On startups and after — a Memoir

A startup you make, ends up making you

I was about 300 Rupees short to get some stickers and posters printed and ship them out. But 300 is not so big of an amount that I couldn’t manage it somehow — I asked my cousins for the money. If the customer was to receive the product in the next week, I had to ship it out that day — a Saturday. I frantically ran around getting them printed, cutting its edges to perfection, packing it in an envelope. It was ready. I rode to the nearest post office on my bike (India Post was the cheapest), only to find that they were closed for the day. My heart sank a little bit. I kicked the sand in disappointment and frustration that I couldn’t make the order on time.

That was just one day working for my startup. It was a small and fledgling e-commerce venture without adequate capital. From how it turned out, my two friends and I had co-founded a pretty generic startup. The ups and downs were intense. When a customer dropped a positive comment, we were in the air. When things were going bad, there was such unrest that it left us sleepless. It was challenging and stretched my boundaries everyday.

It was all over in a year, and I’d to shut it down. Nothing has felt quit like that since. I tried my hand at two other ideas, but due to various reasons, they failed.

Everyday in a startup is different. Even though you do the same things, you don’t feel the same way about them. Once you get back to a normal 9 to 5 life after a startup, you feel numb. The days are so similar, and you feel nothing. Its like your entire life is on an assembly line. No intense highs or super lows. Its just a median where you hang constantly. There are occasional scares and anxiety. But they’re just not the same.

There should be statutory warning about startups, saying “Warning: Your life may become a monotonous flat line once you’re out”. Of course, that may not be true for everyone. But for most of us “dropped-out” entrepreneurs, it holds true. We’re constantly out there searching for that next venture. Something great is always around the corner. Something big is always waiting to happen.

Even when such people join companies, they aim to create change. Its not about the money — every worker and employee gets that. But its about stepping on new ground, staring down the uncertainty, and succeeding. Its about building sandcastles on the shores, and not having them be consumed by the waves.