Half Tambram in Dubai
After growing up in the desert heat of Dubai, and then moving to the tropical climate of Aamchi Mumbai, Sampath K. Iyengar has come a long way!
He began his life as a toddler in Dubai, an oasis that gave him a rare exposure to various cultures from across the world, along with making lifetime friends from countries like Iran and Israel. This helped him a lot when he moved to Mumbai for good, in 1981. School life in Mumbai was a blast with the various extracurricular actives he participated in, like debates and acting, though he also had to shoulder the responsibility of being the man of the house as his father was still in Dubai. This further helped to groom him as an entrepreneur very early on in his life.
Schooling in Marol
After moving from Dubai to India in 1981, Sampath Lost a year due to the difference in the school years. He joined St John the Evangelist High School in 1981 and was there for his 9th and 10th (SSC).
He Was also a class minister and had a good rapport with both his colleagues and teachers
Learn More to Earn More
Sampath moved on to Bhavan’s college for his 11th and 12th, where he completed his B.sc in Physics and electronic instrumentation. He got his first whiff of politics when he was the CR for the period of 1986 to 1989 while doing his B.sc. He was part of the NSUI and had the good fortune of meeting the Late PM Shri Rajiv Gandhi at a special meeting of the Youth Congress. Fortunately or Unfortunately he didn’t continue this and went on to do a diploma in software engineering from Mumbai University.“ One Very Important learning from his Late father R. K Swamy was that never waste your summer vacation which was pretty long during school and college.
So in after 9th he learnt Typing and after 10th he learns computer programming which used to cost 1,000 in 1984. During the college Vacation, he learnt Transistor assembly and in the following vacation TV assembly and troubleshooting from Radio Bhuvan “
Early Career & Entrepreneurship
The software didn’t interest him as he wanted to get into the computer hardware business, so he joined his first company, General Electronics, where he was one of the very first Indians to get trained on Epson printers which had a tie-up with Wipro.
As the company was more into the trading of lower-end computers and didn’t want to move ahead, he managed to join an Upcoming company called Minafax Computers, a computer system integrator with clients like VSNL, TIFR, HUDCO, Corn Products, Indian Organic Chemicals etc.
He was placed along with four other engineers and the best feeling he got when he was paid a princely sum of 1200, while BE engineers were paid 800, thanks to his ability to hit the ground running from day one and needed no training.
He was soon placed as the Customer Support Engineer for VSNL (Now Tata Communications) and used to handle support calls for the entire building. He developed a great rapport with people right from the security guards to the CMD and was also given the additional responsibility of looking after IOCL, Corn Products, HUDCO and a myriad of small businesses. He excelled in networking and Antivirus removal, and hence, was sent to troubleshoot across India to the branches of VSNL and HUDCO to Madras (Now Chennai) Calcutta (now Kolkata), Ahmedabad, Indore Etc.
But the Entrepreneur bug had bitten him and he decided to start off on his own, launching Systems & Services (Now Called as Sam 7 Computers & Networks).
Sam 7 was a Boutique IT Sales and Support company in a time where IT was a Sell and forget Business. With The Computer Revolution which was started by Our Late PM Shri Rajiv Gandhi, the market opened up and Sam 7 Soon Grew into a Small Business with a peak of 20 people right from Support, Sales, Logistics, Accounts etc. He always had a ratio of 1:5 in terms of Sales to Support, unlike other companies who focused on Sales. He was one of the first HP Retailer to Start a Retail Showroom in Bandra and then Andheri.
Business was great and hit a Peak in Y2k, but soon after that, the market opened up and the competition was vicious and Margins became wafer thin.
The turning point was when Hewlett Packard Merged with Compaq and in India, it was Compaq which had a major hand and Hp partners were marginalised and he soon had to shut both the showrooms which fortunately were rented. He managed to put together funds to buy an office in 4 Bungalows MHADHA and moved all operations there. The business moved along but was on a downward trend with Salaries going high and margins moving south.
The Final Nail in the coffin was the Multibrand retail which took over sales with massive volumes and special pricing from the distributors. This was followed by the E-Commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart which have also affected the brick and mortar stores.
Sam 7 now has diversified into IT support services which offer Small and Medium Businesses an outsourced IT model, starting as low as INR 6,000 a month. Sales form 20% of the Business and we help customers get better pricing online and look after the service and support of the products as part of our IT model.
The Covid19 Hit all businesses very hard and Sam 7 now has become a hyperlocal service and sales provider and provides onsite service from Bandra to Borivali.
Sam 7 has branched out into creating Websites and providing email solutions to old and new customers.
Media Calling
The next Chapter in his business was the talk Show, Jam with Sam (on YouTube). He has completed 8 years and has had 90 plus episodes and has interviewed close to 160 plus Business Owners, Professionals , Media , Actors ,Actresses , Social Cause activists , Startups etc , Prominent personalities include Master Chef Ranvir Brar, Author Rashmi Bansal, Vishal Gondal, Usha Jadhav, Sharon Prabhakar, Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal, Afroz Shah, Luke Coutino, Ashwin Musharan, Sachin Kalbag, Prashant Mali, Hanuman Tripathi , Nirmika Singh and many more!
He also has a Curated Business Professional group which attends this talk show and gets to learn first hand from the Celebrities and Professionals. This group is known as The Indian Networker, with an invitation-only membership policy. The philosophy is Friends First, Business will follow. This group is 6 years old has 30 members from diverse professions.
Sam Also started a Morning no Pressure Business Network called as Networking at 9 as a new mentoring and collaboration platform
During the Covid period a new Avatar of Relationship Networking was started called as Curafluence International which is now in the Second year.