Today's Entrepreneur: Vijay Nadkarni

No.1 mistake: Not having a solid revenue model

Today's Entrepreneur is Vijay Nadkarni, founder and CEO of Mobiplex. According to his VEQ, Vijay is good at product management, fund raising and technology design.

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I am a(n):
Entrepreneur

Companies I've founded or co-founded:
Mobiplex Inc., Wellcore, Veraz Networks, ipverse, Perceptronix

Startups I worked for:
Mobiplex Inc., Wellcore, Veraz Networks, ipVerse, Perceptronix

If you are an entrepreneur, why?
I want to invent something cool.

My favorite startups:
GoPro, Square, LinkedIn

What's most frustrating and rewarding about entrepreneurship/innovation?
The markets change quickly. At some point down the road, you often times find that the market opportunity is not exactly what you expected. Frustrating as that might be, to succeed, you must have the ability to quickly adapt and evolve the business model. The rapid change and the myriad cycles one encounters during a startup's life, is for me, what keeps it exciting and interesting. Any startup will have many opportunities to fall off of the cliff and the biggest reward comes when you can make it work. It's all about the journey and making sure that you have the knowledge and confidence needed to successfully deal with whatever comes your way.

What's the No. 1 mistake entrepreneurs make?
They don't have a solid revenue model. You can have fantastic technology and a terrific team, but if you can't make money, then it doesn't matter.

What are the top three lessons you've learned as an entrepreneur?
Quality of the team matters – many people pick their friends or family for the management team. This can be a huge mistake if they aren't truly the best people to ensure success.

Not being flexible enough, knowing how to adapt. Acquired knowledge is something that one can learn. Fortitude, thinking on ones feet and being creative to develop solutions and deal with the myriad issues that arise.

Don't go to the VC's too early in the game. For many startups, this is the only way to raise initial funding. In my experience however, I've learned that it's better to build the early successes on your own.

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