A Fresh Path Ahead

We are going through interesting times. It has been a great roller coaster ride. After discussion with lot of people on path ahead and best model for scaling up, the path ahead is the route of private limited company. People have adviced us to form private limited company in the verticals of livelihood programmes and we have accepted the advice. Our initial idea was that producers will get shareholding in the marketing company. The producers , promoters and investors will get equal stakes while ESOPs may be 10% of the share capital. Many people adviced that things get complicated when producers and consumers both are on same board as they have conflicting interest. The balance becomes tough and it may bring the functioning of company in standstill in long term. The current structure that is in our mind is following. The producer will get their separate set of organisations. They will be free to market their products to any company including ours. We will not depute any CEO from our side for managing affairs of the producer organisations. We will build capacities in the producer organisations so that they can hire the professional staff or some one among them can become CEO of the producer organisation. BDT will try to get grants to nurture producer organisations to their ultimate objective of becoming self sustainable. BDT will become solely grant recieving organisation which will promote producer organisation and build capacity in them by get experts, resources person, funds, organsing exposure visits, creating bank and credit linkages, technology transfer and awareness, grooming leadership , governance development of producer organisation etc. The present set of Trustees will become honorary and new set of trustees will be coopted like from old employees to community members. This will be done once BDT repays it all loans and all income generation activities are shifted to private limited companies in transparent manner. The private limited companies will market the products sourced from BDT and producers associated with them . Later, The companies will market the products produced by producer organisations. The products will be sourced by market mechanisms but the producer company will be the preferred supplier to the marketing company. The private company will always pay the fair prices for the products souced from producer companies.The private companies will donate 5% of their PAT to BDT by passing board resolution so that the BDT can be in existence in perpetuity and continue doing welfare and producer organisation development work in the community. Each private company will be handholded by strategic investors of that sector. We are operating in bamboo, textile and agri business domain. We will be seeking institutional or private shareholders who can support us for long term and handhold till IPO. We have the dreams of bringing IPO from Bihar and distribute thr products manufactured in Bihar to the whole world. This is the solution that will take us to the goals of 20 billion dollar enteprise by 2030 if not 2020 as was originally envisaged. We have resolved our internal dilemmas and found our way out from current confusion. It means its a new beginning. With BDT, It was tough to visualise 20 billion dollar group. But, With the private limited company we will reach that and can impact 10 lakh families of Bihar in positive manner. Now, mind is clearer. We have foreseen the solution. Now, the objective is to clear the debts of BDT . It will take 24 months to reduce the debt of 1.5 crore and we have our task cut out for it. We have taken the challenge. The achievement of zero debt status without choking cash will determine our future after 12 months. We are moving ahead with our gameplan. We have taken the risk. God give us faith to implement this as we have taken steps towards the new path. As usual the johny walker ad comes to mind "Keep Walking". These two words have inspired me since my college days before I knew that its a liquor company. I am thankful to life for giving such painful but interesting experiences. Only thing is that my family now is feeling the pain also which should be part of story. Steve jobs died and his words are very clear . You have only one life and live as per your wish and for yourself. We have spent five years in understanding what we should have understood while starting out. Our story is an mirror to people who start without planning and the cost we have incurred by following the passion and gut feeling. The passion has brought us to this stage now its the cool head that will help us to cross this stage. We have burnt our stairs that has helped us to rise much and there is no other option than to go up and up. Now that I have blurted out my feelings and I am feeling better. We know the revenue targets for getting the profit and repaying the loan. We have done revenue of 80 lakh in two entities till now in this year. We hope to cross 2 crores sales in 2 entities with keeping the same cost and next year we may cross 5 crores sales in two or three entities while increasing the cost to 10%. Then, we will cross the stage and will be in position to celebrate. We atleast now know where we have to go to become better. We seek all your prayers and blessing for achieving our goals and making Bihar Proud. I would end with Mark Twain quote "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Jai Bihar !!! Jai Bharat !!! Best Wishes to all of you Dr Ravi Chandra