Er Dilip Zade

Where did the idea to start something like this come from? Please also talk us through your background and your journey as an entrepreneur;

Born and brought up in a small village in a farmers family. Walked many miles daily to attend school. Left the village to grasp the quality education, did Intermediate while remaining in the hostel meant for poor and needy people. Wanted to pursue Agriculture engineering but landed up with a diploma in electrical engineering from government polytechnic to support family expenditures. In 1993, because of the unpleasant & unhealthy environment of my home and the torturous and humiliating behavior of my stepbrother, I was facing with the ideas of suicide. Gradually my depression reached a higher level and I was thinking that there is no meaning of my life so I should end it through committing suicide. For some time I also lived at my elder sister’s house but there also I did not find a suitable atmosphere for me so I left it and went to Yavatmal city. I started working at a shop for my livelihood and did the work for almost one year and then one of my sworn sister helped me. With her husband, she took me to the doctor and told him about all my difficulties, mental and psychological pressure. With the help of that sworn sister and doctor, I keep myself out from the trap of depression.

I got the opportunity to serve from an instructor to Principal of Private ITI and with the support of the Chairman of Polytechnic got the chance to fulfill my dream of doing a Bachelor of Engineering in Electricals. Alongside my job I also completed the Diploma of Public Relations and Professional degree of MBA.

During this period, the idea for doing something for rural students of tribals and farmers came to my mind. in 2002, registered our organisation “Search Foundation” and In 2005 we started the first English Medium School in a tribal and remote area at Tehsil level, Korpana with the pre-primary section along with all the Government Permissions.Presently having a huge infrastructure of 10 Acres with modern and advanced facilities in our school campus. Our school also got the status of Renowned School from the Maharashtra State Government and we have admitted around 300 tribal students for education.

Now along with this school, we are running some of the social organizations under the umbrella of “Search Foundation” and we are moving forward with our continuous efforts for the overall development of people of tribal and farmer communities.

Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?

Since my bent of mind was towards doing the welfare activities for the remote needy tribal people in specific and people of my society in general but due to my Job schedule, it was difficult for me to manage my job and to pursue my mission to work for the tribal population. I took a chance to proceed with my mission, I quit the job and started my venture “Search Foundation” to work for the betterment of our society.

It is universally accepted that if you have to work for the welfare of the society without expecting any profit then you need to have a vision and a great dedication for proceeding further with your ideas. I decided to work for the tribal population and have no grudge that I quit the job. At the same time I feel great that with my tremendous will power, I implemented and transformed my vision into reality.

What was your key driving force to become an entrepreneur?

My pursuit of helping people is my driving force to become an entrepreneur and since from my youth days, I wanted to work for the welfare of farmers, tribal people, students, and youth of our vicinity so that they can also be a part of the mainstream.

I also wanted to use my knowledge, experience, talent, and potential for the service of these tribal people and provide them with a healthy environment and support system so that they can also fulfill their dreams and lead a successful and satisfying life like all others. For me serving the people of these rural communities is equal to the service of the Nation because these rural people are the real backbone of our Nation.

What’s your source of motivation?

The enormous number of smiles of satisfaction and happiness of the beneficiaries of our work is the main source of Motivation for us. This really makes a very good organization “Search Foundation” making us stronger and inspires us for more dedication towards achieving our goal of overall development of these rural farmers, tribal people, and youth of these communities.

How many hours a day do you work on average?

Nature has given the fixed timeslot of 24 hours to each and everybody without any discrimination. So we all have equal 24 hours to manage and complete all the work and necessities. I usually work for 13 – 14 hours a day. Sometimes my work also goes up to 15-16 hours. I usually give 6 hours to sleep to maintain the health system.

Tell us about the uniqueness of your startup, please;

Our organization is working for Underprivileged communities, especially for framers, tribal people, students, and youth of rural areas. Our Search Foundation has been working since 2002 in the remote tribal area of Korpana & Jiwati Tahsil, in Chandrapur District of Maharashtra. Nearly 100 villages are living in substandard conditions with the major occupation of rain-based farming and agricultural labor. We organize and run many activities and projects from time to time for the overall development of these farmers & tribal people of our vicinity. We are trying to uplift the standard of living of these people and our aim is to work for the overall development and welfare of these underprivileged people without any discrimination. For their overall development, we conduct many activities and programs for their Education, Health, Hygiene & Nutrition, Women Empowerment, Environment, Agriculture, Personality Development & Career Guidance For Youth and students.

How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?

I have a unique way of handling pressure & managing stress. I normally try to maintain my physical fitness with yoga, exercise, and try to meet, interact, and share the things with my friends and wellwishers to manage the stress.

We should always keep this thing in our mind that if we are planning and working on something big then we will definitely face the difficulties and hurdles but these difficulties and hurdles are to make us stronger and ready for winning the given situation to achieve the goal. So we should make yourself stronger, fight with all the difficulties & hinders and win that at every step. We should also think and try to maintain the feeling of friendship for everyone. Do not have the feeling of competition and jealousy for anybody even if he/she is your competitor in the field. If we are taking care of these things and doing the work with positive thinking, caring, and supportive nature and with a cool mindset then there will be no pressure at all. Always have faith in your efforts, handwork, and in your passion.

How do you generate new ideas?

In my point of view, if somebody is having a big vision and that big vision is for the wellbeing & betterment of all members of society and if we try to explore new things and search for new things continuously then the new ideas come again and again to the mind automatically. If the person starts implementing those ideas and the result of those ideas leaves a smile of satisfaction and happiness on the people of the society., then these smiles of satisfaction and happiness of the people become a driving force to do a new work each and every time.

How did you come up with the name for your company?

I wanted to give a unique name to my organization and that name should not be a traditional one. I also wanted that the name should be clearly an indication of our work so after searching and thinking a lot at the end I came up with the name “Search Foundation”. Each and every human being should do the continuous search for the best possible way of his/her welfare along with the welfare of the society. In our organization “Search Foundation”, we try to search and implement all the possible ideas for the betterment of our society. We started all our ventures under the tag of “Search”. When the time came to decide the name of the school again we decided to give it a name related to our mission, so we gave the name “Scholars Search Academy” to our school. This name clearly indicates our aim of searching for the new scholars in the society for the enrichment of our environment.

What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?

I think first of all we should be a good human being and then we should set and decide our target. After that we should do the analytical and logical research and development work for that so we can be ready for all the possible hinders and obstacles of our journey of achieving our goal. At last we should implement the planned ideas one by one with positive thinking and enthusiasm. For this both the objective and medium (Path) of our organization should be pure, so we should always try to run all of the organization with the ethical way to get the real satisfaction of the beneficiaries.