This is not a success story nor is a step by step guide on how to start a company. This post is just about the thought process I had while starting a company and why I decided to ignore everything and still startup.
We live in a country where our parents teach us and keep reminding us again and again that If we don’t study we will not get a good job, we ll miss the chance to be a doctor or an engineer and worse will not get married If we don’t have a job. This fear is what drives most of the kids of this generation and they are sub consciously aiming at landing into a good pay job from the day someone first asks them – “What is your ambition in life.? What do you want to be when you grow up?”. I am sure it happened to everyone reading this article and If this never happened, you can stop here.
I was a part of that poor dad game too because every time some one asked me what my ambition is, I would proudly say that I want to be a software engineer even before I knew there is something on earth called Java or C++ when I believed that computers were only used for playing road rash and midtown madness.:-) I wanted to write games better than the ones I used to play. That was my dream and my ambition that even my parents agreed with.
After my engineering with the best scores possible I landed a job I dreamed of in one of the top companies in the world and It was a proud moment for my parents. I finally became a Software Engineer after 21 years of studies, felt great! I was not making games but was writing a lot of Java and other bizarre coding languages and I was still loving it with all my heart but WHAT NEXT!! I am just 21 and that’s all!! Ambition is done!
Three years passed and I was still clueless what I was doing with my life? I was still writing the code and was happy spending the money I used to earn. Soon I started asking myself if this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and my subconscious lazy comfortable stupid brain would say YES.! This is what everyone is doing in this company, if you don’t like it in here then find another company with a pay hike.! Life was so regular and monotonous. I would probably never reach the top of this or any other company’s management ladder until I don’t have white hairs on my head. After many days of day dreaming I finally decided I need to startup and after many months had the guts to actually startup.!!
I started researching and found that 90% of the startups fail! Are you kidding me! I somehow convinced myself like everyone else that I will be a part of that 10% and took the next step and started Webzeest. Below I have mentioned some of my favorite FEW reasons that makes me happy I took this step.
1. I am the BOSS! I don’t lead a team, I lead a company. To be honest, this is not a great job but for outsiders it looks awesome and they look at me with respect and thats what makes it even more harder.
2. I don’t need to wait till my hairs grey to be a part of the top shots.
3. I might fail but I will not die without trying to be successful.
4. Many wannabe entrepreneurs ask me for suggestions and guidance and it makes me feel like I am GOD.
5. When I resigned I told my manager that I was going to start my own technology company and trust me, It was a proud moment watching his jaws drop.
6. Almost everyone, some or the other day wants to startup but only a few achieve that and the rest just forget about it with age. When I meet those people who forgot about their dreams they see me with a shock running into their nervous system.
7. The feeling of being a CEO of a company no matter how small it be, it is still a great achievement you could stamp on your facebook timeline and show people you would meet in your future.:-)
“If you don’t build your dream then someone would hire you to build theirs”
“Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”
You would fail many times, you would have sleepless nights, you would forget to eat many days, you would have days when you would curse yourself you started this, you would have nights you would wake up in the middle and start working on one of the ideas you just saw in your dream. Its not easy, its not that great either but startup anyway. Never give up, keep trying better, fail quickly and learn fast. You never know how close you were to success before you gave up.
If you are still reading this from some one else’s office then I would advice you to start thinking about an idea, startup and succeed. I have only tried to show the bests about starting a company but there are some extremely frightening realities that would stop you from even thinking about enterpreneurship but that’s not the point of this article. I you have a plan then don’t keep thinking, just go ahead, execute it and learn from it.
Do join me at www.webzeest.com, the baby I created to give up my 9 hours comfortable chair.
Muthukrishnan
CEO (Love to use this designation)
Webzeest Technologies
