Being an entrepreneur, starting up and building a company is difficult. It will test you to your limits and if you are not determined to go the distance, your startup is most likely going to fail. But there is no need to fear this, and the fact that many times you feel like a stupid kid having pulled yourselves and your family into it (especially when things don’t go well)… Just sit down, relax, collect yourselves, keep the faith and get up ready to fight again, everything will pass.
Lemme mention three situations during my journey, which have left a significant mark in my life, helped me learn tons about entrepreneurship, success, failure and life in general. Some of it may help you in your journey:
- First 8 months of starting up, we tried 5 ideas, all tanked: I was almost on verge of quitting, but then something clicked 🙂
Learnings:
a) Never quit! Keep trying, Its darkest just before dawn. There is nothing new in this, but living it real time was some experience I’ll never forget.
b) Always be prepared that it will take thrice the time to reach anywhere you planned initially. Things don’t happen as per plan, every success will have series of screw-ups, but the good thing is, you don’t get fired to fail, but you’ve got to be fired up to get up again and fight harder.
c) When you leave your corporate job, the big business cards won’t help you in the beginning (they do eventually though, in fact in 2-3 years, many will come in handy). I had been a sales guy for almost a decade before starting up, good connections and success record, but no one helped in the beginning. In fact some folks didn’t even bother to return calls and emails. But almost 2 years into the journey, it was a different situation, some of our valuable alliances have been possible only due to those connections and I am really grateful for it. You have to become a small success story first for anyone else to trust you with anything.
2. My working partner quit: Our delivery head and working partner who used to manage operations went on a medical leave in the middle of our toughest and most testing time and never came back. There I was in the middle of a quagmire, managing everything for the next 6 months, working almost 20 hours a day! But then, we had two new partners join us in the end and we have been growing steadily post that.
Learnings:
a) Tough situations don’t last, tough people do. We just scraped through, but that’s how tough fights are won. I was just barely able to manage, within 6 months, I was drained, had to take energy boosting pills and multi vitamin tablets twice a day to just keep myself going. We lost many prospective deals (one pretty large one, we had to say no to them) because I could not concentrate on new business development while managing operations and delivery additionally, thats a full time specialist’s role you see. But eventually, this phase helped me realise one thing: I’ll live through anything and we’ll survive as a company come what may. I may not be good at everything (in fact, suck at many things), but good enough to scrape through at least for some time till the situation recovers.
b) This was one of the most interesting and testing periods, I learned what we were not doing right, what is needed to build efficient operations. Where all we can optimise and how to build project management processes, systems inside a company. Something that has helped me in my second startup. Everything happens for a reason 🙂
3. I went bankrupt. A week to month-end sometime in late 2013 (Salary, monthly expenses time! it’s a nightmare for many entrepreneurs), no receivables in sight and no money in my personal account. I was literally screwed and bankrupt! But, we came out of it… There was pipeline, an angel who came in guise of a customer and paid just in time, god and family.
Learnings:
a) Don’t loose faith, keep hustling and never stop believing that things will turn out ok.
b) Your spouse can be your strongest support, always be truthful and keep him/her informed on what is going on. Love has the power to heal anything.
c) Try to build cash reserves whenever possible, don’t splurge when you earn, save for rainy days.
d) When nothing works, surrender to God and his will, without his will nothing moves. Luck is nothing but God’s way to help you along the way. Opportunities come your way when you hustle and believe in yourself. I have seen some good situations turn sour overnight and some bad ones going our way, many times when I needed them the most. Luck and God have a big role to play in any success story, mine has been no different. I am lucky to have a loving and supportive wife and parents, good health, great business partners, great team, customers who believe in my company’s capabilities and above all, God with me.
If you think you have a great idea, try it out. This life is too short to keep regrets and you can always bounce back from any situation. Worst thing is your startup will fail (as with >90% of them), but businesses fail, people who run them don’t. Your world will not end with one failure (or two or three or may be 10, whatever be that no.).
You can always buy that car, house later, go on that long holiday later. This phase is not going to last for a life time anyways, make it memorable, experience it and embrace it with open arms. Keep the faith, believe in god, your family, love, believe in yourself, keep trying and never quit. At the end of the day, it’s the journey that counts.
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