You are a group of friends who go on to a trip. It could be a beach, a mountain with a waterfall, a hard mountain trek that is dangerous, or a slipper slope.
I’m the first person to run into the beach, dive into the waterfall and start the trek without 2nd thoughts and run-down the slippery slope.
Because I’m an Idiot and I LOVE TO TAKE RISKS.
Yes, one I don’t understand the underlying outcomes of the risks or that I have an exceptional ability to manage or tolerate whatever happens next.
Either way I enjoy doing that activity. I love adrenaline rushes. Yes going in a rollercoaster is fun. I’ve taken the fastest rollercoasters in Abu Dhabi. But the outcome of that activity is certain. As much as I believe in science and engineering to my knowledge the rollercoaster ride is going to end smooth with few ups and downs.
So apparently, going in a rollercoaster is not equivalent to taking risks. I’m taking about uncertain outcomes. For example, you will never know the depth of the waterfall or the height of the next wave in the beach. But I’m going to jump in irrationally. Just because it is fun. Nothing much.
This ability to accept risk and wanting to pursue bigger and better things has translated into my professional life as well. I’ll tell you.
I don’t come from a family of means. Please done give my sympathy to the next small narration.
While my parents put food on the table and roof over my head. Covered all my basic education and needs, what they didn’t do is find a safety net for themselves to fall upon. For example,
- They have zero rupees in savings
- Don’t own a home. Still in rent.
- Only one source of income. That also uncertain.
- A low margin business that bleeds money MoM and
- 0 assets owned under their name.
To sum up, my parents 35 years of live went to just paying bills and loans. I would not complain, they tried their best but that was the best they could do.
So I’m enrolled in a college in this situation, what would any rational person do. Or at least what would any sensible person do? Get a stable job through campus placements, try to pay off family debts, save up and try to improve the standard of living of the family.
But what did I do?
Risk #1
I quit placements from college.
Yes, I did that. My father didn’t ask why? He didn’t ask what am I going to do next or that if I have any plans to pursue what is next? He just signed a paper that I gave to him.
You might think that I have figured out what to do with life and that is why I did the stupidity of quitting placements. But here is why you are wrong. I in the first place didn’t know what to do next or the least what I want to pursue.
I had zero skills, a failed startup, no exposure to outside world except for a few friends, no talent and a huge responsibility of taking care of the family.
For one year, I was trying to fool myself by trying to freelance writing. One year passed. A business I and my friends started also failed miserably.
Risk #2
Trading stocks.
As if the misery of not earning money wasn’t enough. I was swayed by the trading hype around the post Covid era. Unfortunately, my childhood savings matured exactly at that time. I used that to trade stocks and options. I made a lot of money, lost of lot of it. But net it was negative.
While I consumed so much and had a deeper understanding of how trading works, I also realized that this is not something that I can be really good at and want to pursue for the rest of my life.
But I couldn’t stop. What every trader would do? Try to recover the lost money.
Risk #3
Enrolling in an Expensive Online Course.
I actively read a lot, try to understand a lot of Tech, Business and Startups. The curious idiot I was, go to know about the idea of product management. It was a famous stream in Tech which means you can get your hands on problem solving while also earning a better salary. While salaries aren’t my thing, I found the idea of product management compelling.
Because you know I wasn’t a good designer, and I was not able to code. The only way for me to get a job in tech is through product management. That was exactly the right time where India’s leading startups (mostly EdTechs) raised shit load of money to sell the idea of product management to innocent young graduates. and yes your boy fell victim to one such marketing stunt.
So, I took an expensive Product Management course online. I asked my father he simply said, “If you can afford it, go ahead and pursue. It is purely your call.” So I liked the course and wanted to get into PM but didn’t have the money.
The EdTech that offered course also offered a no cost EMI. I subscribed to it, had to pay ₹11,000/month for the next 18 months.
At a time when I didn’t have money, I was losing money in trading stocks and a whole lot of financial responsibilities on my shoulders.
While the course made me a better thinker, it didn’t fulfil the exact reason for me taking this course: a decent PM job. They promised all gold and silver but nothing meaningful happened in terms of placements. I performed well in the course but for some reason (lame) they had to remove me from the placements.
So to add salt to the would, now I’m in an additional debt and a financial burden to pay ₹11k/month.
Did I stop there?
Risk #4
Two consecutive job offers.
But I was able to land a job as an APM is a small startup in Coimbatore. I was part of the founding team, tried to apply my PM skills for a month. The entire job kept me impatient, why? I always wanted to solve a problem and startup on my own. This is what I realized while I was in the job.
I was not made to be employed, I’m supposed to be running a startup.
So I quit the job. While the pay was good enough to pay off EMIs and bills, I didn’t think. I just quit.
