AN AVIATION entrepreneur who made several million Indians fly their dreams, a 32-year old founder of arguably the country's hottest mobile commerce startup, the R&D head of an Internet giant who built and soldbusiness-es in the past, a veteran IT entrepreneur who has seen multiple downturns, a honcho with a US venture capital firm that invests in ideas, and finally, an academic who thrives in the power of ideas.

The stage was set for the Bangalore edition of ETs "Power of Ideas' initiative, aimed at spurring potential entrepreneurs amidst the worst global recession in almost 80 years. The six-member panel consisted of Capt GR Gopinath, chairman & MD of Deccan Express Logistics; Sourabh Jain, founder & CEO of ngpay; Sharad Sharma, CEO of Yahoo India R&D;RajivMody, CEO of Sasken; Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel; andProf S Sadagopan, founder director of the Indian Institute of Information Technology. An eclectic mix of probably Bangalore's best entrepreneurial minds.

Prof Sadagopan, who moderated the nearly two-hour panel discussion, kicked off the discussion by asking what it takes to be an entrepreneur in such times he described as the "God's gruelling test for us". So, why are these good times to start businesses? The panel was unanimous in its view that troubled times did little to deter good start-ups. If anything, the economic downturn provided a context to rede - fine concepts with clarity on the core value proposition. "These are the best times to reinvent current concepts, though there is the fear of challenging the status quo and a fear of denial," argued Sasken's Rajiv Mody.

According to Yahoo R&D's Sharad Sharma, the slowdown presented another opportunity as established players usually "stick to their knitting" in these times of recession. Accel's Subrata Mitra pointed out that some of the biggest global corporate behemoths like IBM and Google built businesses in a serious downturn. "Google used the last recessionary period to develop the technology to monetise search," he explained.

And what should entrepreneurs do right to kick-start abusi-ness in these times? Listen to ng-pay's Sourabh Jain: "Hard times give start-ups the lead time to play under the radar and quietly emerge stronger. While in an up-turnmost companies create noise by spending money, the downturn gives a start-up the luxury to focus on the value proposition of-feredtothe consumer."

Capt Gopinath listed what he considers three essentials for any entrepreneur—conviction, single-minded focus and the ability to dream big. He reminiscedhow it took him two years and 10 months to receive a license for the helicopter charter business.