Manish Kumar: Gathering No Moss

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.
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.
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.
"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, I 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."
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 start-up 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.
"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.
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.