[PART 1] 22bate7 — start-up of my startup!

A little background
When I quit job on 13th January, 2017 to start up, never had I imagined that I’ll need to register a company within 2 months. I had three projects and the plan was to finish two of them during the next 17 days and then shift to my main project from February but those were my plans and not what destiny had on table for me.

Two weeks into this startup game, I got into early negotiations with a big firm (say XYZ) to integrate my product with their offerings and I saw it as an opportunity to sell my unfinished product to them. At that time all I had was just a part of the ecosystem that I intended to build and if I had to pitch the whole ecosystem to XYZ, I needed to be confident that I’ll be able to finish developing the whole ecosystem in time if, by chance, XYZ agrees to buy the whole of it. Everything was happening too fast. Stuck at the Silk Board traffic signal in a cab in Bangalore, I called up my other cofounder (Nilesh) who I always knew will be up for the challenge and our conversation went like this:

Me : Hey, this company XYZ has shown some interest in my product and I’m planning to pitch for the whole ecosystem that we have been discussing. In case they say yes, will you be able to quit your job and relocate to Bangalore?

Nilesh: Yes.

Nilesh talks very less and a yes from him meant yes. So, high on the support that I just got, I went on to pitch my product to XYZ but they needed only a part of it, which was still fine with me.

Meticulous financial planning

I had been thinking of quitting ever since I started my first job and I quit for the first time after 4 months at Oracle. After that I joined Jana Care with which I thought I might stick a little longer but still, I started preparing myself for quitting after an year. For me, a proper financial planning was a must because my dad had been a cancer patient and I felt if I quit job and later if I’m unable to pay for his medical bills in case of a recurrence, I’ll be totally consumed in guilt. So the first thing I secured was the health insurance for both my parents and myself. MS from US had always been a very enticing option and I factored in that too — I deposited money equivalent to three years of the premium in a separate bank account factoring in 2 years of MS if at all I decided to go for it at a later stage.
Being a non-smoker, non-drinker and not-so-social person (and also forever single), my monthly expenses used to be 18–23k per month inclusive of everything. So for surviving for 10 months, I needed an average of around 2 lacs rupees.
As time passed, I inched closer to my savings goals and finally in November I realised that I can quit on New Year or may be hang around for 2–3 months more to get some extra savings boost. With 2.2 lacs in personal savings, 1.4 lacs( fixed deposits maturity value) for insurance premiums, few more months survival money in equity markets and a little more in Provident fund, I decided to quit and take that leap of faith backed by the funds in this order — Savings followed by shares followed by PF and if need be, then premium money which my dad could pay if I allowed him to without hurting my ego.

….[Part 1] to be continued…..