Wheebox’s Nirmal Singh wishes he could be India’s education minister. His experience of founding and running Wheebox, a talent assessment company, has given him many ideas on how to create both jobs and talent to further our economy, so he says.

Which TV or movie character you would like to go into business with?
Dr Prannoy Roy, co-founder of NDTV. It takes a lot to pursue passion along with business commitments and scale it up gradually.

What is the best advice you have given your children?
Pick up one hobby and make it your career.

If you could time travel, where would you be right now?
In 2050 where India is projected to be the third largest economy and understand what went right and what went wrong.

What company do you not want to start but wish someone else would?
Kingfisher Airlines. What an airline! No airline can match it in quality and price. But, what Kingfisher didn’t understand was that quality and price are directly (and not inversely!) proportional to each other.

The biggest myth in business is 
That there are plenty of buyers waiting to buy your one in a million idea or product.

What is the one thing your employees would be surprised to know about you?That I skipped my Class-XII final exam to play cricket for my district. I cleared the exam the year after. 

What’s the toughest part of being in charge? 
You can’t afford to be very emotional about a lot of things.

What’s one rookie mistake you made early on?
Got the first customer who was 230 kms far! It was a pain to service them. Always get your first customer within your service reach.

What’s one skill you want to improve upon personally? 
I am dying to learn to play a musical instrument.

What’s the best motivator for employees
Two things: when they know you are always there in times of need and that their professional mistakes will never be taken as personal faults.