In the next couple of months, I was able to crack a high paying job. Again this happened out of my curiosity and raw efforts. It was a comfortable remote job, huge learning curve and great team.
3 months later, I quit.
Yes, you read it right. One part I was not able to deliver as per the expectations in the job. The other part was the same old reason, something made me impatient and was nudging me to startup. I was not able to sleep and work. All I was thinking was the right problem or idea to start a startup.
2 companies offered me a job, a place and ecosystem to learn and thrive. But I was not able to stay. I don’t know which idiot would do this. But your boy did. I didn’t consult anyone just took decisions on my own.
When I quit the 2nd job, I was again back to square one. No solid plans of what to do next. Just a vague concept of 2-3 startup ideas and a 3 month personal runway.
Risk #5
Starting a company
A half baked idea of paper, user research with few hundred users and relentless cold emails to 100s of investors in the country. My day dreaming was simple, we have a billion dollar idea, investors are going to fund me for it (that too in the next 3 months) before my runway gets over.
What an idiot I was?
I was belted left, right and center. No investor wanted to fund us, our initial idea sucked and eventually my personal runway also got over.
I was experiencing the purest form of trauma and was through serious depression. The only reason: my irrational idea of taking risks.
But did I stop? NO.
I again spoke with as many people as I can. Refined our idea better, got a lot of feedback, improved on the value proposition and assembled a team. But before we built the product, we needed some capital. At that time the only way to raise capital was through grants and the only way to access grants was to have a registered company.
So what I did? I registered our company that too as a Private Limited entity (that drains the highest amount of money for compliance) for an idea that hasn’t been proven before, built yet and not even a clear understanding of what the business model is going to be only in the aspiration of getting grants to use to build the product. All this with literally zero rupees in the bank.
In terms of progress I’m still at the same level as I was when I quit placements in college.
All company formalities done in a jiffy, likewise all the efforts for getting grants also went to drain in a jiffy. No idea what to do next. We didn’t stop. We decided to build the product.
Think of the level of idiocy I was at. To build the product we needed engineers, to hire engineers we needed capital. Both we didn’t have. Again any rational or sensible human would have tried to save money and then do this.
But what did your boy do? He borrowed money from his friends and decided to build the product.
I’m one idiot who is risking my entire life to do this, I don’t know what went through my friends’ mind. They also offered me the money I asked for just for the goodwill.
Risk #6
Relentlessly Sticking to the idea.
We spent the next 12 months trying to build the product. After speaking with hundreds of people again and working with 3 tech teams. No progress, literally no progress. Just time is passing by. I and my co-founders are clueless about the direction of the company. The product is not out yet. We are still tinkering to pull this idea off.
We do sales calls, go on to meet people, establish partnerships, offer equity to founding engineers. Nothing is working out in our favor. Still we haven’t decided to give up. We are holding on to the idea. For some reason we believe in the potential of the problem we are solving.
We are refining as much as we can. Improving and incorporating as much as we can.
I can still remember doing sales calls with just Figma designs. No product all. We even almost closed a customer with just the designs. The deal didn’t go through as we were not able to deliver the product on time.
At this point I started freelancing and my freelance income was a little decent. I can pay rent, pay EMIs and hardly had some cash to spare. I spent everything on the developers again. We paid them month on month but the expected results and progress didn’t not happen.
We just saw time passing by in front of our eyes. I turned 25, last year.
- With ₹0 rupees in savings
- No sign of the startup taking off
- Too many financial responsibilities to care at home.
- Uncertain and a low freelance income.
So, If we fail, all our time, efforts and energy we spent in the last 3 years goes into the drain. Nothing much. We have to start our careers again where we will be pushed back by another 10 years as compared to our peers.
Then we finally get a grant from the Government of Tamilnadu’s StartupTN TANSEED grant. Before even we got the money into the account we already had commitments to pay off to our accountants, developers and interns.
I don’t know what but something says not to quit that easily. Wants me to keep trying as long as I’m alive. The opportunity is compelling with whatever we can heard from the market feedback. It is now purely on how well we execute.
Final thoughts
Everytime something bad happens, I go and take a much bigger risk instead of just budging down and doing something rational.
I don’t why. But only time can say if all this risk is worth it.
If I lose, my parents, my co-founder, my team and all the well-wishers who are rooting for us go down with us. I’ll have to start my career again from scratch.
I can’t fall back on my parents who have bet their lives on me & will be left stranded and I could do nothing about it. My sister who has never expected anything from me would be disappointed for the disservice I did to her for believing in my abilities.
On top of all this I have a seven-figure loan to pay off under my name and I’m not even kidding.
People of my age are getting married and having kids already and I’m here trying to build a startup with just pure determination and resilience. Let’s see what the future holds.
Until then, to more risks to take under my name. One thing I can do is not put the people who are around me to the same exposure of risk as I’m.