US: Navar's success mantra: 'I did not know'

Among the many things that led to her success as an entrepreneur, Indu Navar confesses that just admitting that she 'did not know' has played a very important role.

Never be afraid of asking for help from better-informed people, especially in your team, she said at the women's forum at the first Kannada Summit organized by Navika in Pasadena recently.

She spurned the comforts of Bangalore and the business her father had started for her, and convinced her parents to allow her to study in the United States. She told them she would be close to her brother but it was not just a trick to get away from home. She had no idea that the Chico State University, where she studied computer science, was some 200 miles away from her brother's home.

Being focused and admitting it is impossible for anyone to know everything in one's field made her shine as a student and entrepreneur, she said.

Before she joined Healtheon (WebMD) and went on to start her own successful software venture, she also worked for NASA. It was an exciting start, she said, but "the relationship between India and America wasn't very warm then" (in the 1990s) and that meant that many areas at NASA were not accessible to a foreigner.

Navar, the CEO and co-founder of Serus Corporation, a 10-year-old company that provides other companies with operations management software, realized she was pregnant just as she was ready to start it.

Balancing her personal health and the health of the newborn company was not easy.

'It was like I had twins — and if you have twins, you don't say, 'Oh, one twin is giving me a hard time, so I'm going to throw him away,' she once said.

She also rejected the idea that many women have: That they have to choose between work and family.

'Balancing might be required, but you don't have to choose. It's not one or the other,' she has said.

When she came to Chicago in 1992, she had to get used to a very different lifestyle and do every little thing herself. 'I had never even been out without a chauffeur,' she said in an interview. 'I had never even traveled by myself!'

Her father, an electrical engineer, and mother, a businesswoman, own an aluminum-casting factory.

Navar had to learn fast to be a single parent, and was making changes in her personal life while she was firming up her business plans.

Once fearful of heights, she decided to face her fears by taking pilot lessons and, along with several employees, skydiving.

One of the messages she brought to the Kannada summit was overcoming fears by confronting them.

In a video interview on her website, she talks about how her family — particularly her father — has inspired her. But she also confesses that her family did not roll a red carpet before her when she was planning something different. By questioning her choices and making it not easy for her to decide on them, they made her a tough person, she adds.