Vishal Gondal

Vishal Gondal, born on 14th of july 1976 he is an entrepreneur and investor. Founder and ceo of Indigames, A global multinational now developing and publishing games for the world from and outside India. Recently he was featured amongst the top of the 40 Indian entrepreneurs by BUSINESS TODAY in 2008

He was an earnst and young entrepreneur of the year in 2004 and 2005, He was also listed among the top 50 executives in the mobile industry Of UK by uk based ‘mobile entertainment’ magazine.

Gondal did also featured on the 20 fab Indians to watch out for in 2006 by THE WEEK magazine,

He was part of the Nokia advisory council for games and also called upon for advices for nokia on wireless and gaming technology, and is much also sought as a speaker for the tech and non tech based conferences held at national and international level . Indiagames under his dynamic leadership did featured red herring magazine in Asia’s top 100 companies

Gondal referred as “King of Gaming” and what is being talked about and he is being renowned for his spirit in the gaming industry which is of a pioneer, he is really aggressive in pushing up the budding entrepreneurs, his new beginning after the Mission accomplishments at the gaming and personal level is Sweat and Blood venture, that is an effort to give the finance and invest in the start up businesses at the seed level, and monitor, mentor and help them reach the scale

Career

Vishal Gondal gets his hands on the first company named – FACT at the early age of 16. In the year 1999 he founded INDIAGAMES, that time it was five core members team together. Today he is leading up with more than 400 employees with offices located in Mumbai London Beijing and Los Angeles

Last year the company, went ahead with the crown when they got China's Tom Online acquiring a million dollar deal for 78% stake

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The starting

Vishal was introduced to gaming at the age of 13. The thing started as pastime went ahead with the inevitable distinguished part of this man’s life. It was just his passion which was so strong that he had to sideline his over the studies to get to learn the science and art of gaming development.

Today, he has played it like a arcade game to build his own brand and company, Indiagames and develop gaming making a difference in world and life of people.

Volley ball as a game

Another side of this computer geek or a hardcore gamer is that he was into outdoor sports and gaming too, and went ahead on to gain a respect at national level being an volleyball player representing state, but today that is one of the regrets in his life that not being able to play volley ball games in amidst of work commitment

In terms of theoretically proving a entrepreneur a successful entrepreneur or let’s say describing the key factors or characteristics I am using here the Barringer’s framework which includes the four of:

· Passion for business

· Execution intelligence

· Product customer focus

· Tenacity despite failure

Passion for business

An entrepreneur’s passion for the business roots out up when together with heart he trust on and believes that his ideas and plans will affect the people’s lives in a boosting way,

An entrepreneur’s passion for business crops up when he believes that his ideas and his business will affect people’s lives in a positive way

An entrepreneur needs to be cautious of what the society wants and the risks involved. Being passionate just to build a firm is not sufficient; passion has to last till the end

A core thing to be kept in mind while aiming for success is to be able to do something at the ground and then at the higher levels

There is not a simple lock code or formula method for making up the money. It’s not only following the successful business plan, path and model, and not being able to actually execute things at the required level and intensity” for example when it was all about the dot com boost, everyone who lost the markets were impatient as they were hunger for economical reasons, not for the business reasons, and were not passionate, but Vishal was passionate and that was the key to success for him.

Looking at the history, Gondal says that it wasn’t the easy or smooth ride for him; he went through a robust ride and being passionate about it. A lot of people who lost everything were impatient.

Product customer focus

Firm’s biggest assets are its good products and yes its own existence does not really matter a lot. A firm in the industry is supposed to be capable of satisfying and fulfilling the wants and requirements of the customer.

As when Indiagames under the leadership of Vishal got through the worldwide publishing rights, for their tones, games, images, wallpapers by getting into a contract with comic company named marvel comics. Last year Indiagames obtained licences for games like Bruce lee and predator

If a firm does not have good products its very own existence does not matter. A company in whatever industry should be able to satisfy and fulfil the needs and wants of the customer. It should focus on enhancing people’s lives by developing their products and catering to the needs.

The biggest challenge for Indiagames and Vishal is keeping or being updated with technological adaptations as soon as possible , as with hundreds of mobile phones getting into the market, Vishal led the company to make multi platform games to be played on all new and old mobile phones, for this they also had to upgrade their software’s and hardware’s.

It was the Vishal saying that gaming industry is not a tech space, they are in entertainment business so it is the core requirement to create and identify the best games the people in the region loves,"

One may invest a large amount, and gain nothing, but in terms of Vishal, he picks and chooses the firm that goes straight to the senses of the customer while playing games based on that.

