From the Bansals of Flipkart to Bhavish Agarwal and Ankit Bhati of Ola Cabs, India has seen a surge in the generation of avant-garde innovations and entrepreneurs. More and more Indians are finding their names being listed with iconic entrepreneurs and demi-Gods of startups, like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Recently, celebrating the theme of entrepreneurship in India, Singapore’s DBS Bank released a video story of Asha and Ken – one a passionate food enthusiast and another, a food blogger from foreign land. The story saw them turn their dream of being restaurateurs into reality, together, in India. A unique-story telling format, the video allows a reader to determine eight outcomes of Asha and Ken’s dreams, by role-playing.

It may be a marketing campaign, but it is an activity in which every aspiring entrepreneur must participate. It is a personality quiz, where depending on the choices you make as Ken, results ranging from ‘You are a Born Leader’ to ‘You are Cautiously Ambitious’ are predicted. The video titled ‘Chilli-Paneer’ is the second leg of DBS’s campaign in the Indian market which can be visited here. The first leg saw DBS introduce Asha and Ken through the first video in its series.
To amp up this celebratory cheer for India’s successful entrepreneurs and to take its momentum forward, Firstpost decided to list down key traits the trailblazers have in common. Take a look:
Vision
A simple and smart idea that sells a commonplace product in a different packaging or an innovation that is out of the box, or, there can be numerous business making ideas. Yet, what sets apart a successful enterprise from others is its founder’s vision.
From Zomato to Flipkart, the founders behind these uber successful ventures had a vision for their offering. Vision is much like playing the future of your business in your mind. Not only does it allow one to evaluate and analyse the core idea, but create a blueprint and the confidence to pitch it to the stakeholders.
Passion
Passion is the launchpad for any dream to take flight into reality. There is nothing that can replace both, passion and motivation, even if one has ample resources required to put together a foolproof business idea. Passion is the most basic element, because, simply put, it is your fuel to sustain excitement right from first stage to last stage.

Self Belief
Most entrepreneurs believe that their products and services can change the world. Self belief in your offering and ideas not only gives strength to overcome negativity and self-doubt but also the confidence right from pitching to your investors to going out in the market with the final product. And that makes it the stepping stone to success.
However, let us not underestimate the power of self-doubt. Self doubt that arises from a healthy evaluation of your own limitations and strengths can in fact help you take the right turns on your drive towards success. However, the trick lies in not allowing your doubts to overwhelm you. And that is when self-motivation and self-belief comes into play.
The above virtues are also exemplified by Asha and Ken in the Chilli Paneer video excellently. With the vision to build a South Asian restaurant, Asha and Ken are shown working as a team drawing strength from each other’s passion. Overcoming opposition from families to realize their dream of serving delectable authentic and fusion food, Asha and Ken’s is an inspirational story.
Understanding your audience
Another step towards reaching the goal as an entrepreneur is to understand the market and audience in question.
Audience demographics, competitors and changing market dynamics are a must-know. How well a product can survive the market and its shelf life can only be determined if the above factors are well researched. Understanding the audience and the market facilitates a practical approach regardless of how intuitive a concept of business is.
Planning
Planning out tangible and intangible investments – from capital to time to relationships at stake, an analysis, planning and re-planning these is of high importance. While it allows one to strategise and pave a path for an entrepreneurial idea, it also helps in creating backup plans.
Risk Taking Ability
There is a reason why they say, “Winners don’t do different things. They do things differently”. Defying convention with their ideas or methods has been a trait common to successful entrepreneurs. And defying convention means risking investments.
Besides having the vision, confidence and passion required to make a business work, taking risk is the X-factor to overcoming all fears – doubts often posed by either naysayers or by lack of experience or capital.
But first, a fair look at the risk and its reward, and the readiness to accept failure in worst case scenario are two important ingredients to make the recipe work.
Speaking of planning and risk taking, the Chilli Paneer video is an excellent case study offered by DBS. Planning and decision making, understanding a business partner’s perspective, evaluating risks, et al, the video demos it by allowing readers to play Ken’s role. Besides, it also works well as a personality quiz that helps one learn key traits about him/herself.
Adaptability & Agility
Changing market dynamics, constantly evolving marketing strategies and audiences require one to adapt and evaluate business strategies constantly. It is imperative to make sure one is in tune with current times.
One can feel the need to make changes in any stage of executing and rendering a business plan. To adopt these changes swiftly, agility is a key component. After all it is all about the customer.
Tenacity
It is recommended to anticipate changes when catering to a dynamic market. There is an image to be built and maintained. To stay afloat through constant changes, turn negatives into positives, and deflect uncertainty and unknowns, tenacity is one quality that will see an entrepreneur through.

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