To climb a steep hill, William Shakespeare said, one must begin very slowly.

Narsi Narasimhan's climb began in 1988 when he graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a Ph.D. in management science. The 40-year-old from the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu began his professional journey as a professor at Georgia Tech, but when, in the early 1990s, budget cuts eliminated his position, he turned to consulting.

Although his clientele included large corporations such as Delta Air Lines, he soon found out that it takes more than a Ph.D. to survive the IT jungle as an entrepreneur.

"There are cultural differences," he says. "It was very hard for me to sell myself."

Narasimhan returned to teaching, this time at Rutgers University in New Jersey, while still trying to maintain his consulting practice in Atlanta. All of which eventually proved to be a bit too much.

"I felt that a one-man company was not going to work," he says, "and that it's very hard for me to take care of all aspects of business by myself."

After his one-year stint at Rutgers, Narasimhan began working for other consulting firms, this time as a subcontractor.

He also launched a nonprofit community organization called the Indian Professionals Network. He maintains the membership database of 3,700 Indian-American professionals and sends out weekly e-mails.

"Many entrepreneurs used me as a sounding board, and I became a corporate shrink for dozens of them," he says.

Instead of fighting this trend, he embraced it and became an adviser for several startups. The consulting work went well until the dot-com bubble burst.

Narasimhan began searching for something else to do.

Like many immigrants, he looked at what his native country could offer. He saw opportunities there.

Despite the collapse of the dot-com industry in the United States, the IT market in India continues to grow. "I wanted to start a company to help clients cut their costs and stretch their IT budgets using the talent in India, Malaysia, Jamaica and other countries," he says.

Narasimhan persuaded three more professionals to join him, and in March, he founded Paalam Inc., which in Tamil and Malayalam means "bridge."

The name came from what the company was set up to do: form a bridge between countries and forge business ties that benefit all sides. His services to information technology companies in the United States help them alleviate the risk of outsourcing to India.

"India is becoming the back office of the world," he says.

Narasimhan is counting on those he has helped in the past to help him with his new company. He sits on the board of the directors of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce, and he is active in other efforts involving Indian-Americans.

He also credits Ken Cutshaw, India's honorary consul in Atlanta, for sending business his way.

"That's what networking is all about," he says. Or put another way, Narasimhan practices in his own life what he does in his business: building bridges.