How quitting my corporate job for my startup dream Jazzed my life up

How quitting my corporate job for my startup dream Jazzed my life up

Finally the E-MAIL arrived:

“Tomorrow Afternoon 2:30 pm, flight number BA603 from Kolkata to London.E-Ticket inside”

An E-MAIL hitting my PC on Mon,Tue,Wed,Thurs,Fri,Sat, Sun evenings used to decide my destination and client for the coming months or years.

I was working for one of the top four global consulting firms.Having already worked with the other top Three.

A life packed in a suitcase. But exciting, nevertheless! A consulting life where you miss out on something in life apart from Excel, spreadsheets, Project Plans, Deadlines, Milestones, mitigation strategies etc.

On the contrary you get the opportunity to meet new people, visit interesting places, take part in solving complicated Customer Problems and spend weekend evenings on some exotic strip clubs.

A fancy business life we are taught to be under constant supervision.

After few hours of sleep and long hours of drinking in the flight, the private driver came to receive me at Heathrow to take to a BnB at Stratford, London.

The salary? It was fancy, too. Being a Gold Medallist & having worked with all the BIG 4’s helped me to accelerate it to distant height.

Parents

There was nothing wrong with this consulting life, though. But in a sense it was too boring. On the contrary, the idea inside my head was rattling to come out.

So one day, I decided to quit.

But, I didn’t called up my parents to say.:

“Dad, mom, I just quit my job. I want to start my own startup.”

Caz some decisions in life you have to take on your own and stand through it. It doesn’t help what others think of you until and unless you are confident of yourself.

I shared with my Wife. My wife didn’t have a heart attack. But she felt a bit stressed, which was natural.  

It wasn’t the first thing a wife wanted to hear after dreaming to spend a few years at Onsite in US.

I tried to ease her distress. With facts.

“See, I don’t hate it. But then there is something I had been searching for. Which I never found in any of these big players. All my consultant friends seem to be happy & it’s their own choice.

I have made a decision and want to stick to it.

 It’s ok to sleep only 3–4 hours a day. It’s ok if I can’t afford my car a few months. I am ready to work  20 hours a day and I don’t have any regrets for it.

And at the end of all my hard work even if I fail, the world will always be waiting for me.

My parents and my wife’s parents had retired after years of a 9–5 working routine at their secure and not so interesting government jobs.

I knew that coming from a family with no entrepreneurial background, it would be difficult to explain my situation to all, so I tried to keep it quite.

But you can’t hide it for long from your parents. Soon they came to know and started asking

“how is your business doing”

They kept it short. I kept it short and said ‘OK’ .

Friends & Social Circle

I told some of my friends that I just quit my job to follow my startup dream. Some of them gradually stopped seeing me.

I felt it was completely natural.

It's perfectly ok if People are jealous about you...Not because you are doing something Great , but because you are doing something they always wanted to do but never could...

So I just returned them a smile.

I soon realized I was starting to pull myself away from social gatherings.

Not because of people or friends, but because I didn’t have a single second to devote.

Every time I met with those friends, I never gave them any updates of how I was doing. I felt it was meaningless.

If I was doing great, they will surely know it.

I generally kept silent their repeated questions, such as, “So, how is your startup going? You are going to be the next Narayan Murthy, right?”

Doing a startup is a long journey and I was putting myself under pressure but also took into account what other people’s suggestions are.

You have to be a good listener first in order to run a successful ecosystem.

Day by day, I was getting lonelier but happier as I avoided social occasions. My startup progress was not as fast as my social circle imagined it to be and I was least bothered to tell people it took years for startups like Facebook and Twitter to arrive at where they are now.

Every place was a comfortable place now. I was working even while travelling in a bus, or sipping beer after a tough week.

It made me happy to see I was chasing my own dreams.

If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to help build theirs.

Cash, cash, cash.

I knew I would be running out of cash soon unless I find out innovative ways of bootstrapping.

I stopped using my car. I started taking public transportation.

I stopped shopping branded shirts, shoes and wrist watches.

Fine lunching & fine dining automatically stopped. I didn’t had time.

You can help the society in lot many ways we generally think of and can generate a model which is mutually beneficial.

But yes, it’s a big challenge. Caz it hampers productivity.

I tried not to be bogged down by it and spend the time in a more structured and fruitful manner.

Today.

 Months  have passed since those days. No, I am not  writing this blog post in a beautiful resort in Phuket, Thailand, while enjoying my mojito.

No.

I am writing it from my 15^th Floor High Rise which my earlier jobs helped me to buy.

So, that was also very important to take me to the level of confidence that I can start my own.

The journey is painful looking at the sacrifices you  make , the time you spend working endless hours which you could have laughed with your family or go to a movie.Stressful at times.
But then it's rightly said- NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

We are C.A.M.S ( CLOUD,ANALYTICS, MOBILE,SOCIAL) Start-up  devoted to bring A.I. ( Artificial Intelligence) into Big Data to solve complex customer problems.

At night, I rub my madly tired eyes and look through my glass window and ask myself.

There are, however, not five things but Only ONE thing I had asked myself before starting this wonderful journey.

Not Five questions but only One question I believe every future entrepreneur should ask himself before taking the first step to entrepreneurship:

DO YOU WANT TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS?

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

-STEVE JOBS

Feel free to connect with me also on Facebook: here or Twitter: Saptak

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