Entrepreneurs - a breed apart
IN 1995 Captain G.R. Gopinath, a retired military officer, had a chance encounter with an unemployed helicopter pilot that got him started on setting up India’s first helicopter company. He spent three years lobbying government bureaucrats to obtain the necessary licences and sold all his possessions and mortgaged his house to raise capital. Even in his darkest years he never had any doubt that he was destined for success. “I knew this could not go wrong. I knew the money would come,” he says. And sure enough his business eventually took off. That allowed him to pursue a new vision—cheap flights. Why should Indians travel the length and breadth of their huge country on trains when Americans got on planes? He established India’s first low-cost airline, Air Deccan, pushing the government to relax regulations. Entrepreneurs operate in all kinds of ways. Some see a market opportunity and draw up a business plan to take advantage of it. Others are more like the captain, driven by an inner f...