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 15th 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
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