Deepak Shenoy was one of the early professionals to start algorithmic trading in India, way back in 2009. It required sifting through patterns of data and using software-based decision-making systems to trade and make stock calls.

While I have been following his Twitter handle @deepakshenoy for past couple of years, some of his recent writings have clearly been outliers, especially in terms of fresh perspective and incisive analysis. “How The 11,400 cr. Import Ponzi Scam at PNB Unfolded” published in February is an example of that.

Shenoy, a computer science graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, started his career as a coder maintaining mainframe computer systems during 1996-1997. Before formally launching Capitalmind in 2010, Shenoy launched two startups–Moneyoga and Agni Software.

“When you are in a job, it’s difficult to harness opportunities. It’s not just being your own boss,” he says.

“At some point, you start getting tempted to take up a job because of the cash flow. And around 2012, I had started getting job offers and I didn’t want that,” he adds.

It’s important to have targets about how long will you give your startup before calling it quits.

“I decided to work on making Capitalmind into a company and give it one year. “

“The first business I ran, we had a 4 months target. It was 1998 and we were making 15,000 every month. We actually did it. We wanted the company to make enough money to help the four of us buy Tata Safari for each of us,” says Shenoy.

“If you don’t have a business vision, the danger is of becoming a zombie company. You would always have enough to survive, but without growth, nothing matters. Every company is supposed to be geared for growth. “

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