Serial Entrepreneur: Manoj Saxena (Part 7)

In the final chapter of our interview with Manoj he discusses his desires for the future, as well as his philisophical ideals which have guided him so far.

SM: How old are you, Manoj?
MS: I’m 41.

SM: You have a lot of time left.
MS: I’ve gone to places for a month where you don’t talk and you meditate for four hours a day and all of that. It was one of the most insightful and difficult things I’ve ever done in my life. It did help a lot. It is apparently the same concept that Buddha went through for three years before he obtained enlightenment. The whole deal is that for ten days you still your mind and turn it inward. The concept is that you are who you are because of the knowledge from the entirety of your life, the cravings and aversions – your knots. When you still your mind and open up those knots you go back and things happen. I went back to when I was 4-5 years old, as well as when I was 7. I began to notice things that my father said to me when I brought home a report card, and that makes me so driven.

SM: Is it a facilitated process or a random process?
MS: It’s a facilitated process. It’s done out of 4 centers in the U.S. and some 50 centers around the world. Every two hours they talk to you for five minutes. They tell you how to meditate and then they go away. You do it in a room where 10 or 15 other people are sitting as well. There is no chanting or anything. It’s just quite, stilling your mind and you don’t talk. There are two meals a day. You do it for ten days.

SM: What’s the name of the organization?
MS: Dhamma.org and the process is called the Vipassna.

SM: The Tibet meditation technique.
MS: Yes, its one of several. There are so many things I don’t know, one thing is I am pretty confident this is my last start up. The next thing will probably be a private equity set up where you get together a hundred million dollars or so and buy up a few companies. Restructure them, recalibrate them, make into a global enterprise and work it globally. Flip it. That, sort of thing.

SM: That is because you are tired of starting something from scratch?
MS: Yes, it is a different experience. One of the reasons I did Webify was to answer the question about my first company. Was I good or was I lucky? My wife says I’m just a masochist. My sense was that any idiot could have done it had you given them 18 million dollars in 1998.

SM: You had something to prove to yourself.
MS: That is a big portion of it. Proving to myself that it was not just a fluke. So I think the two areas I’m going to do something in is: first, I’m going to do something in social entrepreneurship where 70% is still about making money and 30% about doing good. I have this personal motto of “Doing Well by Doing Good”. The second thing would be a private equity deal on a larger scale, because it is a different type of a challenge. It’s just that Iwant to test myself in different areas. It’s all about learning and growing. Ready for climbing new mountains, that kind of thing.

SM: You can also explore other markets. You’ve done most of your work in the enterprise software market from an entrepreneurship point of view. There are all kinds of things happening in the consumer market such as Internet and Entertainment. Right now those markets are much more exciting than the enterprise software market per se.
MS: That is true. The reality is actually, knowing myself well enough, I am actively keeping myself away from thinking about that stuff.

SM: Why is that?
MS: Once I start thinking I see the thread, and I’ll get so consumed with it that within months I will be ready to go and leave IBM a little too prematurely. It’s one of those things I keep telling myself anyways. It’s an enticement. A seduction, and I don’t want to go down that path.

This has been a great interview with a very successful entreprenuer. It is interesting and facinating to discover what processes and methodologies affected his decision making process as he created his companies. Manoj did an excellent job understanding the optimal manner in which to fund his ventures. There is also a correlation with an article from the New York Times which I recently commented on, as well as other articles in my venture capital series.

[Part 7]
[Part 6]
[Part 5]
[Part 4]
[Part 3]
[Part 2]
[Part 1]

This segment is part 7 in the series : Serial Entrepreneur: Manoj Saxena
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