In late 2000, when Indira Vishnampet founded her company to provide strategic information-technology solutions in enterprise integration, business applications and information architecture, she named it Hydus Inc.
And in the name hangs a story of the dream of a then 27-year-old Hyderabad native who wanted to form a multinational enterprise.
"The name [Hydus] -- a combination of Hyderabad's airport code and the United States -- was given with the idea that this company would, one day, become a multinational corporation," said Houston-based Vishnampet, founder and chief executive officer, Hydus.
"I wanted to be able to serve in different countries of the world because the companies we would be working with were all multinational corporations and I thought we have to be on the same wave length as our customers," she added.
Within three years since then, Vishnampet realised her dream, turning Hydus into close to a million-dollar company with over 200 employees and operations in the US, India and Canada. She started the venture as a one-woman show from her home.
Although none of her immediate family was in business, she fell in love with entrepreneurship when she was about 18.
"After coming to the US from Hyderabad at the age of 15 and finishing high school in the US after two-and-a-half years, I started my college in DC area and then moved to Texas where my parents used to live. But I went to college part-time for a number of years because I was running another business even then and working for different companies," she said.
During summer internship in school, she worked for a check collection company which promoted her to the post of manager within three months. Encouraged, she started her own check collection company when she went to college. It was convenient because of flexible timings and the fact that the communications could be done through phones or letters.
"It took care of my college tuition and at the same time gave me exposure to the first business venture," she said.
Her parents did not quite like the idea of their daughter taking to entrepreneurship while still studying finance and accounting. "They didn't discourage (me), but they said to focus on school and to think of studies and not on job or business -- you know, like any parents," Vishnampet said.
"But once they understood what I was trying to do they said it was okay. Now they all support me. I do not think without family support it's possible," she said.
What does it take a teenager to live her dreams despite parental pressure? Vishnampet, who worked for three Fortune 500 companies before starting Hydus, believes the recipe for success is single-mindedness and courage -- to be able to remain a focused person and stick to one's goal.
She said she has always told people who have come and asked her about the clue to success that they should not think about money. "The focus should be on this is my company and I want to build it. That is the key and not oh, I want to become a millionaire. That should not be the objective and once you have the focus, I think anything is possible."
Vishnampet said her husband -- "who is in technology" -- has been a role model of sorts for her.
"My husband has mentored me a lot," she said. "He has been someone who's actually, really has encouraged me a lot, and I think that's very key. . . Allowing someone to be what s/he wants to be, allowing someone to experiment with ideas, itself is mentoring." enough," she said.
She said it has been a tough job to juggle roles both as CEO of a company and having to raise two young daughters. "I am actually putting together a panel this month in the Indo American Chamber of Commerce in Houston, and one of the topics that the panel is going to actually have is (the lives of) professional and entrepreneurial women -- how to balance professional and family lives. I think managing time is the key."
