Rajesh Setty

Rajesh Setty began entrepreneurial life the old fashioned way—by failing hard. Since this was right out of college sixteen years ago, the lessons he learnt he remembers well—even now. Moving on, Setty built company divisions, led teams and took on challenges with unabashed enthusiasm. His most recent venture six years ago—CIGNEX Technologies, has grown over 250% every year, without external funding. He now serves as the chairman of the board at the company, and is funneling his energy into writing, helping other companies break formatted thinking patterns, and creating intellectual wealth for the individual.

Setty currently serves as the president of Foresight Plus, LLC. Foresight Plus partners with select business leaders to provide them and their businesses with sustainable and unfair competitive advantage.  

Entrepreneur

  • Bootstrapper: Bootstrapped CIGNEX with four other founders in late 2000. Served as the president and CEO of the company until May 2005. 

  • Accidental entrepreneur: Was tasked to build and manage the IT subsidiary of a conglomerate in Malaysia in 1994. Learnt the art of building a company "on the job". Successfully accomplished the mission and got recognized for his accomplishments in local newspapers

  • Failed Entrepreneur: Started a training company with two other founders soon after he completed his engineering degree in 1992. The company failed before it took off the ground. Experienced first-hand why experience is important :)

Author

  • Wrote his first novel when he was nine (9) years old - side benefit of reading a few hundred novels before he turned nine. Got the novel published when he was thirteen (13).

  •  Awarded as the youngest published writer in the state of Karnataka in India in 1984

  • Published six books (4 novels, 1 poem collection and 1 book on mathematics) before he turned sixteen

  • Featured and/or interviewed in leading newspapers and magazines in India for literary and academic accomplishments

  • Published articles on topics such as Open Source and Innovation in magazines in United States

Teacher

  • Frequent speaker at conferences on the topics of Open Source, Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

  • Maintains a blog called Life Beyond Code

 Academic

  • Secured 20th rank for the state in Class X (out of 400,000 students) in 1986

  • Secured 2nd rank for the state in Class XII (out of 160,000 students) in 1988

  • Secured 6th rank for the state in the Common Entrance Test (CET) for admission to engineering colleges in 1988

  • Secured 4th rank for the university in Bachelor of Engineering exam in 1992