Firms Big And Small, Growing Together

I came to this great country with $500 in my pocket and a dream to pursue higher education and better opportunities. Today, my company, Indus, is pushing $100 million in revenue, deploying intellectual capital and delivering exceptional information technology solutions to our government.

Maybe because I started Indus 15 years ago when my daughters Preeti and Priya were very young, I have always related to the growth of Indus as that of a baby growing into a toddler with all the tantrums, to a tween with all the curiosity, and to a teen with the awesome growth and attitude. I am sure I will see the aspirations of a young person and the natural growth into mature adulthood that at least most of us go through in my business too.

From my perspective, the most important trait for any owner growing a small business is focus. Focus on something you are very good at, then go about finding who can use it. Finding that first customer took me several months and the anxiety of rapidly maxing out every credit card I could get.

The next step was to better capitalize my rapidly growing business with a bank loan. I chose the bank route to avoid giving up a big chunk of my business to venture capitalists. But it didn't come cheap. Despite a loan backed by the Small Business Administration that required my personal guarantee, the bank extracted a personal guarantee from not only myself but my wife Meena (who was not even involved in the business at that time, busily earning a living so that she can feed our two daughters and the ever-hungry me) and pledging our house.

Though I joked "Thank God they didn't ask for our first born and our signatures in blood," our faces didn't reflect it and were ashen after we walked down the stairs from the bank. In hindsight, the power of that fear of losing it all worked its magic through the generation of an enormous desire to work hard and succeed -- and succeed, we did indeed.

As Indus grew, we took advantage of all the government small-business programs to open the doors and achieved tremendous success. And with success came several awards and recognition, including one as the SBA's Small Business Person of the Year, and respect among our peers in the business community.

Having taken advantage of mentoring from larger firms during our growth, I continue to remain passionate about giving back by mentoring other small businesses. It is certainly not all altruistic. Partnering with other businesses both small and large is simply good for business. It allows you to combine capabilities of successful firms to bring the best to our government.

Small businesses sometimes focus more on what the government or large businesses ought to be giving them. Instead, if a small business approaches them about how its expertise can help solve their problems or add value, the small business always gets a positive reception. Businesses waiting for their customers to give them work always keep waiting, and those that are proactively helping their customers keep growing.

In a world where government technology contracts are increasingly complex, a small business partnering with a large prime contractor and offering to take on a critical role is welcomed more often than not. This also helps portray the small business as a key partner to the large prime contractor. Indus's openness and commitment to team success have helped growth and led to benefits such as our large business partner paying for our training and international quality certifications.

At the next stage, Indus continues to emerge into a strong mid-tier business. Being continually challenged by intense competition from both the small and large businesses, one can see a lot of threats -- but I see a lot of opportunity to be that desirable-size business that can offer the resources of a large business but the personal touch of a small business.

Shiv Krishnan, chief executive of Indus, is scheduled to speak at a forum on procurement Wednesday as part of National Small Business Week events in Washington. Indus, based in Vienna, is a federal information technology firm.