Ajit Mohan & Ananth Narayanan’s advice for entrepreneurs on building digital businesses

Entrepreneurs face the challenge of starting a business under the umbrella of a large, already successful established company. Ajit Mohan and Ananth Narayanan share their experiences at Hotstar and Myntra respectively to help guide them, at the Ascent Conclave 2022. This was part of their fireside chat 'Super Charging A Digital Future'. Watch the full conversation here.

Ajit Mohan recalled the challenges he faces when he was setting up Hotstar under the auspices of Star India which was the largest media company. ‘The task that the team and I had was to build a business, that, if it was successful, was going to challenge the core television business,’ he said.
Recalling his journey at Myntra, which was set up as part of the larger Flipkart ecosystem, Ananth Narayanan said, ‘I think what worked a lot in terms of the Myntra journey, at least in terms of the larger Flipkart ecosystem, was keeping the cultures quite different because I think we were trying to serve different consumer needs.’

Narayanan further explained the three main lessons he learned when setting up a startup within a larger company. ‘I think to have a dedicated set of resources, don't have shared resources. Second, proximity is not always a good thing. So, having a slightly different office, with a different feel makes a difference because culturally it's very different. And third, and perhaps most logical but important, is to get alignment to say this is something I'm going to drive over the next two-three years, and here are the things that I cannot cross, maybe compliance, you're always going to be this way, but here are some rules that I can break. And getting that alignment from either the CEO or the board, I think is important.’

Ajit Mohan adding to that said, ‘one of my learnings from that (setting up Hotstar) experience was, to know when to fight, and to know when to look for allies. If you're in the context of an established company that believes it has its own playbook for success, you need to have conviction about what are the places where you need to be different, and where you need to challenge the incumbent. And that incumbent may be the business model, the incumbent may be your friends in the larger company, in the mothership. You need to know when that needs to be challenged and when you need to be stubborn about that challenge when you will not negotiate. But you also need to know when is the moment when you need to have allies who will help you move the agenda forward. Because in many ways creating disruption in the context of a very successful, established incumbent, can only happen if you can balance the two.’

‘Because the company needs that disruption to work, but the company also needs the incumbent to work for as long as it can. And when you don't get the balance right is when, either the new idea doesn't take off at all, or you bet so much on the new idea that there isn't enough all to propel the new idea forward. That tradeoff is one thing that I would think is important,’ he further added.

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Editorji was the exclusive media partner for this panel discussion at this Ascent Conclave 2022.