The Entrepreneurship Bug

I had this feeling that I wanted to do something different than making the websites at my friend who introduced me to the digital world (my first guru). I walk up to him and say, I want to start selling online. Trust me, I had no clue of the business back then. But wanted to do something of my own.

So he asks me, what have you planned. And I say, I am going to be the Barnes and Noble of India. I had just read about them one day before while surfing for something else.  He being concerned for me like a brother, said in a slow voice, “Are you sure, you don’t know anything yet. The chance for you to succeed is not there much”. I went silent. I asked, “What is the chance I would succeed?”. What he said I know he must have said to keep my heart. He said 2%. And I was like, there is 2% that’s enough for me to win the world. And I set foot on the roads the next day searching for vendors where I could procure the books and also understand from them, how this business works.

I was running around and meeting more and more people for the next 2 months. Luckily for me, I was able to meet up with some of the best publishers as they had their hubs in the city I live. And one of the publisher’s manager was a sweet and humble man who discussed many aspects of this business which did give in a lot of insights for me to start planning. I get the permission letters from about 7 publishing houses. Which means I was allowed to sell about 3000+ books inventory. That was too much to digest for me in the start, so I started with one publisher with their 150 books. Listed them on ebay and went online. I was like

Now I used to operate from a cyber café back then. And I was like going to this cyber café every day to check if I have received an order. One month passed, two months, 4 months. And then one day I get a order. I still remember the customer’s name. His name was Atanu and he was from Hyderabad.  I was on the top of the world. It was my first order. Processed it.

Its after that, I started to ponder why did it take so long and why was I so patient about it.

Many take away from that experience and more importantly understanding to why I was not getting orders since I had not optimized the keywords well. I got lucky with order. But yes, with luck comes some responsibility. You need to find out why you got lucky.

I read around the internet. Spoke to another friend who was a seller to and understood the mistakes I did make. Learnt and then it was a good journey. Was on the top seller for books on eBay for one month and I was like super proud of myself.

Takeaways from the start story:

1. When you want to start something, the desire and adrenaline rush is too much.
2. All you can think of is that what you want to do. You are okay for all the risks involved. (At least I did not have anything to loose then)
3. You even start dreaming of your successful life and all the luxurious life you living in and the worst part is you don’t know how the journey is going to be.
4. Meeting the right people during this journey and what you interact would be one of the most important part of your life.
5. What matters is how much do you believe in yourself.
6. And more importantly, how much are you able to accept mistakes and work on them.
7. There is a saying, patience is a virtue. But sometimes too much patience is also something you need to worry about. And see what is not working out.

Oh yes! I forgot to mention, this is atleast 2 years before FlipKart had started operations in India. And that’s a good memory that gives me a smile. They grew well. There is so much I could still learn from them. But the fact, I started. I was an Entrepreneur. The Bug had bitten me. And I am still an entrepreneur and I am super proud of it.

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