Hand of God, Act of Man & Kovaigiri
Meet the bootstrapped monk from a small town who drives Lamborghini, Porsche, Bentley, and is remarkably lucid in his entrepreneurial innings. That’s why perhaps Saravana Kumar’s Kovaigiri way of life is bewitching, as well as a tough act to emulate!
The young boy was not blessed with money. “A great day of business meant just an earning of Rs 500,” recalls Saravana Kumar, who was roped in by his father at a very early age to take care of the family shop of picture frames. “I was in class VI when I was asked to sit behind the cash counter,” recounts Saravana, who actually didn’t have much cash to count on most of the days. A modest store in Mettupalayam, a picturesque small town tucked inconspicuously on the foothills of Nilgiris, the shop was always unusually crowded with the picture frames. There were not many buyers, but on festivals, the young boy would be as busy as bees. “We never had enough money,” he says. His father dexterously managed the show, though, by making an unwanted friend: debt.
If money was at a premium, then fate too was not kind. The young lad was not blessed with luck either. He had a crammed and predictable daily and weekly schedule. Saravana would leave for school early in the morning, and once back home in the evening, he would take charge of the shop in the absence of his father. “Kids of my age used to play cricket, and have a great time,” he recalls, adding that the evenings would be spent finishing homework at the shop.
The mornings too were a contrasting picture. While most of the kids of his age did something on a regular basis — buy food from the school canteen — all that Saravana could buy was hope of a better time. “I just had Rs 2 in my pocket,” he says. The paltry money at his disposal was used to pay for the bus rides, and the young boy would never step into the canteen to buy pops, parathas and snacks. “I couldn’t afford it,” he says. He also could never afford to play on the weekends. While the shop was functional on Saturdays, there was only half day on Sundays. “This was my schedule for years,” he says. “I was not blessed with a full rest day.”
What, though, he was blessed with was something that not many would count as blessings. “I had hands of Gods,” smiles Saravana. His shop was crammed with photo frames of all kinds of Gods — Ganesha, Shiva, Saraswati and Murugan. All were in a blessing pose, all had a smile on their vibrant faces, and the divine eyes seemed to be firmly fixated at the young boy who was under their constant gaze. A frugal upbringing, a pious setting and a disciplined life…Saravana was unconsciously getting exposed and used to a way of life where hope was everything to live and die for, happiness was not tied to things that money can or can’t buy, and inculcating high level of emotional quotient was the only way to deal with the uncertainties of an unpredictable life.
There was another blessing in disguise. The young boy was learning the priceless craft of handling money, employees, and making most of the scant resources. Over the years, he was slowly but surely making a distinct transition from ‘Hands of God’ to the ‘Act of a man.’ The school life gave way to a stint in college, which was little over a dozen kilometre from his house. The young adult was getting hooked to computers during his undergrad years in electronics, he would come back by 4.30, and the evenings again would be spent manning the store.
Then one fine day, Muruga — the Lord of war and the God of wisdom — smiled on his namesake. Saravana revolted, made his father understand the urgent need to prepare for a better future, and enrolled into computer classes in the evening. The move was not easy. The doting father managed to take a loan of Rs 28,000 for two years, and let his son live his dream. In 2000, Saravana graduated, enrolled himself into a correspondence course in MCA, and started working in a Coimbatore-based company. Now it was the turn of Ganesha, the Lord of luck and prosperity, to shower his blessings on Saravana, who got a job offer in the UK the day after he completed his MCA. His dad again borrowed and gave his son 100 pounds. “After going to London, it took me two years to repay all his debts,” says Saravana, who worked in London for a decade, had stints with Microsoft, Accenture and Fidelity, and came back to India in 2010. A year later, in 2011, he started Kovai, which is Tamil name for Coimbatore.
Fast forward to 2023. Over a decade later, the first-generation founder has not only built a Coimbatore and London-based SaaS company which is unwaveringly moving from $10 million to $20 million ARR journey but has also unconsciously scripted a Kovaigiri way of life. Sample the cardinal tenets of this enchanting philosophy of running the business. First, Kovai is still bootstrapped. “It never excites me to raise money,” he laughs. Reason is not hard to find if one just glances through the formative years of his upbringing. His father was a victim of debt trap, he vehemently discouraged his son to stay away from borrowing money on interest or taking money which would result in clipping the wings of freedom, and a strong fiscal discipline on the back of an austere life always played on the minds of Saravana. “We don’t have any debts, we are profitable, and we have a principle of not borrowing money, not even equity,” he smiles. Even if we don’t make any money for at least a year, the founder underscores, we still would be able to survive. “That is the kind of backup I have, and this helps me to think freely,” he says.
The second guiding philosophy of Kovaigiri is to ensure that there is no FOMO, not even a minutest fraction. “There is room for everybody. All can coexist,” he says. The idea of peaceful coexistence perhaps emanated from the way all the Gods coexisted in the tiny shop of his father. There was no fear of one overpowering others. Nobody ever lost sleep over the thoughts of being subjugated or controlled. “I always feel it’s never a zero sum game,” he says, adding that one will always have competitors who might be deeply funded — and many were, and a few did raise loads of money at an unrealistic valuation in 2021 — but it doesn’t mean one has to enter into a land grab. “Even if you are not funded, you can still fight and win,” he says. It all boils down to one’s strategy and the way one differentiates and executes the plans.
The third indispensable strand of Kovaigiri DNA is to stay humble. “You need to be a good person first,” says Saravana. “I don’t think you need to be arrogant, very aggressive and burn yourself out to run a company,” he says. The next canon is happiness, and the wisdom to know the subtle difference between satisfaction and happiness. “I am not satisfied with my life, and many often misconstrue this as unhappiness,” he says. “However, this assumption is incorrect.” Being not satisfied, he explains, doesn’t mean being discontented. “It rather reflects on my belief that satisfaction can breed complacency,” he says, adding that once satisfied, the impetus to think bigger and the drive to grow faster tend to diminish.
Happiness, on the other hand, is a mindset. True happiness, he points out, stems from appreciating small things such as relishing a delightful meal with loved ones or creating cherished memories with family. Or it can be — as in Saravana’s case — admiring a battery of cars such as Lamborghini, Bentley and Porsche, which share the same stable. “They are my regular cars,” says the monk, who now discloses his fifth ideology. “I buy all the cars with cash. No loan. No other thing. Just all cash,” he smiles. There is another element to affordability and all-cash thing. “Once you buy, don’t worry about ‘what if it gets damaged, breaks down or anything,” he says. Staying detached with whatever you have attached to yourself is equally crucial.
The last, and most intriguing aspect of Koviagiri, is preparing in advance to play the long game. “It’s not that one fine day I decided to jump into entrepreneurship by shutting down everything,” he says. The preparation was gradual, and planned. During his stint at Fidelity, Saravana started making a transition towards entrepreneurial innings. “I worked three days with them, and the remaining days in the week was for preparing for Kovai,” he says, adding that it took him a good one year to prepare the first product. “Every day, I used to wake up at 4.30 in the morning, and work till 7.30 on building this product,” he says. “Once your time is very constrained, you’re super focused,” he says.
Ask him what he likes most about his entrepreneurial life, and the monk gives a predictable answer. “I need to sleep properly, and a bootstrapped life helps me do that,” he smiles.
Well, Kovaigiri might look enticing, but it’s surely not an easy act!
