to hire one of us, what would you be looking for on any of our resumes?
I personally do not believe in resume screening as I myself have been on the wrong side of it. I would like to talk to as many people as I possibly can. Unlike well established companies who know what they are looking for and have a set of pre-determined set of requirements, startups do not have as many things set in stone. You always have an open set of requirements, you always have a need of people in various areas, and so you would like to meet as many people as you can. The first impression would fall on the album which you send, so definitely spend time on that and make sure it is flawless.

At ISB there are so many opportunities to explore. Sometimes you wish to step out of you comfort zone to explore those options. How do you think one can balance that?
95% of the time, you need to push yourself to try something new and come out of that comfort zone. You come from a particular background, people will look at you from that perspective and tie you to that background. However you might or might not want to go back to that background, so you will have to signal to that other person that you have bits and pieces of other backgrounds too, that these are the projects I did or this is a club that I have started or are a part of etc.
If you know with a clarity of thought what you want to do then there is no problem there. But there are only 5% of us who can actually accomplish that. For the rest of us, the only way is to try everything that is out there, and some things might click you may never know. So, in a nutshell, do something that comes right from the heart.

Did you ever go for an exchange.
No, I never went for an exchange because it never actually interested my much. I did study abroad but not as an exchange student. I don't see it as really worthwhile, because the variety of courses there are abroad, you can find all of them here too, so I don't see the point.

© 2014 Indian School of Business, Disclaimer.