'Do What You Love & Give It Your All' - Anirudh Rastogi, Managing Partner, TRA
TRA is a general practice law firm that provides legal and strategic advice to new-age businesses that thrive on technology and business-level innovation. TRA was started with the aim of augmenting the startup ecosystem in the country, which offers little support to entrepreneurs. Anirudh Rastogi, Managing Partner, TRA was named as a contender to the BW Disrupt 40 Under 40 list in 2017.
In an interaction with BW Disrupt, Anirudh Rastogi talked about his venture.
Success mantra - I have tried to make small, continuous advances towards our most audacious goals, and the dots somehow do connect. When I look back at some of our key achievements, I realise how they are a direct result of very small steps, at times, taken years ago.
The driving force behind your journey - TRA goes by the tagline “lawyers for innovation”. When we speak about “innovation”, our work is not limited to just tech but includes advising clients working on new business models, creative ventures or really anyone with a new approach to doing business. It gives me great satisfaction to see that our work is enabling deployment of disruptive technology, business models and fresh ideas of the kind never seen before, and this challenges me further; whether it be our work with Hyperloop One India, Udacity, Partition Museum, or TeamIndus that is working on the world’s first private moon mission. The key really is to find what you love, and what gives you satisfaction, and making that your prime business objective and never losing sight of it.
Business advice - The only way to learn something is by doing it; you can’t sit around waiting for funding, hoping someone will come to help you execute your idea or complain that you don’t have the time. Making excuses won’t help you start a business, and it sure as hell won’t help you create the lifestyle you want for yourself.
Tips for budding entrepreneurs - Solve one problem at a time. Every quarter I pick up one goal / one problem and devote most of my time to solving it. There is little bandwidth to do much else, if you want to do it really well.
Government support - The only thing we need from the government is enabling regulations, implemented with clarity. Other incentives are a bonus, but nothing is more important. As a law firm, we have advised several clients operating in highly-regulated industries and ambiguously-regulated industries. Often entrepreneurs are happier with more but clear regulations, than less but ambiguous. The crypto-currencies is one industry we advise and it is a good example. The industry would rather be licenced than live under uncertainty.
The team - As the founder, my key job is to build the team by hiring, enabling, grooming and retaining the right talent. Everything else can be delegated.
The next step - We are investing heavily in training and creating thought leadership in our industry. These are the two aspects that will drive future growth.
