Gathering No Moss

size="4">Career
path as well as life for Manish Kumar, CEO of WildCard has always
been of experimentation and diversification. With keen interest in
technology and sales, Kumar always had an interest in the technical
aspects while taking up telecom hardware as a preferred career choice
after his passion for photography.

size="4">Kumar
started his career with Usha Comm in the VoIP team after graduating
from Delhi College of Engineering in 2005. Gathering enough
experience from his stint with a telecom major in Gurgaon, he shifted
to Kolkata, the city of joy, to work with Xplore Tech as a VP.
Thereafter, his passion in technology took him to Alliance Broadband,
and thereafter to Kenya from where he landed again in Kolkata to
found WildCard Techno Services, a firm specializing in VoIP and
telephony solutions.

size="4">But
what drove Kumar to focus on technology alone and opt it as a career
choice? “When I was a kid, I saw Jurassic Park and was taken aback.
Not only was the movie fantastic, but the animations inspired me and
I probed how can computers make these dinosaurs that come alive on
screen,” recalled Kumar. This was the turning point in Kumar's
life when he realized that he is a man of technology and went ahead
with taking up engineering. “I seriously did not consider founding
a new company and was not accustomed with administrative and monetary
functionality of an organization; since the start of my career, I was
a techie and continued to be so until WildCard turned into a
reality,” said Kumar. While working in Alliance Broadband, Kumar
met Saket Taneja, (his present partner in WildCard), who helped him a
lot in venturing into Kenya. Going with the flow, Kumar took up the
job of a CTO with Kenya Telecom and spent about 3 years amidst
derelict landscapes plagued by political instability and turmoil.
Although in the beginning it was quite interesting for Kumar, but he
decided to come back to India after an immediate untoward incident.

“ size="4">One
fine morning I was going to the local market when 3 guns were pointed
on my head by local people. That very moment I decided to return to
my country,” chuckled Kumar. On his return, Kumar wondered about
taking up another job but wasn't happy with the offers as well as
the career path he had ventured into for so long. After few months,
Kumar, along with his friend Taneja finally decided to venture into
solutions business and specialize on the telephony front. “When we
ventured into the business, did not knew a word about finance,
capital, management and related terms. When we applied for a license,
though we got it but we had no office to work from,” disclosed
Kumar. He added, “During those years, we literally used to work
from our cars and home. The registered office remained the residence
of my friend (Taneja) till 2009 when we had a proper office in
place.”

size="4">Although
both Kumar as well as Taneja knew about the market, technology and
related concepts, the ice-breaking process did take some time and
WildCard finally entered the industry targeting call centers in the
city. Commenting on the move to join business, Kumar stated, “I
think that in every one of us, we have a hidden entrepreneur bug
inside us. It's just a matter of when and how it bites and how you
respond to it.” After the startup in Kolkata, Kumar limited himself
with the call centers and later took up telephony and VoIP solutions
only and did not ventured into the typical solutions business of
partnerships, solutions, and channels.

“ size="4">We
did not consider any major tie-ups as we don't want to focus on
target based business. WildCard's aim is to provide quality
solutions at affordable costs and we procure hardware as the need
arises,” said Kumar. However, the company did venture into the
distribution business with Yealink and added a base of around 7
solution partners in its distribution portfolio. The move towards
distribution is quite antagonistic when the line of solution business
is considered. But Kumar, smitten by the entrepreneurial bug, did not
think twice before the venture as he felt that the business would add
value to his existing solutions portfolio. With the passage of time,
gradually, Kumar increased his business across the country with four
branch offices and numerous tie-ups with partners. Also, the focus
was increased on client base across India. However, vertical wise, it
still remains a 'Call Center SP'. After starting from scratch
with no office till 2009, Kumar's obsession for technology did not
stop and now he is considering stepping into manufacturing of
headsets. “I am thinking of opening a manufacturing unit in
Jharkhand for headsets. Unlike most bluffs, the unit will be 100%
Indian and headsets will be 'Made in India' and not just
assembled in India,” he proudly said.

size="4">A
person continuously experimenting with his career and capital, Kumar
had to let go his passion for photography. During his college years,
greeting card major Archie had purchased one of Kumar's flicks
about a sunset for one of its greeting card and possibly Kumar could
have been a photographer rather that a techie and businessman.
However, Kumar seems content with his life but is sure of never
ceasing to experiment.