Companies born at Prototyze have a few advantages.
They benefit from offices and infrastructure, centralized business services (financial, legal, recruitment), experienced advice at key stages, the ability to plug into existing processes, and a bridge to an existing network of Clients, Partners, and (if required) Investors.
Our answer is NOT an enthusiastic ‘Yes’. It’s perhaps a guarded ‘Maybe. It depends’. What does it depend on?
We’ve built a company that was kick-started with less than Rs 500,000 (<$10,000) yet became profitable in the first year. And has generated over Rs $5 million cumulative revenue. And counting.
We’ve also presided over the burial of a company where we burnt through over $8 million in three years.
This has taught us a few expensive lessons.
We’ve calculated that the entire infrastructure cost (desk, chair, networking, laptop) of adding one person to one of our companies is under $1,500. Sometimes even under $1,000.
This underlines what we’ve known for years: Our competitive advantage is not infrastructure.
Depending upon the company, our edge is either a technology platform (or project portfolio) and accumulated relationships with clients, partners, and investors.
Whatever way we look at it, our edge is People.
An entrepreneur’s life can be a sub-set of his business. Where every major decision is tailored to the demands of the business. Where you live, how your office looks like, which people you choose to work with or which investors and partners you invite into your life.
Or a venture can be a sub-set of your life. Where the first principles of your life determine the contours of the business.
I first became an entrepreneur when I was about twenty. And my choice has always been the latter.
What is Goa but a vibrant celebration of culture, music, and FOOD? Food, glorious food!
I have more than one friend working over 200 hours a month consistently, yet having the most glorious time of their life.
I have about nineteen cousins in my family that has its roots in Himachal Pradesh. Only two are even in a corporate job. Zero are entrepreneurs.
Supriya Kamat 
24 March, 2021 
