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Featured in TOI, Selected in Nasscom and then A Call from Home to Come Home

By Tanutejas Saraswat on 28 Comments / 3560 views

Dear Tanutejas,

Congratulations,

We would like to inform you that your application of paintlyfe has been shortlisted among the top 8% of all application received.

So the story starts from this mail, last month I was just filling up some form and was in hurry. I was in so much hurry that I didn’t even read after writing all the points. As a result, it had many mistakes. I skipped their most important point that was” Uploading video of 60 sec explaining about your company”  As soon as I reached this point, I closed the tab. I was not at all in a mood to shoot my own video. I forgot about Nasscom just after closing my tabs,

BUT after 15 days, this mail arrived and I was like- Damn, they have shortlisted incomplete application. It was the moment when we felt; wow someone is there who know what we want to do. Let’s go to Mumbai.

But what’s the fun in story if you don’t get into troubles??

Hence, I got a call from home to come home. It’s been a year I have seen my family. They want me to come home and join our family business. (You all know how difficult is to convince family on this part) They want security of their kids and kids feel happy in being insecure. Monitory or materialistic things are not in scene at this stage and it seriously don’t fascinate very much. But what makes you happy is that “You have started something so take it forward inspite of all bad circumstances. When you have started, you didn’t care about all these circumstances then why now?? Not now and never.

 

I quickly visited home, tried to convince them and went to Mumbai with a smile on face. It was our first ever meet where we were meeting with VC’s. I seriously never thought that we are going to meet VC’s so soon but it just happened.

When we started giving our Intro to VC’s, many showed us interest, many tried to change the topic but there was one guy named Ashish Dave from Mumbai Angels. He came, sat down, soft spoken and within 45 seconds he said “Let me tell you the truth, I invest in e-com business and I am not at all interested in your business because …….

1) We invest minimum 50 lacs not the amount which you guys are demanding.

2) Before VC’s invest in startups, they want to see your skin in your business (means, you should invest some good amount of money before pitching VC’s)

3) I am not discouraging you but I call a Black a Black and Spade a Spade. And many more…

He was the best person we have interacted there in Nasscom. He looked at one of my sample product pic in which I was wearing RodinHoods T-shirt so he asked” So you are rodinhooder, influenced by Alok. Good. You are on the right track, Alok himself can guide you very nicely in your journey” (Alok is guiding us since the beginning may be unintentionally or indirectly but he is)

 

We loved the session, Met brilliant minded people. Was little nervous but we managed to convince our self that NO NEED TO GET NERVOUS. At the last, Nasscom asked us to give interview in Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine about the event. We were ready but then something came in mind and I asked my co-founder” Are we guys are here to give interview in these magazines about the platform or about our company, He said” we are here for our startup” We walked out and left that place with a smile. 🙂

And then on 7th July- Times Of India featured me in Sunday times with 4 more entrepreneurs.

It was the moment of smile. Because almost 6 months back, I woke up 3 in the morning, went to hawkers, stood there for 4 hours and inserted ShopKirana Leaflets in TOI. You can understand now why I Felt awesome when I got a call from TOI .

 

 

 

Last but not the least “I sent my first and last Telegram to the lady saying

 “OUR LOVE WILL NEVER DIE LIKE TELEGRAM”

Did you make someone feel special from Telegram, if not, you missed something which is priceless or may be has no value.  You can imagine, whatever you think is right will be right.

 

Last month was indeed fun. Mail from Nasscom, Featuring in TOI, Seeing family after a year, Convincing them about your startup like a 5 year old kid who give all the reason in the universe for a Cadbury.

Let’s convince the universe for a Cadbury now.

Tanutejas Saraswat

Dreamer | Believer | Reader | Entrepreneur and

Chief Learning Officer at www.Shopkirana.com & www.Paintlyfe.com

 

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28 Comments

  1. tanutejas…

    i normally don’t moderate at night. but i couldn’t resist when i saw the headline in my inbox…

    may every rodinhooder have a story like yours to share.

    you make us so so proud!

