Awarded the
“Rodinstar” Post
of the week!!
Yes it was the worst morning of the season, heavy rain and dark sky, gloomy mood, tough to reach office. But still somehow I started my day and reached work. Had work to do, but in the back of my mind the same bloody question – how to pay off the rent and what about the future business?
In the deadly summers (42° to 45°) of the year 2012, we decided to come up with a startup. With the idea of Digital Marketing and Web Analytics we started our journey of Entrepreneurship. During the course (of almost 8 months) we have learnt several things. Some are highlighted below:
1) Mystery name Partners and Co founders: I don’t know how many of the successful Entrepreneurs got the key to solve this mystery, but I am the unfortunate one who is still struggling with this mystery. Read thousands of books on this mystery, listened to so many professionals, businessmen, and sadhu sants, but nothing happened. My case is totally different. So try to formalize these things in the beginning only.
2) Outsourcing: Outsource your maximum work in the beginning; don’t hire any resource on the basis of one or two projects.
3) Never rely on Job Vaale Freelancers: Search for proper freelancers, never outsource your work to those who work for some extra money after their office hours. They can turn their back to you in a jiffy (Family first! yes of course but dur ke rishtey ki chachi ki beti ka b’day hai… hello!!!!).
4) Jo Zaroori hai vo Hona chahiye: Invest in all that is required for your startup. Don’t hesitate. Decide for yourself, whether a particular investment is required or not.
5) Risk is a Good Word, Take calculated Risk: In Entrepreneurial Society, this (Risk) is a buzz word. “Aapko risk lena koi nahin sikha sakta”, but who wants to learn that anyways buddy. I am not the one who would risk my life or my hardcore earnings (khoon paseene ki kamayi). But yes I am ready to take a calculated risk. And this is the only thing you need to learn.
6) Always open to Opportunity. No work is small and you never get big work or projects in the beginning. So don’t be hesitant to take up small projects even if it means taking them following the no-profit-no-loss funda.
7) Yes!!! Where is the account sheet?: I am not talking about the balance sheet or profit loss sheet, I am talking about your daily expenditure sheet. Mark your expenditure from day one. Do not decide to start with an expectation of salary in your account. Start with zero and once your startup starts earning, decide your salary.
Yes it is true that we Indians work on Rocket Principle. “Jab peeche aag Lagti hai tab sab ho jata hai”. Since last three months I have spent almost 18 hours of a day for my startup. Because I have to pay my bills.
So we started working for business acquisition, although we worked for the same in last 8 months but during last 3 months this division has had intense work. We needed clients on board. We had no network, no credentials, and no mentors. We are not MBAs either (they have at least bookish knowledge). What we had with us were our capabilities and confidence. So on the very small (I can say tiny) boat of our knowledge and capabilities we started looking for clients.
But if you are in the service industry, it is extremely difficult to prove a point to your prospect – “Bhaiya hum pe vishwas karlo aur yeh business humein de do”. Sometimes I feel why these business guys are not ready to work with emerging entrepreneurs like us. Dude, we can even go that extra mile to deliver things in time and with best of the industry quality to you. Because we know that we may hold only one percent value to your business but we rely on you completely. It’s a matter of our lives and we cannot afford to compromise on timelines and quality of our services.
We did several associations to create credibility. You can say we created guarantor who guaranteed that we can deliver things. Somehow after the associations we started getting leads. Technically (as per some industry gurus), the conversion time of lead to prospect to client is 90 days. But it may be possible that on the 90th day your lead turned prospect turned to-be-client closes your case by declaring budget issues. I think our bollywood villains are much better than these corporate vultures.
But without losing our hopes and by not giving up we continue our journey. And one very fine morning we received a call from one of our leads. They wanted to promote one of their verticals and the budget was almost zero (in comparison to budget we had proposed for digital marketing). We accepted the challenge and started working for them. Because we were able to show them some outstanding results, our client gave us another business and this time we hit the target. We got our first revenue cum profit generator. We catered to our client very efficiently and managed to impress them with our quality work.
Today we got our first cheque and I am pretty sure that all the entrepreneurs out there know exactly the feeling I am going through. And believe me guys, everything motivates you if you are an entrepreneur but when you see the result of your efforts it will take you to cloud nine undoubtedly.
I am hoping tomorrow will be a bright sunny day and we will start our journey with a lot of enthusiasm and definitely write something in golden letters…..
Kunal Chaturvedi