After extensive research and group discussions among team members, films are shortlisted. In India, cricket games do very well. In the United Kingdom games on pubs, pool and dart click, while in the United States its baseball which rules, he informs.

"We are also focusing on China and Japan. Our products are relevant across the world-- a product like Bruce Lee will work across the world," says Gondal.

Today Vishal is one of leading gaming developers in the world with 400 professionals on rolls Indiagames do have alliances with Hollywood studios, handset manufacturers and kings of mobile operators.

Tenacity despite failure

Entrepreneurs are really meant to be an innovators in all senses or we can also say for getting hands on almost anything that is new , their handworks are directly associated to a big stake of failing.

They do imply on the basis of hit and try technique and anything that is accepted or demanded by consumers goes on and on as a cash machine for them, anything related to the time shift perceived by the entrepreneur those are absolute importance in the process of success for him, it gets on evaluating the capability and stamina to get over the failure due to action

Also when we talk about failure and getting over with it and coming out fresh, Vishal with many others faced the biggest boom in all the industries ever in the world economy that was the dot-com boom, which risen up and drown millions of companies worldwide and given the world a new face and new dimensions to be set for the companies , even those who are the market leaders, but when others were going to the losses and winding up, Vishal took this as an opportunity and got into the few of those able to survive the boom, and led the new era for Indiagames.

Execution intelligence

A very important and to be termed as essential trait of an entrepreneur is to be innovative yet practical into his work and business to survive and grow being safe, it is exhausting yet the requisite to plan the teams while implementing the idea and getting the team members motivated, by leading them as a true leader. To get the imagination and the thinking right on the papers or actions is also a very tough job, but the execution or to say implementation of those ideas are tough, Vishal was very successful in establishing Indiagames into the Indian and overseas gaming market.

Being a vital associate of international game developers association, Gondal endeavour to make gaming a sport recognised by all in India, especially because not the numbers there should be on the companies on gaming industry for India reflects the required figure.

And there is a shortage of trained manpower, so Vishal intelligence proved here as he first gets the fresher’s who have the passion and drive to be, at training level, train them for 6-8 months and then recruit them at the house.

As the good thing about the gaming sector is u can even be a school dropout, to be a gaming testor you just need passion about gaming and you are qualified, testing is a very vital part of game development process, as companies cannot launch the product before testing out in real hands ".

"Indiagames trained more then 60% of people working here. Indiagames is the only place, which has the largest number of team members in one place. Interestingly, we have foreigners keen to work for us. Our US operations are headed by an American, while in Europe we have hired a former Vodafone head

As Barringer’s framework used above does not actually takes account of all the factors involved, ie the culture, education, environmental factors, economic factors, antecedent influences personal characteristics

For Vishal the personal characteristics were the innovativeness the creativity. The enthusiasm towards the life, his tolerance of risk, as mirrored by the risk taken during all through his career from starting till now, commitment and determination towards the inner self, inspirational capacity which was reflected by the inspiration he has even from his competitors or other industry leaders.

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Also other things not covered by Barringer’s framework includes the culture which includes all the things like the society and their behaviour by this all Vishal established and reflected the great stamina to face the challenges when he started and developed the idea of gaming business , his parents took it casually and not seriously , and also his other relatives till today thinks that he makes some of the toys for the kids, or something like that., but this all actually helped him grow up to what he is now.

To define the thinking of Vishal as an entrepreneur we can say that Vishal had a eastern thinking towards the entrepreneurial journey towards the society, are integration with others, as he believes into the

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Entrepreneurs have some attributes which differentiate them from others for example; they have the ability to inspire others’ lives, they have commitment towards their work, they introduce innovative ideas and products and most of all is motivation to succeed in their field.

Vishal born in a big family owned business empire background family. But always had a spark to be in the other side of the world. He never took a penny from the family and started up the base of Indiagames and then Indiagames totally himself, he had to take his own of important daily and major decisions after getting into business, to get the finance, market, and all,. He says none of his education actually plays any important in his success, he started his own company for his passion, a opportunity seeking entrepreneur

To conclude about who an successful entrepreneur is i should tell about who Vishal is according to me, and then it would be the right call to understand the entrepreneurship from my end

Vishal as an human being with a role of an entrepreneur gets the marks 100 out of 100 from anyone who gets to know him and his thinking, he is not amongst those wealth seeking ones, he is full of creativity, passion, and innovations by the creative brain of his, he understands the market as a common man, by the perception of a man who earns to live not live to earn, he is the key person in India who have actually changed the scenario of gaming industry in India, by bringing companies like e.a , ten sports, Microsoft, ninja, and others. He is a person who is committed towards himself not his work or his money; he is committed towards what he thinks his goal is, not the aim or future vision,

And this is who a true entrepreneur is according to the Barringer’s, and when i read other theories and practical life stories of other great entrepreneurs and business man’s like matsushita and others.