  2. I loved the last line. ‘Lets convince the universe for a cadbury now’

    Awesome! 

  3. Great to see telegram so popular amongst Rodinhoods:)

  4. Tanutejas,

    Congrats on the feature in NASCOM and TOI, all the best for both your ventures…

  5. p.s: tanutejas – i love your designation CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER. it’s evergreen 🙂

  6. Awesome Tanutejas  congrats on being featured in TOI  and getting through the tough selection process of Nasscom’s 10000 startups .Do update us on what’s happening there.

    Best of Luck 🙂

  7. Thank you so much. 🙂

    I promised to update blog on Sunday but couldn’t do so as both my sites were down due to some virus attack. (But they are up again)

  8. Thanks,. It was a single day event. Now some follow ups are going on.

    Lets see, if we can crack it, will definitely share with all

  9. Thanks Karan,

    And yeah, I love my designation Asha, It helps to quickly learn and apply. :)) And it suits everywhere. 

  10. One of the best stories in recent stories. I know the feeling of proving others wrong :). Nothing inspires you more 

  11. Feeling of proving others wrong is not as cool as feeling of achieving some small steps. :))

  12. Congo Tanu.

    It’s just gr8 to see you on TOI. 

    I couldn’t resist myself reading anything GOOD related to IT, Entrepreneurship and people I knw personally. It’s all in there.

    Many congratulations!!  

  13. wow, very proud indeed 🙂

  14. Hey dude, not fair, cropping the top of the article :p

    Congrats for being selected in Nasscom!! Great going! We should hang out sometime.

    Cheers!

  15. Alright, So 2 / 6 Entrepreneurs on the Same Day, in the Same News Paper and Article is Not bad at all and that they are Both RodinHoods at the same time too 😉
    Congratulations!! To all, Cheers!!!

  16. Hey Yuvraj,
    Thats super awesome. Yeah i checked it, cropped it cuz it was too big to scan.
    And after all I was managing my profile only 😛

    Btw TOI did some mistake, it showed your pic and wrote at the end “tanutejas said” 😉

    We definitely should meet up.

  17. We(rodinhooders) are everywhere ;))

  18. Yeah.. it was an article based on entrepreneurs in Indore 🙂

  19. Yeah.. the copy is has a few mistakes.. even my website URL is incorrect. He wrote dressmyphone (.com) but the site is dressmyphone.in. 🙂

    This article finally gave some confidence to my family members about my venture. 🙂

  20. Awesome Man, hope you get to great heights 🙂

  21. Congrats buddy for getting a call from Nasscom (though everybody is not that lucky that includes me 🙁 …. ) and getting featured in TOI

    Hope you find a investor who will invest in your venture .

    All the best 🙂

  22. @Goutam ha ha ha. Boss whats the fun in being lucky all the time?? 😉

    Nasscom is a platform where they help startups to meet investors. You can do this yourself. Seriously. 

  23. 🙂 Thanks Manoj. 

  24. @tanutejas i have applied for 10000starts but they had rejected my application.
    i know wats the fun in lucky all the time but its better to be lucky sometime than unlucky all the time 😉

  25. he he he. Yes boss! I will not lie but it was so much fun. Not because they have selected us but because the experience was so good, interacting with VC’s, meeting with other startups, seeing people to fight for their venture etc etc,. It was indeed so much fun :))

    I wish you a great future with your venture, 🙂

  26. Congratulations Tanujetas 🙂 Reading from mobile makes me really slow to reply to the awesome posts i read here 🙁 It’s awesome to have so many good things happening in a single month , in startup life 😀 All the best ..

  27. Thank you so much Saraswathi.

    Even after reading on mobile, you commented here- Its a BIG thing for me. :))

  28. tanutejas…

    i think an update is LONG OVERDUE from your side!!!

    (yeah – i never nudge subtly) 

    🙂

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