We had to build a brand at a time when certain unethical players had ruined market trust in a vacation ownership product. So, we had the brief of getting it right; to build a brand that was offering fun and something very different from the hotel industry. That was tough indeed. It helped, though, that Mahindra was a big brand associated with trustworthiness and reliability. And finally, the clear vision reaped rewards. I think the most challenging times are yet to come, since we have big plans for ourselves.

Overcoming and surviving the 1997-2000 recession in real estate. I am hoping that the current recession will not be worse than the earlier one.

In the second year of business in 2002, we ran out of money and had to eventually lay-off people. But even during this rough patch, we continued to do business. It was a very difficult time.

The last one year has been really tough, mainly because we didn’t raise capital when it was available. Though we have grown stupendously over the last five years, we also raised a lot of debt and debt servicing has become a challenge now. Getting capital, whether debt or equity, has become nearly impossible with investors and banks becoming extremely cautious about where they are putting away their money. But things are improving and market sentiments are also changing slowly.

When MindTree was not even a year old, and all we did was Internet-based solutions, the dotcom bust happened. Suddenly, it felt as if the whole business was going to disappear. We didn’t want to lay-off people in the very first year. We had to find work for them, train them and develop new skills. It also meant absorbing the losses. We survived those two years, but they were tough times.