Why I Chose to be an Entrepreneur after Graduating.
Half of me was reluctant to write this post out of concern that I may turn out to be gratuitously unreasonable. I have also never been in favor of sticking my head in the sand or of refusing to win the culture war. Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. Hence, I intend to condense my rhetoric where a lot of people can relate. The rest who can’t relate and are confronted with this pile of words, you may be inclined to nod, disagree and move on. My writing is connected with Indian College Experience and Indian Society.
I am finally an Engineer. To wake up, knowing this has been very special to me. And, I’m sure it is also special to all of my readers who are engineers. Damn! We finally did it. After countless hours of studying, attending lectures, failing in subjects, rewriting again, Labs, Project Review. We finally managed to walk out with a degree in the socially acceptable term; four years.
The real life starts now. In India, there is a convention to follow. After you graduate, you take up an entry level job through campus placements or you go for masters to some foreign country or you hunt for jobs or you decide to just chill, or take over your family business, or uncertain of your next decision. Very few, decides to Startup.
I’m humble and grateful that I happen to have an advantage where I can take risks cause of low financial pressure. After Graduation, For most people they need to get a job and start paying off loans or help family. For me, this wasn’t the situation. But, it just doesn’t feel right to me. Someone being imposed with onerous intrusions by society based on financial standings is just not right. Sitting back and thinking, “Whew, at least it’s not me who has to worry about paying off loans” is an abandonment of principle with which I could not live.
What if the cure of the cancer is trapped inside a mind who can’t afford education.
I’ve seen Mark Zuckerberg commencement speech 2017 given at Harvard. The guy took on something not a lot of people care to stress upon; Unequal opportunity. If we can create an environment for people where they don’t have to worry about failure then we can push this world at a faster pace. Just look out how much we are able to transform our world post World War II with the help of partnership and alliance. With the inequality and imbalance in our society, it’s difficult to persuade a talented person to take up an uncertain journey.
The Idea to be an entrepreneur didn’t occur to me fully formed. My first encounter was when I was 11 years old. I was experimenting different things with the computer. I had no idea what I was doing. But, somehow end up building a website that was able to serve the content to different parts of the world. It was pretty amazing back then to create something like that. I used to go door to door to every small business with flyers asking to advertise on our website and I was just 13 years old. I kept trying and finally got two decent clients. I end up making few bucks. I learned that cause of my age no one was going to buy what I am selling. So, I started emailing prospects. And, at the end closed the website cause I wasn’t able to pay the server cost. You can count that as one of my failure if you want.
This whole experience taught me something. When I look back, I always question why did I use to do that. At that age, it wasn’t money that intrigued me, but the joy of making it happen. Closing deals, assessing the team, and above all it was fun. All the other friends were following school routine, I didn’t like routine. I hate routine. I still get frustrated if I’ve to follow the entire week as same as before and I get bored very easily. I think that’s the reason I’m not good with investing time in a relationship. I wanted to be always uncommon. At that age, I had no clear vision on how I was going to take things forward. But, it didn’t matter, I just didn’t care. It was fun so I did it.
Somewhere in between all of these,I felt demotivated. Setbacks made me feel it isn’t really my thing. I took a really big gap. Lost touch with all the crazy things I used to do. Basically, gave up. After that prolonged gap, something slowly began to dawn on me. I still got excited at looking people running companies. I followed startup related blogs, subscribed to interesting startup news. Although, really not doing anything. I did few side projects and took up an internship in my senior high school.
The adrenaline rush, uncertainty and above all else, Fear of Failure. These are some of the common reasons to stop you from starting. I’ve known people whose natural tendencies just plain blocks them from trying. They are too scared to jump. Or they can’t deal with the uncertainty so they study, and explore, and research, and analyze, but just can’t take the risks.
Entrepreneurs are by definition outside the normal lines so we don’t get to define and categorize very well. In my specific case, it started as wanting to do cool stuff with computers, liking business planning, and, frankly, avoiding boredom.
I still get a lot of pressure from my family to do Masters from a foreign country. I’ve promised them, I’d go for Masters when I’m ready. Every time, I sensed doing something amazing, I was distracted with dissimilar activities. This time, I want to try my hands on doing something I always wanted to do. Build a Company!
Luckily for me, I don’t have pressure to pay off loans or support my family. I can try out my startup while having a cushion to fall back on if I failed. I wanted to talk about why I took the route of being an entrepreneur.
I know I should’ve made this article with the usual diplomatic and conciliatory approach. Saying things like “I’m not afraid, risk-taker, ready to die, blah blah all the fillers that really don’t go along with my current state.”
Although, to be an Entrepreneur it is important to have a Growth, analytical, creative, curious and dreamer mindset. But, these all qualities are useless if you’re born at the wrong side of the world.
Let me close by stating, I will not equivocate. I took the less travel road cause I was born without the aversion to entrepreneurship, and always look forward to grab the opportunity. And, I’m financially and socially in a better shape to do it.
Even if I fail in my journey and get myself a regular 9–5 job. I’m pretty sure at some point of my life I’d be again restless to start something of my own, because I chose not to fit into boxes.
