TAKE ME HOME: THE INSPIRING STORIES OF 20 ENTREPRENEURS FROM SMALL-TOWN INDIA WITH BIG-TIME DREAMS by Rashmi Bansal

Author:Rashmi Bansal [BANSAL, RASHMI]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Westland
Published: 2014-01-26T18:30:00+00:00

Rohith has a simple solution – he focuses on hiring young people just like himself.

“80% of our 350 employees are from in and around Mangalore. They are from the local engineering colleges of south Karnataka.”

Local boys and girls attracted by the quality of the work and comfort of living close to home. A job at Robosoft pays as much or more than Infosys or Wipro. And it’s actually more prestigious.

“We don’t recruit in bulk – just 2-3 students from each college. Because we want the best, the ones who are looking for a challenge.”

Robosoft also offers internship projects to BTechs and conducts coding competitions.

“Everybody likes the kind of work that gets done here – that helps us attract the right talent!”

The company is also robust at the management level. Some of the early joinees such as Shylaja Rao, Srinidhi Rao and Pradeep Kumar (all NMAMT graduates like Rohith) and Ram Acharya have been with Robosoft since its KREC days. When the company shifted to Udupi in the year 2000, Rohith’s brothers sold off their plastics business and joined the venture. While Purushotham Bhat is responsible for the overall operations, Sudheer Bhat takes care of accounts and finance.

“I remember the early days – when we were giving our first salary, I wrote the cheque without deducting any tax. We realised our mistake only after a year!”

Such slip-ups don’t happen anymore but at every stage in life you realise – “I can do better.”

“Small things we have not paid a lot of attention to in the past…suddenly those things start becoming more important as you start looking into the future!”

Robosoft continues to be a privately held company, grown through internal accruals and debt finance.

The family and early founders own the entire equity, but going forward Rohith thinks a stake sale or public issue may be necessary.

“I want to take the 99Games and Global Delight business to a totally different scale.”

Lower costs and higher loyalty of employees are the plus points of the Robosoft model. Will we see more such success stories? Yes and no.

“For large companies it will always be a challenge. For people like me – who have grown up here, studied here, it’s an opportunity.”

And a big one at that….

All work and no family life makes Jack a dull boy. After many years spent building the company, in 2005, Rohith tied the knot. Wife, Shilpa Prabhu, is also from Udupi, and a computer engineer who was working at Robosoft since 2002. Shilpa is now spearheading 99Games.

“We have a 7-year-old daughter and, I must say, I work far less now but travel a lot more.”

When in Udupi, Rohith is in the office at 9:30 am and leaves at 8 pm. Weekends are off though the calls and emails continue. Travelling on work more than 150 days in a year, he travels for pleasure as well.

“I own a Mahindra Scorpio (bought in 2004) and recently bought Mahindra XUV500.” (Note the preference for an Indian built, world-class car.)

Driving down to Mangalore, Goa or Agumbe on weekends is a favourite pastime.

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