With an entrepreneurial career spanning over 50 years, Vinod Gupta is the definitive example of a self-made man. Moving to the United States from India with just $58 to his name, through hard work and tenacity Gupta was able to achieve the American dream. He founded his first company Infogroup (now Data Axle) with just a $100 loan and grew it to a publicly traded company with global reach, achieving over $750 million in yearly revenues.
A lifelong believer in paying it forward, Gupta has used his success to support his philanthropic endeavors including building an educational complex in the village where he grew up, and establishing new business and entrepreneurship programs at his alma mater IIT Kharagpur in India and the University of Nebraska in the United States.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I was born in a small rural village in Uttar Pradesh, and earned my undergraduate degree in agricultural engineering at IIT Kharagpur. I moved to the United States with nothing but the clothes on my back and a single suitcase to attend the University of Nebraska for a master’s degree in agricultural engineering, but upon arriving was struck by the vast amount of opportunities that were now available to me in America. I fell in love with the creativity and resourcefulness that is needed with the world of business and decided to earn my master of business administration degree as well.
Soon after I ended up founding a database company, building it from nothing and eventually selling it as a multi-million dollar corporation. My company Infofree is a continuation of my previous business, evolved in a new way to answer the question of “how can small businesses or sales people grow their sales?” We wanted to simplify the way they could find new customers, analyze their customer base and gain more prospects, building an easy-to-use software database through which people from across industries can find sales leads.
What was your first business idea and what did you do with it?
My first business idea came within months of me getting my first job out of business school as a market researcher at a mobile home manufacturing company. I was asked to put together a list of mobile home dealers in the country, but upon researching, I found that the information available was fractured at best. I couldn’t believe a comprehensive national list wasn’t readily available and I recognized how valuable that sort of information would be, so I decided to order every single Yellow Pages available at the time in order to create the list for myself.
While this was a great idea in theory, when hundreds of phone books began arriving and stacking up in our small receptionist’s area my boss was far from pleased. He eventually told me that I could keep the books but I wouldn’t be able to work on the project during company hours, so I rented a moving truck and transported all of them to my garage where I spent my nights and weekends putting together the information.
When I finished the list I offered to sell it exclusively to my company but they declined, so I took out a $100 loan from the bank for postage and began mailing it to the company’s competitors. Within a few weeks, I had thousands of dollars in orders and I was able to turn that into my database company.
What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur and why?
- The first and most important skill I believe you need to have success as an entrepreneur is persistence. Nine times out of ten ideas will end in a failure of some kind, but it is important to remember that is just a part of the learning process. You get back up and you try again, because at the end of the day you only need one idea to work to be successful.
- Secondly, I believe integrity needs to be placed higher on the list of priorities for entrepreneurs. It’s often something that is agreed upon in theory but rarely exercised in practice – there is too much focus on the end result and not enough on how you get there.
- Finally, you have to be a good listener. It is only through actively paying attention that you can not only learn what will bring you success, but also what is holding you back.
What’s a productivity tip you swear by?
I spend two hours every day reading, whether that be a newspaper publication, online articles, or books. While this may not seem at first to be the most productive way to spend a part of your day, I get a lot of ideas just from reading, even if the subject matter isn’t related in any way to my business itself.
Even reading fiction – seen by most as a leisurely activity – can greatly help improve your productivity. It helps regulate your stress levels, gives you more social intelligence, and may even lead you to your next big idea.
How do you personally overcome fear?
When I’m feeling nervous or fearful about a choice I’ve made or direction I’ve decided to take, I always try and do as much research as possible to assuage my mind.
Learn, learn, learn. I’m a passionate proponent of the importance of education and am a self-declared lifelong learner. The more you learn, the more educated you become and the better off you are overall. Arming myself with knowledge is the best thing I can do to overcome any fears I have about the future.
How do you separate yourself from your competitors?
Infofree.com’s business is all about helping people acquire new customers, and in order to assist others grow their customer base we must ensure that our customers are in turn happy. We practice what we preach, making sure our current customers are happy, discovering problems and finding solutions to get lost customers back, and constantly searching for new ways to continue growing and building our own customer base.
What helps you stay driven and motivated to keep going in your business?
My motivation and drive are inherent within me. I didn’t have to continue the phone book project when my boss told me I couldn’t conduct it during business hours. I didn’t have to start another company when I sold my first one. I just have a passion inside me for business – for finding solutions to problems, overcoming obstacles, and meeting challenges head-on. I believe when you find something you are passionate about that in and of itself is motivation enough to continue even when things are difficult.
What is your definition of success?
I am a believer in the learn, earn and return approach to life. You learn as much as possible, use that knowledge to earn and build success, then return the rewards of those efforts to the benefit of others. To me, that is the definition of a successful life.
I am very thankful to have been able to put much of what I have earned back into the causes I care about most, and I don’t intend to be “the richest man in the graveyard.” I have pledged to donate everything I have acquired over time to charity before the end of my life, and my ability to do so after my children is my greatest success.
What valuable advice would you give new entrepreneurs starting out?
Follow through with the execution of your ideas. I have found that while many people can have ideas, more often than not they don’t know how to execute them or abandon them too early.
Along with that, a crucial aspect of execution is communicating openly with your team members and employees. Bring them along with you every step of the way in your entrepreneurial journey, taking the blame for the failures and missteps while praising and giving credit for the successes.
Can you recommend one book, one podcast, and one online course for entrepreneurs?
I have to say that I’m not one to take online courses or listen to podcasts so I won’t be much help in that area, but as for books I am an avid reader and choosing just one will be difficult.
I will go ahead and recommend one I don’t believe many people will have read: Managing by Harold Geneen. As the CEO of ITT he transformed the company into one of the world’s best-run corporations and it has a lot of general information as well as his own specific experiences which when combined make for an engaging read that a lot can be derived from.
What is your favorite quote?
“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us.
We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption of our work.
He is the purpose of it.
He is not an outsider of our business.
He is part of it.
We are not doing him a favor by serving him.
He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
How can readers get in touch with you?
Readers can get in touch with me by visiting Infofree.com.
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