Thank you Mumbai for the BESTEST Women’s Day ever…!

“TEDx. Dude I want therodinhoods to be like TEDx.”

That was the brief given to me two and a half years ago.

Building a community is not exactly the easiest job on earth. But at therodinhoods, it’s a rocking one!

This is a note of appreciation dedicated to ALL OF YOU who ensured we had one of the most memorable Open Houses in Mumbai on March 8, 2014. Never before have we received so many “thank you” tweets; never before have people pointed out that “everyone seemed so involved”; never before did hundreds of people compliment us for “an afternoon full of takeways and new learnings”; never before did rodinhooders say, “best content ever”.  And though it’s a combined effort of everyone, some names need to be mentioned…

Most of our presenters were from out of town. Some attendees, from out of the country! A big kudos to  Arpita & Gunjan from B’lore, Akshay from Delhi & Jubanashwa from Odisha.  Anita flew in all the way from Bahrain!!  Mandar flew in from B’lore and flew back to Pune; there were lots of rodinhooders from Nagpur & A’bad! Thank you Bharat, Divyesh, Neha & Rohhan for bringing some awesome content to the house.

We never intended it to be a Women’s Day special – but before we knew it, the universe had different things planned for us. We went through the process of creating a startup for a Plus Size Lingerie brand; we had a strong woman entrepreneur presenter committed to solving women’s bra issues – something no one has done in India before! All that lingerie talk celebrated women and entrepreneurship in the same breath!

A special shout-out to Ajay Ramasubramaniam for introducing us to the Ryerson-BSE startup accelerator program. We hope some rodinhooders can benefit from the program!  Ajay has also graciously offered his office space for rodinhooder meetups!

Now a lot of credit goes to our #MopStar Sushrut. Never have I seen someone so determined to kick ass!! He has spunk, he is a perfectionist to the last comma, he is creative and he is the most mature 24 year old in the house!! “We will put up the most memorable OH Mumbai has ever seen…” And he was true to his word!

I’ve always known Hitesh as the Noodleman. I met for exactly 2 mins (yep, Maggi time!) at the Sept. 2013 OH and one fine day after the recent OH was announced he pinged me on FB and said, “Asha, I used to run an event management company. Let me take the entire OH off your shoulders!” Music to my ears!! And sure enough, Hitesh co-ordinated the venue & volunteers in the most systematic way ever!

Nameet for moderating the Create A Startup #CAS session. Very few people know that Nameet is a huge pillar for trhs. He constantly advises me (and dozens of rodinhooders) whenever I/we need help.

Kashyap & Ardra of Lowfundawala for volunteering to shoot  the entire OH. They are editing vids even now as we speak!

Darshan & Vinay for capturing the awesomeness. Vinay also kept trhs fb page alive with action all throughout the show! 

Amit Jhunjhunwala who gave away goodies from Mirchi & Pepper to rodinhoodnis in the house!

ALL OF OUR VOLUNTEERS deserve a mention – Karan, Imran, Nilay, Maulika, Pooja, Tanul, Akshat, all the rodinhooders who have written posts about the OH, and anyone I’m forgetting (just blame it on old age :)))

AND MANOJ. Without Manoj therodinhoods simply can not function…

Pls note that the organizing teams are meant to change EVERY TIME. So if you are interested in volunteering at ANY RODINHOOD EVENT IN ANY CITY – pls write to sushrut@rodinhood.com (he’s our Chief Volunteer Officer :))) mentioning your area of interest and city.

Finally, and most importantly, heartfelt thanks to our Venue Partner NSE. Team NSE has been extending their continuous support to us, open house after open house.  They go out of their way to ensure our OH is seamless, every time!

*******

The highlight of my Mumbai visit wasn’t the amazing amazing OH. It was the opportunity to finally meet Yatin Mulay, one of our earliest members who has been contributing to the site in his own geeky way :).  He lives in Mulund (east). He has been wheelchair bound for the last 10 years owing to a medical accident. In fact, that is the very reason he was forced to change his profession – he has been an internet marketing dude for some years now, the guy who will tell you everything you should do for seo, analytics, etc etc etc. To describe him in two words – he is a geek giver.

He showed me his geek-space. And his lovely balcony full of green plants that is the window to the world for him. He only leaves his house for a visit to the doc. But you know something… he shared a secret with me. He’s bought a new pair of shoes (his first in last 10 years) TO WEAR AT OUR NEXT OPEN HOUSE!! With child-like excitement he told me this. And this will be the highlight of my next visit to Mumbai.

As I walked out of Yatin’s building, I heard him call out to me from his balcony. I looked up and there he was, waving at me from the 5^th floor.

This visit made me realize what we are truly building here. A community of rodinhooders… struggling entrepreneurs who mean so much to each other. Who can depend on each other for startup advice. Who are committed to improve each other’s ideas. Who fight their own startup battles every single day; and are yet, happy to help someone else.

Thank you Yatin. You redeemed me.

Thank you Alok. For starting the fire.

******