What I learnt from my entrepreneurial family!

   Its been five months now since I have completed my engineering. Being aware of my crazy dreams I knew that any job would not satisfy my hunger. I skipped all the on-campus placements and started working on my idea www.tripzmate.com

    I started to work on the idea in feb 2012, having no experience of how to code I outsourced my work. but along the way it got tougher and tougher for me. the launching date was pushed back and its still not on. I started to curse my developers for all that was happening around me. Maybe it was not even their mistake maybe it was mine, I just sat down and waited for things to happen instead of making them happen.

    It pains me when I see my friends taking up job, going for masters or settle with their family business. It pains when I see them buying their movie tickets out of their own salaries. affording their day to day expenses out of their own wages. It pains me because I still don’t bring money at home, I could not give that first check to my parents or buy stuffs for them from first salary which I might have had if I had taken up any job. Worst thoughts peeps into my head when I imagine them getting promotion and higher packages by every passing year.

    I shared my worries with my dad. All he said was “you need to do it and make things happen, you need to wake up from your bed everyday without any excuse and work your ass off until you fall in bed contended with your hard work”. 

    He was right, from past five months I was just waiting until the site gets completed. sleeping late and waking up late.

   The very next day after our little talk, I went upto our textile factory with my dad just to keep myself busy. I was amazed by his energy and his hard work, I am nowhere near to him and it made me felt ashamed.

   The betterment of our family came only in last five years. My dad has three other brothers and they run the family business together, the business consists of real estate mostly dealing in lands which is run by my eldest uncle and textile factory by the other three brothers including my father. It takes a lot of fortune in order to set up a textile factory, three years ago we never ever had thought about setting up one because of its obvious expensive investment. Though my dad was eager to take the plunge and convinced his brothers to join the hands. Thus, pillars of the firm was set up in partnership between our family and one of our relatives. 

    From the day of the construction, to the day firm started and till now. I have seen him working in day and instructing workers in night on the phone. The factory runs 24*7. At times he used to take position of an engineer and helped them technically in solving faults of machinieries, at times he used to be on the folding machine helping out the workers to nicely bundle sarees into stack and at times I see him running the trolleys.

Pic shows the place in the factory where all the last stage dyed saree materials are packed.

       For others he is some wealthy businessman, but for me he is an example of true entrepreneur as he fixes away the machines, helps packing the different saree materials. I still wonder the way he and his brothers managed to invest the lump of money in the business knowing they didn’t had it in hand (note: no loan was taken, they still managed it through different properties and investments).

         Even being the owners my father and his brothers has not yet got a office built for themselves, but instead got one for the ‘master’ with AC fixed in his office. Till now from the day factory had started, they sit in a small office with just one fan and few chairs around. 

(There is a designation called as ‘Master’ in textile industry, the person who gets the clients and make sure that the factory has enough cloth to process, somebody whom you can consider as a CEO or COO.)

    My uncle helping out the worker and inspecting the dyed cloth.

The trolleys containing finished dyed cloth. I have seen my dad rolling one of this.

     I have always cherished textile industry has it runs through our blood since four decades now. but we got our hands on real estates in last few years. Its an story of a man who kept working and learning about land for more than fifteen years when his hard work finally paid off after 2005. He is my eldest uncle, elder brother of my father.

     He worked tirelessly to solve the disputed land case of our ancestors, every week he used to meet his CA and discuss the matter. He did that for more than 15 years without earning a penny out of it. Initially he was just a novice and knew nothing about it but he learnt it along the way after fighting the long battle and coming out of it victorious. Today he can make any CA pee in his pants on just one question asked by him.

     The land case which he resolved in 2005 must be worth crores, which we had to sell it for few lakhs. but what my uncle learnt out of the tireless efforts to resolve it was priceless. I remember him saying “there was this guy, who told me you can never buy a land of your own and never gonna get this one sold.” That outraged him, but instead of getting brash he nurtured his anger and used it to reach his goals. He had decided to buy tens of such land and guess what he did!

      Today when I feel miserable and pity on my condition, when I could get no mentorship being in small city, No idea on how to scale the business, No clue on investments, No penny in my pocket when my only well-wisher is myself and I feel like surrounded with darkness closed in a small room. At that moment of time this four brothers in form of light, pierce through the narrow space of the door and show me the way.

      Being in a city like surat where there is no IT culture and feel desperate to talk to some digital entrepreneur but couldn’t, I just try to learn from my family, from the four brothers and keep myself moving forward. They gave me patience to work my way out of developers, and guess what we are launching once small glitches are solved. They showed me how you can build a business even without money, They taught me that nothing comes to you sitting at home and waiting for things to happen. Instead you need to break through every obstacle that get along your way. 

      I am near to launch, I don’t know how I am going to get one lakh user in first 6 months!, I don’t know how I am going to scale it up!, How I am going to monetize my idea! How I am going to get investors!

      Big Deal.

      All I know that there is a someone looking behind me who constantly pumps my heart, and give me air to breath. If he can teach me how to breathe, walk, talk, jump, dream then he will even teach me how to do business and run a company 😉