I was blind, but now I can see.

It was third day of our first office. I was exhausted and tired due to sudden responsiblities that came in last week. Two weeks before I didn’t knew what I will be doing next after the launch of my site tripzmate.com

I took a break and occupied my chair. There were 7 of us in the office who were breathing space. Everyone were busy coding in front of the white screen. Discussing, running, checking their code to make it right. Oh yes! we hired a couple of guys. It was a dream. Seeing this picture took me back to those days when i had enrolled myself in 1st year of engineering. 

I was going through a rough patch of life. My long high school relation was almost over after going to mangalore to pursue engineering. I remember two distinct dreams that I spoke about 4 years back to convince my girlfriend so that she holds onto me little longer.

1. That my family will be starting a textile factory. 

2. That I will start something along the lines of social network (those were the times when most of us were using orkut.)

I was promising the dreams to my girl just so that I can convince her and her wealthy family, who worship money over anything else. Moreover, I had no idea what rubbish I was talking about!

Anyways, relation was long over. but dreams were set on track. 

Dream 1

When I reached third year of my engineering, I got a call from my mom announcing that we are starting a textile mill. I was struck with silence because of the dream that I had talked about was coming true. It took roughly 3 years to construct and start our factory full fledged. Today its running quite handsomely. The discussion of my first dream can be found here: What I learnt from my entrepreneurial family!

That was the day when I understood that when you are asking something then ask were cautiously. who knows it might just come true! 🙂

Dream 2

I entered into the fourth year of engineering. This is the year when everybody around you is talking about placements, companies and packages. I hated when anybody comes up with the topic of placements. I wanted to do something on my own terms. I wanted to fondle with technology. And thus started my long research.

I started reading the famous tech blogs and sites. I kept looking for new ideas which has never been tried before in india. There were many sleepless nights as my life’s goal was not clear. I was scared and aimless. I was not attending any placements and news of a friend getting placed was not helping. What to do! afterall I am a human.

Sooner I got my idea and took the leap on 1st may 2012, with a simple welcome page and our logo on it.

Embracing Entrepreneurship accidentally, story of my second dream.

It took almost 10 months to get my site ready. Many times I felt like quitting and enter my family business. but entering my family business didn’t excited me. So I kept moving forward. 

What I didn’t knew was that I was busy creating my second dream. 

Today tripzmate.com is on, though its a travel social network. Long cherished dream came true. but just two week back I saw one more dream of setting up my office along with a cofounder who should be excellent in technicalities of buisness.

I kept asking on different communities for co-founder. and guess what that dynamic person was in front of me but I was blind to see it. His name is rusabh parikh, a very good friend of mine who is brilliantly talented and hard working.

I called him when he was looking for an office space for his start-up. And we were thrilled to know that we shared a common vision. It took just a single day to decide that we will start things together under one roof. We have our own products and our own company and share an common office space in a basement of a friends house.

We got the basement cleaned and painted. there were few places where painting was still left which was then given touch by me and my friend. I painted the walls of our office by myself and that too in professional clothes.(Didn’t wanted to waste my time going home to change my clothes.)

(Me painting the entrance walls of our basement.)

(The look of our office after it was all set to run. The person sitting on the chair is my partner in the journey. Rusabh is incredibly talented and he is the one who handles all the employees and trains them tactically.)

(Times of India ad for hiring that my friend got done)

Our short term plan is to hire few good people and train them to develop our respective products and at the same time take up some small and big projects in field of websites, softwares and mobile apps. So that we can survive the initial expenses. (anybody looking to get their products develop are warmely weclomed 🙂 )

Our parents played a very important role in our office setup. They encouraged us a lot and helped us in overcoming all the difficulties. It wouldn’t have been possible without them. Especially without rusabh’s dad the road would have been tough.

We have three  main products in one roof ‘siliongem'(which is mainly for diamond traders), ‘Digi-kaksha(For schools) and ‘tripzmate.com'(travel social network).

With everything set on its place. Now I dream to create a lot of traffic on our site and also start few more paid services in integration.

I want to say one thing over here, YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT. but you gotta work for it. I was blind when i was convincing my ex. but I was dreaming about it with whole heart and what you dream you become. Before I was scared about starting up, now when I have started I was scared about getting work. But one should not have to think much about it and just keep working and most importantly believe in yourself and your work.

I was afraid to pick up the phone and call the potential clients out of the fear of rejection. but there was no way out. I made up the list from justdial and started calling them. I got rejected everytime but now I am not afraid about rejection anymore. as I believe that soon there will be floods of workload on our head 🙂

I need a lot of help from the rodinhood community to spread the word and be the critic of our work. I also want to meet rodinhooders who are connected with travel industry and share my ideas. 

Last and not the least I request you to use tripzmate.com, explore it, add your trip and give your feedbacks. 

thank you.

P.S : I need to get in touch with journalist for tripzmate.com