The Awe-Inspiring Entrepreneurial Journey of Santhosh George Kulangara

The Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development Cell (IEDC) Summit 2019 valedictory address by Mr. Santhosh George Kulangara, founder and chief explorer of Safari TV, was a strong motivation to student entrepreneurs. He spoke of the realities of an entrepreneur's life and reminded the students that it is also about challenges and difficulties in addition to the hype and colours that the two-day summit gave them. He added; the two day summit could’ve raised their hopes and elated their spirits, but success will depend solely upon how they tackle everyday challenges of their entrepreneurial journey. He shared his inspiring experience of starting Safari channel, when there were way too many channels in Kerala for every domain a Keralite could ever think of. There were channels for sports, entertainment, serials, cooking, reality shows, education, movies etc. There was no domain that was not covered by TV channels at that point in time. He thought differently as to how to make his channel still appealing and successful. He started off the channel with absolutely no advertisements. Why so? Because the numerous channels in the industry were already competing with advertisement providers. There were TV channels taking Rs.300 to Rs.30000 for a 30 seconds advertisement. He worked for Asianet for about 16 years and started his entrepreneurial journey venturing into the same field on 1 November 2013 and started the  first and only exploration channel in India, Safari TV. He has been successful over the past seven years because of the love showered upon him for being an advertisement-free channel. 

He said that to be an entrepreneur is to be like a politician, in terms of taking criticism and rejection that comes over the journey. To every criticism and rejection, entrepreneurs must respond positively and effectively. Entrepreneurial experience is similar to a football game – not every day a footballer wins. The footballer goes back, practices more effectively and intensely in order to sharpen his skills, to win the next game. He devises strategies of winning along with his team. A good entrepreneur similarly should not get stressed to the extent of thinking of giving up on his dreams or his life. Instead, they must learn to take failures as opportunities to enhance their skills, capacities and strategies. 

Mr.Santhosh has had the experience of working with the TV channel industry since 17 years and was very well aware of every aspect of it. His experience with the industry gave him the advantage of personally supervising and being the go-to person in every aspect of the TV shows. His wisdom enabled him to control the business effectively. He is capable enough to provide a solution to any challenge – from basic problems of script writing, designing shows to the technical aspects of it. This self model that he projected suggested to the future entrepreneurs that they must know their business inside out and thoroughly to assure a 100% success. 

He spoke on how the aspirations of keralites are not very high despite they being intelligent and highly competent. He has seen how keralites in America are satisfied with their stable employment with MNCs and never think of entrepreneurial ventures. Keralites are totally against capitalism. They are raised to hate entrepreneurship. It is not the Communists who are to be blamed but the entire political outlook of Kerala. There is this tendency in Kerala to view entrepreneurs or owners of business as enemies to the employees. Contrary to this misbelief, these entrepreneurs infact support businesses from abroad or other states by being avid consumers of premium products – be it products, of Apple or Reliance. Further, keralites don’t always support the fledgling entrepreneurs who struggle to set their own ventures. He suggested that, we keralites need to change to become more entrepreneurial wherever they are, to support local ventures from Kerala and to support each other as entrepreneurs.

Not all plans that entrepreneurs chalk out for their business may turn out exactly as they meant it to be. He explained this with his own dad’s entrepreneurial venture. His father being a teacher tried to supply notebooks by stitching papers together as they were not available in his town. This initiative brought him to a pleasant twist when someone with the license to get the newsprint paper quota approached his dad to tell him that it could be useful for him to get papers easily. The person who approached him was running a newspaper called Labour India. When Mr.Santhosh George Kulangara’s dad Mr. Joseph involved his son into the business he was running, he never thought that one day his son would run a TV channel. Be ready and open for the twists and turns that new opportunities bring in.

He also asked the students to not be fooled by entrepreneurial training and trainers. Trainings and trainers can never come to help and rescue when you are in real troubles and difficulties. You yourself will have to figure out how to meet and solve each challenge in the entrepreneurial journey. He advised the young entrepreneurs to face problems boldly, learn to deal with them and to solve them effectively. First four years of any business could be a real challenge, learn to accept the pain and deal with it. The pains of the initial years will strengthen you as an entrepreneur. He concluded, “Do not give room for stress. Learn to become strong in dealing with every challenge and turn them into opportunities.” 

Author:

Dr.Mercia Selva Malar

Associate Professor

XIME Kochi