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He always wears a disarmingly friendly smile. Behind his academic looks and firm frame lies a will of iron and tenacity of not giving up. Meet Sharad Sharma, the savvy entrepreneur, techie, venture capitalist, and most important of all Chair of NASSCOM Product Forum. He is a man on a mission—to provide a viable ecosystem to Indian software product initiatives using all the hats he wears [Entrepreneur in Residence, Canaan Partners; Partner, Indian Angel Network, and most importantly as NASSCOM Product Forum Chair]. How would you then explain the persistence of this “contrarian” (in his own words) path finder who stuck to his guns in software products when software services were setting a global benchmark for technological prowess out of India?

At times, some serious work and real brains does not pay dividends instantly. But pioneering work provides a framework for a big take off. Some work quietly behind the scenes and such work may set in a revolution later. Viewed from this perspective, surely Sharad Sharma has sown a seed in the Indian software product domain and has shown the way for others to follow. His blog Orbit Change Conversations (aptly named to represent his worldview) captures his views and opinions. He believes in immersing himself fully to a cause larger than his life and feels entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship may just be a tool to achieve your sworn goals of a larger-than-life, changing the world cause. And you could only agree. He has used entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship in his career as support systems to achieve his goals that were larger than his life. This genial entrepreneur, ecosystem creator, and venture capitalist leaves you finally overawed by his simplicity of demeanour and richness of thought. YourStory.in’s chief evangelist Venkatesh Krishnamoorthy met him on a pleasant morning to get his “contrarian” wisdom. Despite his proclamation of holding a contrarian view, that impression never gained ground when he got immersed in an enlightening conversation for 90 enriching minutes. Instead what was visible was his tenacity, his philosophy of wedding to a larger-than-life goal, and an undying optimism of Indian software products reaching a global scale, with feet firmly on ground entrenched in reality of the now. We are really delighted to present to you Sharad Sharma who talks on his career, entrepreneurship, software product scenario in India, and his present roles.

Part I—Career

YourStory: 23 years ago, when you graduated as an electrical engineer, software industry was in a nascent stage in India and Infosys was founded around that time. How did you choose software as a career because it was not a very attractive industry then and did you see a big wave for software industry in India?

Sharad Sharma:  I was active in IEEE in my engineering days and I was chairman of its the student chapter. Some of us were interested in microcomputers at the time. We used the IEEE umbrella to establish a microcomputer lab to get the CPM machines. CPM and DOS coexisted at that time. We used CPM machines to write system software. By my third year, a group of us got interested in “dabbling” in software just as a hobby.

For our final year project, we decided to do something different, not electrical engineering, but something in the area of software. We were fortunate to have NIC’s CDC, a big computer of its time. NIC allowed four of us to develop expert system for news information retrieval. We got exposed to software that way. Out of the four, three of us were excited about software and one stuck to electrical engineering. So the three of us consciously chose to go the software way. These are life choices and our decision has resulted in very different outcomes.

YourStory: So, what are the other three friends doing right now?

Sharad Sharma: One is doing very well in Microsoft. The other holds a very senior position in Oracle. Both of them are in the US. I am right here. The fourth person who stayed with electrical engineering works for Siemens as would be appropriate given his background. He also holds a senior position. So the decisions were consciously made around the passion we have developed because of working with those CPM machines.