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Nature lover, environmental conservationist, adventure sports enthusiast, entrepreneur—that’s M. Venkatesh for you. Uniquely detached from the typical mould of entrepreneurs, Venky, as he is popularly known by his friends, became a pioneer in exterior façade cleaning for high-rise buildings when he launched his Bangalore-based firm, Rap n Kleen, in August 2000. But he wasn’t about to abandon his passion for rappelling; he just traded mountains for buildings.

After completing a basic course in mountaineering from the West Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Manali in 1988, Venky spent his weekends rock climbing in the wilderness. More mundane hours of the week were spent as a sales and marketing executive in various companies. Stressed by the banal realities of life, Venky found his calling at the four-day rock climbing festival
GETHNA (General Thimmaya Academy of Adventure) at Ramnagar, a popular destination for the sport.

“This was my leap to freedom,” says Venky, recalling the free spirit of the festival that had rock climbers and musicians camping in tents. The festival had such a deep impact on Venky that he promptly handed in his resignation and left the corporate world in 1993.

The Outdoor People (later renamed Ozone) was Venky’s first adventure sports
venture, born out of strategies he had absor-bed through sessions with fellow climbers. The adventure sports firm planned weekend escapades, manufactured outdoor travel gear and offered other travel services. This involved mapping routes by spending long hours in the wild.

Through much of the ‘90s, Venky lived hand-to-mouth, but the knowledge he gained at this time was invaluable. He gauged the demand for such services, which were used largely by corporates for outward-bound training programs. Also at this time, Venky met a French bungee jumping expert. Together, they organized a first-of-its-kind commercial bungee jumping project in 2000.

The successes in his solo ventures—all sans external investment—were transient. But they drove Venky to look at more stable, profitable business schemes. At around this time, several glass buildings had sprung up in and around Bangalore, thanks to the IT boom; this edged Venky onto more stable ground.

Rap n Kleen was launched with a meagre investment of Rs. 20,000. Today, the company has big ticket clients like TCS, Infosys, Satyam, Accenture Services, the Bangalore International Airport and the Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai. “The famous pyramid at the Infosys campus is our toughest building—I have six laborers there everyday,” he says.

During the first two years of his venture, Venky’s rappelling team comprised rock climbing friends who worked on a daily wage of Rs. 500. But as the job required daily commitment, Venky soon phased in young, unskilled labor from outside Karnataka, giving them hands on training at active sites.

“Today, Rap n Kleen has 22 rope access technicians trained with basic mountaineering skills for rappelling down harsh rock faces,” says Venky. Unlike the more common method of cleaning buildings using scaffolds—as practiced by firms that are high on time and don’t mind intrusions on space—his technicians can clean high-rise buildings over 60 feet tall. The company’s success at the Sahara Star Hotel in Mumbai, where his team of ten cleaned the underside of a canopy that measured half an acre, is a classic example of the agility of his rope access technicians.

“Some firms wait for the monsoons for a thorough wash! But people don’t realize that monsoons, in fact, bring with them dust that leaves stains on glass buildings,” says Venky. Instead of everyday touch-ups, many corporates call for cleaning services once in six months—if budgets permit. “Most companies delay façade cleaning to a time when foreign delegates visit—even big firms tend to do this,” Venky explains.

However, for companies that prefer that their building’s exterior remains squeaky clean, Rap n Kleen’s endeavors have been well recognized. Its first client, Phoenix Global Solutions, was not entirely happy with the results of the first round of work, but called them back for another session. Its second client, Goodridge Aerospace, was a success. And by this time, the proper hardware and cleaning equipment that the company required had arrived in India.

Venky’s entrepreneurial spirit has been honed by a ‘nothing is impossible’ outlook. This has been passed on to his employees, too, who rappel down static ropes everyday across Bangalore, helping the firm achieve an annual growth rate of 30 percent and a turnover of Rs. 32 lakh in the last financial year. But, being a non-conforming entrepreneur, Venky has so far not felt the need to expand his business through investor-aided capital or consultancy.

With Rap n Kleen scaling heights, Venky can now live his life, his way. “This level of entrepreneurship has given me a healthy balance between work and my [various] hobbies. My personal space is very important to me,” he says.

And most importantly, Venky’s entrepreneurial endeavors have contradicted his last boss’ parting statement: “You will never be able to become an entrepreneur.” In hindsight, those words were yet another catalyst to his unshakable, daring spirit.

©Entrepreneur December 2009

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building, cleaning, façade, M. Venkatesh, mountaineering, Rap n Kleen, rappelling, Venky