While I was lying in my bed flashback of memories starting from six months back were playing in my mind. It was already morn and my eyes were wide open. I checked my iPhone clock which read 5:15 am. Another night passed out without a trace of sleep with this time recalling all the incidents that happened to me in last 6 months. I began to realise where I was heading to, talking to myself, ‘I have became an entrepreneur!!’.
I switched on my laptop, and created this post.
At times by prior decision, by inspiration or accidentally you become an entrepreneur. I too became one, either accidentally or through inspiration but now that I have became one. I am living each moment of my life with entrepreneurship.
I had same old thoughts of taking up a job in IT, work for few years, take up MBA and settle in life. I was pursuing 8th sem of my engineering when I got this idea to start an online social network of travelers, out of my own personal experience which I got whenever I had to take flights between Surat and Mangalore. with the former being my hometown and latter for my graduate studies.
In no matter of time, I pulled out my phone and called my cousin who runs a web solutions company. I discussed my idea with him which he appreciated and decided to go ahead with the work. I knew what was going around me. I got this hint that it’s not a small task, I was talking about forming a venture and I needed some partner on same frequency as mine to take it forward. One of my friends who wanted to start something of his own, agreed to become a co-founder with me when his liked the idea.
1st may 2012 we got our welcome page of the startup ready (I won’t disclose the name of my startup here, as I am not here for publicity but for the love of entrepreneurship). Accounts under the name of our startup were created on different social platforms ranging from fb, twitter, youtube to blogspot.
My first hurdle, When I was asked by my brother to make an advance payment of 20000 rs for my project. I had some funds that was lent to me by my parents to play in stock market and had made quite a handsome amount with my Thomas Cook script.
I sold my second-hand bike that I had in Mangalore, sold a few shares of Thomas Cook and made the payment to my brother.
Due to workload on him and his team our work kept delaying and 3 months had past. Having left out with no option (after kicking away the company I got placed in and few more campus interviews) I started going to my dad’s textile mill. Though being a gujju and coming from the background of entrepreneurs I had wished to work in an MNC and live a content life. but, here I was accidentally led to the path which nowhere was going to take me into MNCs.
The worst shock came later, when my co-founder friend decided to part himself away from the venture with the excuse that he wanted to own something of sole-proprietorship. First I tried to convince him a lot but finally gave up in frustration and blasted him. In return what he did was heart-breaking for me. He deleted all of his friends who had joined our page and made me the manager of the page only after ensuring that he had done needful to take me into depression. That night my excitement of our facebook fan page crossing 100 mark was taken down by him and all I was left out with was only 41 likes.
Depressed, depressed, depressed
Suddenly I got a heck of an idea. I implemented it and boom!!!!
I saw my energy level raise with faith in God and much in myself. In next 24 hours I saw how the likes increased from mere 41 to 167 at strike of midnight. I was grinning and laughing at the foolish step my friend took to take me down. All thanks to him!!! if he hadn’t screwed me then the page would have still be lying down rotten and without activity. as I write this post today the fan page of my startup stands at 5085 likes and growing stronger.
I didn’t attend a wedding of one of my best frienda in Mangalore only to be able to attend my first Rodinhoods Meetup in Mumbai Andheri.
I am still not able to believe how I convinced myself to travel all the way to Mumbai from Surat in train just to be there for the Rodinhoods meet as I hate Mumbai for being so crowded and full of jams. I remember the meet up took place on 22nd june 2012 at Himanshu sir’s office at Tekno Point.
It was fun and amazing to see the rockstar in person Alok sir.
I must say it was an amazing experience and hell lot of good time. Got to know many new things. Though I hardly spoke a word about me or my startup as I was not outspoken at that moment, I still enjoyed the meet.
Days kept passing by and I was not able to come up with an introductory video for my startup due to lack of contacts. First thing I needed was script, I contacted my local friend studying in SVNIT and through him met their college magazine editor. He wrote a script for my video for a minimal amount of 100 rs 🙂 . Secondly, I needed someone who could give music for my video. I was even able to hitch that through my cousin’s contact who was developing my site.
Till this point everything worked out quite well, but my biggest challenge was to get someone speak in a foreign accent. People and especially your users won’t take you seriously if they don’t see international standards in your work. A guy named Amit who was again a student of SVNIT and president in AISEC-Surat came to my rescue. He arranged a meeting with a Chinese guy with German like accent in English. He was in Surat for his internship and teaching Indian students German language and that was the reason why his English accent had german wings. Since, rest of the international students were busy with one work or another. we thought of giving a try with our chinese friend who’s name was Zhu. surprisingly, we found his voice to be a perfect match for our raw video.
In order to get more and more inspiration I started staying online for more than 6 hours a day. Started adding up more entrepreneurs, mentors to my social network. Liking all the pages covering startups, silicon valley, technology and entrepreneurship. only to get more and more educated by day.
The words like balance sheet and marketing which didn’t interest me, I started taking seriously. I started reading balance sheets, business plans, ideas and voraciously, started researching on online travel platforms and internet industry. I started staying awake whole night reading stuffs and getting my hands on each and every article that increased my knowledge. Started reading books and articles on famous entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs, Sir Richard Branson, Sean Parker, Mark Zuckerberg. Started researching upon how they devised a successful mantra for their enterprises?? Who said you have to earn an MBA degree in order to run a business? My family, my dad and my uncles are doing it way better than MBA graduates and they are not even 12 passout. I am learning great deal of business from them.
Among all this mad circus an inner voice started asking me a question.
‘Have you became someone who you never planned to be? Have you became an entrepreneur?’
I answered ‘hmm, wait let me think. I guess, yes I am an entrepreneur!’
Inner voice: ‘now that you have became one, live upto the standards and carry on the legacy. no matter what happens next! just enjoy your journey’.
I think entrepreneurs talk to themselves more than external beings. Their friends call them jerks and out of mind, their girlfriends get used to their non-response on the phone calls, their families think they are useless and often do not understand what they do and lastly you cannot forget society. Oh, in reference to society?? Well can a society even exist and survive without entrepreneurs??
I knew I needed a blog as my venture is related to travel. I also got the hint that if I am into online travel portal then I need to write, write, write. I never gave a thought to it until today when I decided to write this post. So again accidentally or out of the need to write, this entrepreneur has finally started writing!!
With only few days left to launch my venture. I would like to conclude my post with my experience till date remembering all my flashback I would say that no matter whether you took entrepreneurship by prior decision, by inspiration or accidentally by luck like in my case, just forget your worries and live each moment of your life with the spirit of working hard every new day, accept new challenges embrace them with love dedication and hardwork. make sure when you wake up from your bed even devils call out ‘Shit he’s up!!’
Because it’s not important whether you succeed in your venture or not, what’s important is the journey you started and the people you met along the way.
keep smiling 🙂