3 years after starting up!

Hello Friends,

I am writing this post after delivering the merchandise to HARVARD (yeah! you read that right) folks for their event at Hotel Shangri-La, New Delhi

The sense of excitement and energy is inexplicable. It’s been more than 3 years I started. I don’t know where to begin writing so I am penning the thoughts as they are pouring in my mind.

Well, Harvard University reached out to me to make their merchandise for their India event in 2015. I feel privileged and honoured to serve one of the oldest and the most reputed institution in the world. I didn’t even dream that I would get the chance to work with Harvard.

It is really difficult for me to say how and when I actually started my first entrepreneurial venture but from whatever I recall I see that I had the first taste of it when I was in class 5 or 6 where I was selling Pokémon stickers to my batch-mates and made money to buy ‘that’ handy video game.

Since then I have never looked back. Knowingly or unknowingly, I have walked into the path of being an entrepreneur. Later in high school I got involved with my dad in his business for selling electrical wires and cables. Working with him helped me a lot in understanding the business. Those were the moulding years of my life and I learnt a lot about doing dhandaa in India. It taught me a lot to understand the hidden faces and smiles of consumers. It has taught me patience. Eventually, it got into my being & helped me a lot in initiating my business and keeping me going.

I developed my passion for customised merchandise while I was preparing for my IIT-JEE, which unfortunately I couldn’t crack. Since all my siblings hail from the reputed institutions of the country I was always surrounded by them and their swag. I have a distant memory of having my brother’s IIT sweatshirt when I was in class 9 or something.

Though I was an average joe with a decent academic background I wasn’t interested much in academics. Moreover, the pressure to crack JEE made it worse. In the process, my life got ruined. So after graduating from school I landed up Delhi and enrolled myself with a management college to study business. Meanwhile, I had this bug of entrepreneurship and so I thought to kick the venture of making merchandise.

If you are an entrepreneur you must be aware about the pain & trauma that one goes through in the process.

I dealt with humongous rejections, faced tons of failure but kept my deter on.

I just started with my personal savings of 10000 bucks by printing 50 polo tees for Delhi University but unfortunately I couldn’t sell any of them. So I ended up distributing those tees among my peers.

But that first batch of merchandise taught me so much that today I am honoured to work with this Ivy league institution.

During the initial years, I was very paranoid. There were times when I was lying down in the bed in darkness and thinking “Am I doing this right thing? Shall I call it quits and prepare for my MBA? Or shall I join my Dad’s business”

But these thoughts are natural when you are an entrepreneur.

In the span of 3 years, I have worked with numerous reputed national institutions, corporate, private groups start-ups and individuals.

I still operate out of Starbucks, CP and Select Citywalk and handle everything on my own. My girlfriend also handles some of my work and help a lot in decision making.

I actively meet a lot of entrepreneurs who want to start their venture. I’ll suggest one should not be just for the heck of it or they don’t want to be an employee. Also, they think that one requires a lot of capital to start a business. But practically you don’t. I just started of with 10000 bucks and I still don’t have an office space.

Entrepreneurship is not about the money, it is about the happiness that you get when you see people wearing your product. (I’ve personally spotted numerous folks across Connaught Place, Hauz Khas, Saket wearing my merchandise. That gives me immense happiness which can’t be compared with anything else.)

Personally speaking, entrepreneurship can never be taught in any b-school. You have to learn the ropes on your own by getting your dirty, by feeling the pain everyday, by facing rejections, by so many ways that one can’t finish describing.

You really have to have innate passion for what you do only then you will keep going.

I owe my thanks to my parents, colleagues & my sweetheart, Sristhi who has played a pivotal role in my journey. I owe majority of credits to her. She is my ticket to sanity and I thank her for keeping me grounded. I feel blessed to have her.

Always remember “‘Success’ is a cruel mistress; it has an ability to trap you within but ‘Failure’ has been a true friend to me, it has given me wisdom in the time when I needed the most.”

Cheers & Happy New Year!

Vishal Agrawal

Founder- The Brainy Brat
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thebrainybrat