1. Taxes. Do you know that while you can smartly save on some taxes, there are other unknown kind of taxes that you need to keep track of and fill. Even if you are really bad with your numbers.
2. Learn to do better work. You think the work you do is enough to get you work? Ha! Better start learning, and keep learning and learn some more.
3. This is not school, you are not in kindergarten. You thought being a startup will make the world dote you? Love you to bits. Take it easy? Its war and you better suit up.
4. Learn to sell. So you thought knowing what you know will make work come to you? Build and they will come they said? BS. Go out and sell that beauty you have built, or somebody else with lesser beauty and better selling powers will beat you.
5. Learn to fake and learn to lie. You ask, oh why? Because that’s how businesses run baby. Dal mein namak hai dal mein namak, bas namak mein daal mat bana dena. A little bit of jhooth is an integral part of every business.
6. Payments. Raising. Remembering. Collecting. Pleading. Bad feeling. The one part least people talk about. After doing all that you did, some people will make you ‘beg’ to get that payment. This is the single most cruel and harsh reality of many businesses. And beware, the ones who look the best might be the saddest.
7. Tum logon ke bharose baithe ho par log sirf tumhare bharose nahin baithe. You count on that one client, that one project, that one cheque that keeps it all going. But they have a thousand options. Think you are indispensable? Wait till you part ways with somebody.
8. Sunday? Holidays? Vacation? Just be glad if you get enough time to get married or something. Slowly people do get lucky, but in the beginning, its all about “So you want me to take a break and not earn and spend at the same time?” There I said it. It hurts, but its true.
9. The relatives and the auntys and the society. Kahaan kaam karta hai? Shaadi kaise karega? Kuch nahin hoga. Mera beta America.
10. Tu beer nahin paani hai. Log unke brand se jaane jaate hain. Visiting card wala brand. Tumhein saalon saal lag jaate hain, to become a brand. Beer to behti hai, badiya brand ki hoti hai. Zyadatar entrepreneur paani ke jaise hote hain. Unbranded paani.
To bano, zaroor bano, pakka bano entrepreneur. Lekin yaad rakhna, band bajega, dard hoga, shayad kuch bhi nahin milega. Haan life mein kuch alag kara, aisa zaroor lagega.
(Musings while sitting in a food court trying to find a charging point because apparently it was the last day and last hour to file a certain kind of tax.)
I tweet at @prateekshah and I started up Digital Defynd last year after 4 years of digital marketing consulting and training.
Puneet Nirogam Aggarwal
A very Good Read !
Prateek Shah
Thanks Puneet 🙂