Tarun Khanna, the Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor at the Harvard Business School, was the only business school professor at JLF. He is one of the very few Indians who has a deep knowledge of the Chinese mind and culture by travelling and writing extensively. 

More interestingly, he is also an entrepreneur and investor which makes his views more grounded. Prof. Khanna is a cofounder of the start-up incubator Axilor Ventures along with Infosys co-founders Kris Gopalakrishnan and Shibulal in November 2014. They plan to fund start-ups in e-commerce, healthcare, life-sciences, sustainability and clean technology space.

His book Billion of Entrepreneurs – How China and India are Reshaping Their Future and Yours, published in 2008 by Harvard Press, is considered one of the must-reads for policy makers and entrepreneurs. He said China doesn’t make a fuss about India as much as India does. With an economy size of close to ten trillion dollars and India’s about two trillion, the two are in different leagues.  Excerpts from a rushed chat with Benedict Paramanand

How is the combination of being an academic and an entrepreneur working for you?

I think it’s great because as an academic, I get paid to think and some of the things I think about are big problems in developing countries. I am also lucky to be from India where we have plenty of problems. It’s a good combination. I can use India as a good laboratory and solve problems for human kind. And I like judicious risk taking.

Is there anything like that?

Good entrepreneurs only take judicious risks.

Isn’t it hindsight after you succeed then you think it was a judicious decision?

I don’t think so; you take calibrated risks, experiment your way to what you then call success. Most of my judicious risk taking fails, as it should, otherwise I am not experimenting enough. I have also found that my academic research is immensely strengthened by experience.

That’s what CK Prahalad used to say. I met him twice. He was extremely supportive of what I did, very kind and generous with his time. That’s the ethos at Harvard also that your academic insight should have an impact on practice.

How is your venture Chai Point doing?

It’s going very well. It’s just two and a half years old, it’s still very early, it’s scaling and our repeat customers are very high and extremely loyal. Price point is very low compared to any of the organized hot beverage company. When Starbucks charges more than Rs. 100 and Café Coffee Day Rs. 60/70, in Bangalore our lowest is Rs. 15. We have about 70 outlets in India already.

Is it VC funded?

It’s mostly angel funded and then there is one round of small VC funding a year ago. We will be raising a big amount of capital in about a year or so. The good news is that the stores break even very fast, customers are very happy and loyal, we are generating a lot of jobs, I am very happy with it.