I discovered myself & where I belong!

Hey all Rodinhooders,

In the last 1 year, I have been more of a silent reader of several stories on this forum. Some are super inspiring, some make me learn what NOT to do and some are just fun 🙂

I did muster the courage to share my venture’s launch on this platform early in feb 2014 (Here is the article), I wasn’t sure how will the community respond and what if someone says “Yuck, what have you done” 😛 but I was pleasantly amazed in the way so many of you responded and gave me constructive feedback on concept/improvements needed/ UX issues and more.

Yipeedo was first launched in public beta on Feb 25^th, 2014, it’s almost 9 months and so much has happened. We now have our new UX live, we launched Yipeedo in Pune, our mobile app is in testing and we are selected for 3^rd batch of NASSCOM 10k startups.

All this while there were many ups and downs and we are still trying our best to make it work! There were days that filled me with lots of motivation, things like meeting big shots in startup world, getting the chance to have highly experienced mentors. There was the other side as well, and probably a bit more of it, like rejections from various b plan competitions, so many naysayers and several discouraging comments as well.

I recently read this article by Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal and could truly relate to it.

Things I did in last 1 year as an entrepreneur were probably not possible, if I would have continued my cozy IT job. I am so glad, that I quit 🙂

Today I am here to share some of my/ my venture’s achievements, learnings and what’s going on right now

1) When I was looking for some mentors from industry, I randomly posted on a Facebook group for Women entrepreneurs called HEN, interestingly I was immediately connected to awesome ladies who pointed me to a mentoring program run by NEN, called Dream to Destination and luckily I got selected.Lesson learned: Never underestimate the power of community, just ask!

2)I also volunteer for Headstart Network and have been lucky to be in company of some amazing folks who want to enable the startup ecosystem selflessly.Learning Don’t forget to give back to the ecosystem, everyone can help someone in the system.

3)Got feedback from many users that you are showing me plans and what to do after movie/before movie but what next, can I book? Till then we had not thought about getting transactions onto our platform very seriously. But we went back, ran through our network of friends and BINGO we had 2 Big partners onboarded!Learning: Your customers will always show you the right direction for your product.

4)We also got selected among 50 startups for IIMB Disruptit event, I pitched for the first time to a bigger set of audience. We didn’t get through among top 10 but we did get strong reactions, those who liked us loved us, those who didn’t just didn’t 🙂  Finally we have made it to the 3^rd batch of NASSCOM 10k Startups and I am looking forward to it.

Learnings: Pitching is an art and yes a scary event for the first time, but soon you realise its you who has to pitch and its you who knows your product and vision best. So RELAX!

There are so many things and probably words fall short, but all in all i discovered myself in last 1 year and I know Startup ecosystem is where i always wanna be, one or the other way 🙂

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Yipeedo

Twitter: @yipeedoo

Shalini@coffeemugideas.com