Resilience, adaptability, and an unrelenting drive to build—these qualities define Ramesan Doraisami’s journey from law to entrepreneurship. A trained lawyer who quickly pivoted to the corporate world, Ramesan has spent the last three decades launching and scaling businesses across multiple industries. His career, however, has been anything but linear. From navigating failures to surviving a catastrophic earthquake that upended his life and finances, he has learned that success isn’t about avoiding setbacks—it’s about learning from them. Now, through his work with Entrepreneur Success Foundry, Ramesan shares hard-earned wisdom with entrepreneurs seeking to scale their businesses while building the mental resilience needed to weather inevitable storms.
Shifting from Law to Business
“I’m a lawyer by training,” Ramesan explains, reflecting on his early career path. He qualified from the University of London but practiced briefly since his sights were set elsewhere. “My intention even when I was doing law was to get into the corporate sector.” For three decades, Ramesan has launched more than a dozen businesses across various industries. His approach isn’t about building empires to run indefinitely. “I’m one of those people who’s more into the idea and not the routine,” he says. “I like taking on a challenge and developing it to become successful.” Not every venture succeeded. Some failed spectacularly. But failures provided critical learning opportunities. “As long as you are learning from all the mistakes you made, that’s what life is all about,” Ramesan notes. “Till the day I die, I’ll be making mistakes as long as I don’t keep repeating past mistakes.”
Surviving a Catastrophic Earthquake
The earthquake that devastated Christchurch was unprecedented. “In its entire history, Christ Church has never had an earthquake,” Ramesan recalls. “Nobody knew how the fault lines suddenly appeared and caused this devastating earthquake.” The impact was immediate and severe. His business crumbled. Clients disappeared. Investment properties turned to rubble. Worst of all, colleagues lost their lives. “Technically speaking, I owed more than I owned,” he says about the aftermath. “My house was gone. I had some investment properties – they were all pieces of concrete and bricks by this time, but the mortgage still had to be paid by somebody.” Desperation led to poor decisions. “When you’re drowning, you just latch on to anything that drifts along,” Ramesan says. “Quite often, decisions in desperation lead to it being a crocodile, not a log. That’s what happened to me.”
The earthquake forced Ramesan to reevaluate everything. “I realized everything is kind of transitional,” he shares. “The wealth that we typically run after is fleeting.” After rebuilding his consulting business and establishing a London office, Ramesan launched Entrepreneur Success Foundry. The name wasn’t accidental. “I called it foundry because I wanted to keep it practical, not too theoretical,” he explains. His firm now focuses on coaching entrepreneurs, particularly those who’ve reached break-even but struggle with scaling. “Growing or scaling a business that has achieved break-even is a different ballgame altogether,” Ramesan says. “Because they’re not sure how to go about it, they tend to not do it or they take the leap and destroy the very brand they worked hard to build.”
Constant Adaptation in Business
Ramesan believes adaptability isn’t just critical during disasters – it’s necessary daily. “The world is changing every second,” he insists. “You’ve got to continuously be adaptable.” Many entrepreneurs worry that constant adaptation means losing focus. Ramesan disagrees. “Change your strategy and tactics every second if you need to,” he advises. “The only thing that shouldn’t change is your goal.” This flexibility requires mental preparation. “Hard skills are important in any profession or business, but if your mind is not in the right place, I can teach you 10 MBAs and you’re not going to get anywhere.”
Preparing for inevitable challenges isn’t easy. “When you face a disaster that threatens to uproot the life you’ve ever known, it’s not easy to be resilient,” Ramesan acknowledges. “It takes certain practices to prepare your mind to be willing to be resilient no matter how tough the challenge.” Through his masterclasses and keynote speeches, Ramesan continues sharing lessons from his remarkable journey – helping entrepreneurs avoid his mistakes while building their resilience muscle for when, not if, challenges arise.
Connect with Ramesan Doraisami on LinkedIn to learn more about his insights on resilience and business growth.
