Anisha Cherian is driven by passion, yet fully aware of the fact that a business can only succeed with an efficient cash-flow model. However, she stresses that this realisation came to her after encountering multiple failures in her journey towards becoming who she is today.
On what inspired her to start something different from what her family business was, Anisha says, “I have no interest in buying jewellery, which is the sole reason why I cannot sell it, you have to love your product to be able to effectively convince others to buy it.” She started Chemmanur Academy after attending a one week personal training session while in college. It was this experience that helped her understand the impact of an activity based experiential training program on the mindset and confidence of an individual. However, Anisha says it was difficult for her to set up her own enterprise as she wanted to focus on dealing with people. “I had to figure out everything through trial and error and did not receive operational or strategic support from family.”
An advice I would like to give my younger self is to start small and to always remember that cash flow is the life blood of any business, “Belonging to an established business family, I mostly participated in making big decisions, therefore I had little idea on how to start small.”
“No business can self sustain or grow without regular cash inflows,” says Anisha who admits that she made a mistake of running her business on passion with little regard for cash flow. As an advice to all startup entrepreneurs, she says, “They should be clear about how money should be utilised for creating product value through innovation, excellent service delivery, identifying real customer needs, the right quality team and not on infrastructure.”
