Learnings at BuddyBits Startup Conclave!

Venue: Sanjiv Kumar Auditorium, Surat

Date: Dec 3, 2016, 3pm

On Saturday, I went to Surat on an invite from Nishit Jariwala for BuddyBits startup conclave. Got to meet very cool people here!

The cab ride itself was very interesting, I had as cab mates – Manan Desai, the co-founder of Comedy Factory, and one of the key team members at Comedy Bachao Nights, and his family with me. Needless to state, I got to know to Manan and his wife and have made good friends with them by now.

Manan a comedian, started as an RJ and is now evolving to be a script writer. He said quite an interesting thing, drawing parallels of comedy with entrepreneurship.

Just like any business, to be famous and successful in comedy world, one has to find their own style of comedy, be it slapstick, husband and wife and married life, relationships, life with kids, or be it vulgar comedy, one has to keep experimenting until you find what you really enjoy.

Stage performances give you instant feedback, if received well, it is an instant gratification, you need to take cues and improve upon that.

Again, even if you perform only one style of comedy, similar to business, one needs to constantly come up with new content. A joke shared 2 months back may not necessarily be relevant today. Very much like product development, you have to keep innovating, adding new features to your product. Otherwise, like Gutthi, a comedy show character, it becomes too monotonous and boring after the novelty wears off.

Manan might be in comedy, but his quotes on being a good comedian are as good as a good CEO. See, entrepreneurship, like comedy is not about who you are but what you bring to the table!

Then Laxmi said one needs drive and ambition, a kind of determination that took her to defy her own people, giving up on her and still making it big. And she was an acid attack survivor! See her spirit, unparalleled to anything I have seen! Do you know, the Indian law that addresses acid attack is named after Laxmi?  She has brought the issue of acid attack to the attention of mainstream, helping so many victims & bring them back to life. Laxmi owns a cafe in Delhi which is run by acid attack survivors, do not forget to go and compliment the beautiful at heart ladies out here when you are in Delhi next time 🙂

Most people want to startup because they don’t want anyone bossing them around. Once, Alok had mentioned to me that a CEO is an employee of a company, drawing a salary every month. The CEO is accountable to the VCs. In Alok’s own words,

“If my VC calls me in the middle of the night, I take his call. I am answerable to him.”

We get blinded by the glitzy stories we read about. For every Instagram that made 1 Billion $$, there are (excuse me for my language for what I’m gonna say now) there are 5000 insta-shits that have not made it. Being an entrepreneur means being willing to get punched in your face 24X7 365. If you are not up to this, maybe entrepreneurship is not for you.

Self-awareness is the key, one has to find what you are good at and what gives you happiness, and then go for it.

Besides entrepreneurship and working in an office there still is an option of being a freelancer that is available now in this digital world. You can work from the comfort of your home at your time and still make a career. So many women, post motherhood, opt for it these days, thanks to the internet.

At the end of the day, happiness and satisfaction matters, in Manan’s words, making billion $$ is not the important, living a meaningful, happy and satisfying life is. Self-awareness is the key here, to know  what gives you joy, and what you fear of to conquer it and and then go after it!

Thank you Alok, Nishit Jariwala and BuddyBits for the honor and the opportunity! 🙂

PS: I had to leave before the event concluded, hence, I have missed multiple other speakers’ take outs from this event.