The year round up post! #2014

I know I am late on this, but I thought it’s better than not posting at all. So here we go!

A hell lot of stuff planned, lots accomplished, some pending, little dropped off the list, a few postponed, yet, the most eventful year of my life. It started with travel and ended with that, well, almost. TL;DR, three important talking pointers that sum the year up for me:

1. I had decided to travel the previous year and I succeeded in traveling 3 new places (not for work reasons) this year, including my first ever trip abroad
2. Started the year with my status as “single”, ended with “happily married”
3. Started the year as a loss making company, ended in profits

In a nutshell, a f-a-n-tastic year!

It all started with my solo trip to Dalhousie. Actually I left on 30 Dec 2013 itself and the travel continued till 2nd Jan. So the year started with travel and with snow. Wrote about the experience of traveling alone and about getting out of my comfort zone. I do these solo trips once in a while to get my mojo back. It allows me to be with my being and reenergize the body for the battles ahead!

The inspiration behind the post was Bootstrappers 2014 – A Year in Review section on a Startup blog. Being a bootstrapped entrepreneur, I felt I should pen down my experience too, however, small they may be. While I was still contemplating writing this, Suma (my partner) wrote the 2014 round up post for Niswey. It got me thinking, yes, we shared what we did as a company but what about us as individuals? And hence, I thought to recollect everything. Went through all my notes, for the first nine months which were on OhLife! and since it shutdown, the remaining were on Little Memory. {Thanks to Ivan for putting up an OhLife import feature overnight.}

Recollecting, here are some notable things that happened this year.

Professional First:
Going Flat. I had been contemplating on this idea since sometime but it was during my Dalhousie break that I took a call, this HAS to be the way forward. That is what would allow us to grow, both as individuals and as a company. I came back from the trip, met Suma on a Saturday and explained everything. It all made sense to her and we thought to roll this out ASAP. Obviously we couldn’t do this the next very day but in a month’s time we were good to go. We organized a discussion for all of us, which ran for about half a day. Initially, there was a lot of mental resistance but as we discussed the concept more and more and as more questions got answered, it started making sense to everyone. Thus, it was put into action immediately!

That’s the beauty of a startup, you can get things moving so quickly that you’ll love it!

Flat organization discussion at Niswey

Pic Courtesy: Anubhav Tiwari

We also started a new practice of discussing individual Goals. What do all of us want to do and achieve. Small things as visiting 10 new places within the city to larger goals like building a community portal, it had all. Since it was a successful initiative, we continued the activity this year too! In April, we had another discussion where we discussed professional objectives for the organization. It had 2 major things:

1. 5X growth (in terms of revenue)
2. A Product (to be in alpha phase)

Where are we on that, well, that we will figure out in April. But I can share already that we are in good shape. No, we are not about to be 5X but surely will be about 2.5X, which, is a good number in itself and I am glad about it. Somewhere during the year we’d lost track of that but thanks to our people, we could bounce back! For this, I’ll always be grateful. We haven’t moved much on the product side. Somewhere in September it looked all set to take off but it never happened actually. Thankfully, we, finally are restarting this very soon. This time for sure.

I also started working on a couple of more things in parallel. One is an idea that’s floating since mid-2013. It’s called “Good 2 Fail“. I managed to get an interesting domain, do a small launch and reached out to a few entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, none of them was willing to share their learnings/experiences. Some said they did not have time, some just declined and a few never bothered to respond, even after multiple attempts. If you are one of those whom I approached, you need not be guilty, you can still respond 🙂 Another initiative on which I started working was in the education sector. This is a long term project (might take a lifetime) and I started doing my homework for this. During one of

Another initiative on which I started working was in the education sector. This is a long term project (might take a lifetime) and I started doing my homework for this. During one of interactions with someone in the industry, I realized it is too early for me to get into this and has to be pushed back. Which is fine with me, at least I now know that I need to be older, wiser and more resourceful (in terms of time and money) to get into this and the occasional guilt of not working towards that is gone now. Believe me, taking it off your head is equally important.

Let’s move to some personal stuff now

The most important event on the personal front was my getting married. After a blockbuster post on TRHS about how flat, family and marriage are the reasons why youngsters don’t turn entrepreneurs, I myself gave in 😛 While I am still an entrepreneur, let’s see if both of them survive 😉

The second most important thing was my promise to myself. It was mid-2013 when I realized I hadn’t taken an off since 18 months (apart from falling ill that is) and had then decided two things. 1. Take frequent breaks and 2. Travel. I am happy that this year I could keep up both promises. And importantly, will continue to do so.

Apart from keeping up those promises, the most bizarre thing was the way in which one of those trips got arranged. Since this post is already long, I will leave that to another post. It’s the Bali trip I am talking about where I went with Matt and the team from Under30Experiences. If you are under 30 (or maybe just a little over but can coolly hang out with other under 30’s), I suggest you must go with them!

Towards the end of the year, in December, I went to another awesome place, Sikkim. Going there just reinstated my thought of traveling more of East India. Need to plan. In between getting married and travel, there are a few other things notable things:

• A three day NLP Workshop – Made me realize the power of visualization
• An acquisition offer – Not that were looking for buyers but the offer just does some ego boost, if nothing else
• Book writing attempt – Participated in a book writing competition by FT & McK. Didn’t win but gave me an inroad towards my dream of writing a book
• Turned 30 – And spent the birthday in an exquisite and relaxing location like Bali
• Developed a new habit – Reading books. I read a lot, almost 3-4 articles (not news) a day but wasn’t into reading books much. Read 5 books last year, nothing compared to the global average of 17 but at least got into the habit! This year, my target is the global average. BTW, I am already on my 5th and it’s just the beginning of March 🙂

While we’ve had the first round of goals discussion this year, I am still finalizing my goals. A little delayed but with so much happening at Niswey in the last 2 months, I am not worried about the delay. Will share what I plan and at the end of the year, how did I fare.

In the end, I am grateful to friends, family, customers, well wishers (like you) and the universe, for making 2014 a successful year!

Your turn. Do you plan/create goals? How was 2014 for you?

Originally posted on Journey Called Life.