Stuck on You

Narayanan was, without doubt, the most interesting businessman I met in my decade-long career in venture capital. In fact, he was the only one who was as interesting as he was unsuccessful.

His background was the perfect formula for entrepreneurial failure: impeccable, pucca pedigree, an MBA from IIM Calcutta in the early ‘70s and many years selling Coke and other muck from the comfort of a big budget office, before he decided that the one thing India sorely lacked was, well, a bubble gum with attitude (ordinary bubble gum wouldn’t do, of course). He persuaded a couple of friends, who looked to me as though they once possessed some common sense, to join him and Gum India was born. A couple of years later, he pulled off his first impossible trick: he persuaded a venture fund that existed to fund high-technology projects to invest in Gum India – this was a couple of years before I joined the fund.

Narayanan had an unsatiable appetite for risk, particularly when there was no reason to take it and carefully cultivated an air of business expertise and creative thinking about him – he liked people to see him as a man of whacko out-of-the-box ideas. But what set him apart (and possibly still does, for he is very much alive and kicking) was his personality.

A tall, thin man, with a reed-like structure and a rapidly balding pate, he combined charm with wit in astonishing measure. The more his companies – all of which we at TDICI more or less owned – sunk, the greater we seemed to want to fund him, each time for a particularly different, yet outrageous, project. He had access to the very top of the TDICI/ICICI pyramid (I was at the bottom) and everytime we met, he would wear a smile that seemed to be pasted on for my benefit: it combined a certain arrogance with thinly disguised condescension, disdain and pity. This attitude was not without reason. I was fresh out of MBA, green behind the ears and part of an organisation that was accustomed to eating out his hand.

In the five years or so that I struggled to understand just what to do with this company, I was allowed to visit the factory only once and for good measure, for no one who has seen how bubble gum is made will want to
1. buy it
2. eat it
3. sell it
4. fund it
5. or use it to plug a leaking pipe.

To Nari, these were irrelevant considerations. He saw India as bubble gum country, his vision being one of children from Mcleodgunj to Mamallapuram clamouring for their daily dose of gum, thus painting a picture of a true India multinational that would be the envy of Wrigley’s. The reality, though, was much more modest: sales were about a few crores a year and falling. Profits? Well, that was for the future, since for the moment the company had a venture capitalist who would fund the losses.

Every quarter, we’d have a Board Meeting, to which we would go - my boss, his briefcase stacked with papers that analysed the pathetic performance of the company upside down and his face beetroot red as he mulled over the extent of financial damage that we had suffered, and I, determined to not take any nonsense this time and to call a spade a spade. Nari would amble over, pull my boss’ leg and joke on just how beaten I looked working with him. He would ask us out to lunch, speak of cricket with some passion, mull over the next marathon he planned to run, advice us on marketing our services better and ridicule Hindustan Lever’s marketing strategy.

Everytime I raised any business issue with Nari, he would give me his famous look and then confidently predict that the next quarter would be sensational. “After all,” he always said, “ this company is yours. Where will you get a bunch of MBAs working for you at this pathetic salary.” …….and the funny part is, I would always come off from the meeting feeling terribly sympathetic for this talented team. “Perhaps,” I would reason to my colleagues at the next internal meeting, “the next quarter will see a turnaround.” Everyone, of course, thought it was hilarious, since no one had the slightest doubt that our multiple investments in the company were up in smoke. Yet, Nari’s eloquence could be blinding.

In 1991, he predicted that a chain of dosa outlets would be the next big thing. In every part of this country, other than the South, he said, there was a crying need for a clean, machine-made masala dosa, the dry batter-and-mix of which would be supplied from a national, centralised kitchen. And since sambhar and chutney were hard to franchise, he decided that ketchup would do the trick.

We fell over ourselves in excitement, writing out cheques and investment agreements in a trice, even before the new company, Dosa King, had an office or an employee. When the story ended five years later, we had a great deal of blood (actually, ketchup) to show for it, a machine that made everything – photocopies, music recordings, ballpoint pens – except dosas. Well, that’s not entirely true: the five prototypes on the field made all of about 400 dosas, of which I had two while visiting the first (and only) outlet in Nagpur on September 14th, 1996. I remember the date and the place, because of the prescription dated that evening for acute indigestion, that I have preserved.

I vividly remember my last meeting with Nari, when I had put in my papers at TDICI. “I have learnt a great deal from you,” I said with feeling. “Thanks.”
“What a shame, Gopa! You are leaving just when Gum India will post record results in the next quarter. In fact, you may even want to invest in it in a few months time.”

'..and when our conversation ended, I had very nearly written out a cheque for my life’s savings.