In conversation with Mr. Pradeep Gupta

About our guest

Mr. Pradeep Gupta is a first-generation entrepreneur, and along with his family members promoted CyberMedia in 1982. He is a B.Tech. from IIT Delhi (1975) and MBA from IIM Calcutta (1977). He is the main promoter as well as Chairman & Managing Director of Cyber Media (India) Ltd. He is an industry veteran of 40 years and is highly reputed in the IT Industry.

He was conferred the “National Entrepreurship Award as the Best Mentor” by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India as he has mentored over 150 start-ups.

He is the co-founder of Indian Angel Network. He is the Chair of the Alumni Trust, the sponsors of IvyCap Ventures Trust Funds. He is on the Board of the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. He was a global trustee of TiE, the world’s largest entrepreneurial ecosystem. He was also on the Board of UTI AMC and its subsidiary UTI Capital.

He has been the past President of PanIIT India and Association of Indian Magazines. He is/has been on the Boards of IIT Mandi, Indian Newspaper Society, IIT Delhi incubator, etc.He is the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award of IIT Delhi and the Helen Keller award for working in the disability sector.

Discussion Summary

• Mr. Pradeep Gupta (fondly called PG by his employees and peers) believes that Entrepreneurship is about breaking the set patterns.
• He joined a start up from the campus, which was very unusual in those days.
• A professor who also was a mentor, advised PG to join HCL, which was then a “start-up” company. HCL was highly entrepreneurial, and that motivated PG to start his own venture, which was a software company.
• He realized that during those times, there was lack of news on the Information Technology industry and hence that led him to incorporate Cyber Media in 1982 and in the same year Dataquest magazine was published. 
• PG believes that in the media industry the revenue comes from the quality of the consumers and not quantity of the audience, alone.
• He is an angel investor and a few of the companies that he has mentored or been involved with in some way, are Unicorns today.
•  Like any other seasoned investor, he looks at a mix of criteria in the company he wants to invest including the team, the technology roadmap, the marketing roadmap, the clarity in vision of the founders.
• His advice to us and all would be entrepreneurs is to “Focus and learn from mistakes. If one set of mistakes are avoided, others will happen. Do not be afraid of making mistakes”.
• Favourite sports personality: Sunil Gavaskar
• Favourite Movie and celebrity: Mughal-e-Azam; the late Madhu Bala.

Lighter Moments