Vishal journey as an entrepreneur have given me the realisation of what i am , who i am , what i have and what i could be , by utilising the maximum of what i have, cause when Vishal gets to work that means he gets on the mission to get it done.

To evaluate and assess myself and my attitude towards the journey as an entrepreneur i am using the study framework of competencies by hay group

Competencies are:

Confidence

Integrity

Self Direction

Initiative

Selling

Commitment

Confidence

It is a very old saying where this is a will there is a way, and i really believe in it.

Willingness according to ray is the ones capability to do the working with the courage and attitude with conviction and the belief in the uttermost challenging and die hard situations,

This also reminds of my decision taking when I was working on a project with airtel I had to take many decisions which had the understanding of working with confidence

While thinking on with belief in my inner self. And also not to be mixing up my decisions with confidence with the decisions with attitude, as then it takes on with very dangerous mix, to do wrong, so there is also a very thin border between confidence and attitude which is to be maintained when i am a entrepreneur

Integrity

Works in an open and

principled way

when it comes over integrity i display a good mark in integrity as i am a person who is really prepared and gets on working on the principles set by me, society and the ethics, to work as the entrepreneur should work in a open and principled way, and like the already made entrepreneurs its in me that i am disappointed when the people around don’t work in a principled mannerism which i am following as a religion, as i admit my mistakes openly when working, give credits to the deserving one, and also celebrate the victory or success with others who were part of it,

Self Direction

It does takes into account the inner feelings and gives recognition to the positive sides of work results,

As others budding and successful ones, i do have the self awareness to recognise situations and people with the aspect of negative feelings.

Initiative

This competency deals with the process of creating opportunities for the growth.

As it says it’s a process and not just a step or a quick guide to success, we should move on with the initiative to start up something with the idea and not merely going with the market and start growing what others are doing, there should be a initiative of doing something new and creative to be an successful entrepreneur

Selling

It is a step which actually takes the exam of the entrepreneur , as a one should use anything to influence or selling using arguments and enough capable to execute the selling, in a regular way, quoting my experience in my third year in college, in an competition where i was suppose to crack the deal to the faculties of the college, i bagged a best salesman award by selling the product with answers to all the queries of the customers and satisfying 80% not even by the product but by satisfying their doubts.

Commitment

It means aligning the self with the aim and mission of the business and challenging others to do the kind,

As far as i am concerned i do work for 6 hours now even with my study pressure, so i believe i would make on to be the committed entrepreneur.

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The test of entrepreneurship showcased that i am having a rare combination of persistence and there is a need of change to variety of personality traits to keep me on the right track of being an entrepreneur, the recipe of the successful entrepreneur is to be self-motivated, an attitude towards following the rules as an religion of work culture, the public skills those are needed for being in a public and to communicate well with the public.

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After taking an online test of myself as for being ready as an enterpreneur for my traits , i found out that i am not a born enterpreneur with all needed, i do need to find out and eliminate my deficiencies, then i can make it work so for that i took a swot analysis of

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Highly enterprising

I did my evaluation through get2 test and the test suggests that I possess a enterprising tendency which is high. This shows that i am having a possibility to start up and manage my own business.

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My creative tendency is high. This means that i may have the following qualities:

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I scored high for calculated risk-taking. This means that you may have the following qualities:

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Evaluating me as an Entrepreneur showed some entrepreneurial potential. Skills and traits that are needed to be a successful entrepreneur are present in me and I am well prepared in owning my own business.

References:

http://theentrepreneurnextdoor.com/cgi-bin/tests/entrepreneurial_pers.cgi accessed on [18th march 2010]

http://www.forbes.com/2005/11/15/entrepreneur-personality-quiz_cx_bn_1116quiz.html accessed on [17 march 2010]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishal_Gondal#cite_note-0 accessed on [15th march 2010]

http://theviewspaper.net/an-interview-with-vishal-gondal-ceo-of-indiagames/ accessed on [18th march 2010]

http://godinchief.instablogs.com/ accessed on [14th march 2010]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishal_Gondal accessed on [12th march 2010]

http://www.rediff.com/money/2005/sep/20inter.htm accessed on [11th march 2010]

http://contentsutra.com/article/419-vishal-gondal-turns-startup-saviour-forms-investment-group/ accessed on [17th march 2010]

http://www.avashya.com/entity/profile/vishal-gondal/ accessed on [19th march 2010]

http://www.xmedialab.com/me

 
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