Finally, in 2001, I quit my job to conduct research on problems faced by various commodity-related businesses, such as trading, mining and food processing. My parents were upset and sceptical because my father had burnt his fingers four times trying to start a business. I travelled 20 days in a month meeting business representatives of companies to understand the risk-management problems they were facing. Finance was not an issue because I had ample savings, but I was reasonably austere; I did not go on holidays and cut down on eating out. The survey among 50 companies took me about two years. 

 

Once I was done with the research, I approached Kirit Shah, chairman, GP Group, to ask for funds to start my business. The group has several businesses under its umbrella and the commodity trading firm I was working for is part of this group. I didn't know much about venture capitalism but I had an idea that Shah was also in the business of seeding new ventures. He understood my business concept and, fortunately, decided to fund it after the first meeting itself. After completing the formalities for funding, I finally came to India in January 2004 to set up Eka. I always wanted to create a software product out of India and Bangalore was the obvious choice. Our first product provided holistic operations and risk management solutions to physical and financial trading firms for green coffee, and it took the company close to 12 months to develop it. Over time, Eka's product range has expanded to include supply chain management solutions for all agricultural, energy, metals and mining commodities. 

 

I started by hiring one technical person. As the designing of the product progressed, nine more people were hired, and the technical team was in place. However, it was an effort to keep it motivated because they complained that they didn't understand the fundamentals behind the scientific work they were doing. However, things fell in place and Eka earned revenue towards the end of the first year.