PROFIT is heartless. Everybody in the corporate world knows that. That’s why it’s not very hard to find people committed to “doing good” as a career, who resign themselves to lives of poverty (or at least minimal comfort).

If you are a socially minded entrepreneur, this heart surgeon’s experience may give you some ideas.

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty refused to buy the usual profit language. He saw a need and he created a business model to fill that social need. He found a way to use technology so that he can save the lives of millions of Indians at the bottom of the pyramid (so goes the popular phrase), half of whom are children and infants.

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EVERYBODY dreams of making it big in his own business, but does everybody have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

Question worthy of a highly paid professor’s two-full-hour lecture in the country’s best business schools. Personally, I think the better question is: do you have what it takes?

A little-known book called “Dreamers, Doers, Risktakers” published by the UP Institute of Small-Scale Industries tells of persons from all parts of the wealth spectrum — from rags-to-riches dreamers to wealthy doers — and how they made their dreams come to fruition.

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