Worthy PGSEM Alumnus - Arun Kishore

Amit Singh posted a note about a fellow PGSEM (to-be) alumnus, Arun Kishore, who started his own company at the NSRCEL a while back, and has now found himself and his company headlined in an article in the Times of India. The article is titled "INCUBATING ENTREPRENEURS ", and appears in the "Education Times" supplement of the Times of India, dated March 27 2006. Dapper Arun is the guy in the middle in the photo above.

The article has a brief writeup of each company, and this is how Arun describes his company, "Brain League":

PATENTING PLEASURES
I am: Arun Kishore N
My Company: Brain League
Studied: Engineering at IIT, PGSEM at IIM-B
Idea: Intellectual property rights company that is into corporate training, patent searching, drafting and filing, besides consulting.
How it started: After passing out of IIT-Madras,I joined my classmates who had floated a company. There were seven of us, including two seniors. We were right in the middle of the IT boom, and there was steady flow of money. But we lacked a corporate set-up and there was much confusion about who gets what. So it didn’t last long. Meanwhile, I got married and shifted to Bangalore. I worked with Cognizant for sometime, but it didn’t take me too long to realise that I wasn’t going anywhere. I wrote the CAT, got admission calls from IIM Calcutta, but instead joined the Post-Graduate Programme in Software Enterprise Management, offered during weekends, at IIM-Bangalore.
Somewhere in 2004, I met a school friend, Kalyan Chakravarthy, who was doing his Ph.D at National Law School of India University.We just started talking and felt we would be in business if we could integrate law with IT.
I discussed the idea with Pavan Mamidi, a professor at IIM-B and he suggested that I should approach the NS Raghavan Cell for Entrepreneurial Learning at the institute. I prepared a vague plan and submitted it to the committee. The first thing they said was that I was day-dreaming. Finally it got accepted and I had an office space in campus.
Money was an issue, but thanks to my IIT friends in the US, all of them pitched in a few hundred dollars.They are all stake-holders in my company now.
Four months, we didn’t get a single client! Kalyan and me would visit law firms and discuss projects. Everyday we would send cold mails to companies and for months there would be no reply. But all of a sudden things started moving. Our first client was a guy from the US, who learnt about us through the website. Brand IIM also played a role. Many companies think that this company is part of IIM-B and the training courses are offered by the institute.
I do most of the patent searching, and drafting, while Kalyan deals with filing patents. IP training itself is big business; at one telecom company in Bangalore we trained 2000 employees. We made Rs 5 lakh in the first year. My aim is to have 200 member team just for drafting and searching by 2009.
My team: We are a team of 7, mostly drafters and a bio-chemists.
My office: Currently NSR Cell in IIM-B. But will be moving out to a bigger office space in JP Nagar.
My advise: Money is not priority.The mission is to realise a dream. When I was working, I felt I was just a head count in the company. I was going no where.

You can visit Brain League's web site at http://www.brainleague.com/
Here's wishing Arun all the best!!