The Introductory Rambling — 1

Written sometime in September, 2011

I am 26 years old now, and when I was 20, I thought I would run a billion dollar enterprise by the time I turn 25. I have just abandoned a beautiful rented bungalow, beautiful set of furniture, an extra ordinary office space and 3 dogs — Timber, Brat and Fatty. I have a bank balance of Rs. 6000/- and no other tangible assets now that can be valued at more than Rs. 5000/-, other than my mobile phone. I have no educational degree either.

In the past I have raised funding for 2 of my startups at worthy valuations and have blown up all that I raised in chasing a dream of a slightly different kind which should have preceded the startups I was attempting. I will come to the dream later. What’s important to point out in reference to a billion dollar enterprise is that, I realized by the time I got my first startup funded (in 2009) that what excited me the most was the opportunity and scale to innovate upon from just an idea in one’s mind, that running a billion dollar enterprise can offer almost at will’, and, not its ‘billion dollars’. Just a chance to co-create something that has the potential to be a new something of an impact in years to come gives me the most amount of pleasure. What I am trying to say is that, Mark, Bill, Steve, Jack, Larry, Sergey, Drew, Elon, Evan have been in an even better position to innovate more beyond imagination because they already sit on top of multi billion dollar companies of very worthy minds. And that is what is most exciting about a company like the kinds they run. Literally, sky is what they could reach. Just like after Amazon’s e-commerce success followed by all the money, recognition and the talent pool, Jeff Bezos reached ‘the cloud’. These guys have the money and the human resource to likely shape any idea they have, in a reasonable amount of time, into a tangible form of their will.

So, I thought I would build a billion dollar enterprise first, to earn a few million dollars of my own and an extraordinary team to be able to pander to all my subsequent whims one day, SPECIALLY THE WHIM, THAT IS ABOUT FULFILLING EVERY SINGLE CASE OF MY CURIOSIT!

I thought I wanted to do all of that ‘pandering to my whim part’ after I have given everything to the ‘One Idea’. The one idea that was extremely well timed. Another similar idea around the same time became world changing and we know it as Facebook.

I thought I could be a dot com billionaire within 5 years because that shit happens. It’s for real if you have a hugely scalable idea for a platform on the web. Not a mere product. A platform. Something that the world builds upon. I thought my billion dollar company would come about from a Social Network idea I raised angel funding for when I was 24(2009).

Then eventually, I couldn't build that platform and that led me to work on the problem that also stands as a same reason to why we in India don’t build companies like Facebook, Apple, Sony, Google, or to put it simply why we don’t innovate like they do. I had other whims too but they were not as important as this social media platform, because this I thought was going to set me right for a further change / innovation. As I thought, it did set me right. It led me to some extra ordinary circumstances.

Due to these extra ordinary circumstances I realized that I could pander to my other whims without really building a billion dollar enterprise or even a 10th of a million dollar enterprise. This was the most important lesson of my life, so far. It taught me, that, to chase an extra ordinary dream; you don’t really have to have MONEY; you have to have ‘pure will’.

The latter whim I had for which I needed a billion dollar enterprise was not to create just a social media company, it was to try to CO-CREATE upon nearly everything that catches my attention; and with time, contrary to the belief of the men with grey hair, I realized I could really attempt to do just that, by collaborating with people around me chasing common goals. This realization meant I could attempt to create upon whatever I needed to learn about, or simply put, whatever engaged me; for that matter, even a startup in vegetables retail, because I eat them everyday, they are one of the most consumed items and I wanted to know vegetables a bit more. I did nearly the same with the following because I wanted to know more — I built an enterprise level technology startup, IT Infrastructure startup, social media startup, branding and visual communication startup, management consulting startup (because I was getting a few opportunities to solve SME business problems and I wanted to learn about them all. It was a far more important experience than any MBA or a job could have ever taught in such a short span of time), a startup in FMCG&S (because I use FMCG&S everyday. I saw a problem and hence, a huge opportunity there), real estate R&D, even worked as a CEO for a real estate company in Noida (because I live in Noida and I have never seen so many wealthy property dealers anywhere else), statutory nature works for my startups because I wanted to know the clauses and a bit of statute, helping others set up their startups because they needed help, engaging with so many people and startups to discuss different other opportunities from farming to software and 10s of more ideas written on 100s of paper cut outs and chart papers all along the walls of the office I have just abandoned. More or less I was on an exploration due to a very vague whim or dream that matured as I progressed. (I will come to it). My environment and my daily choices were determining what I wanted to do next and I would go out on a look out for people and resources that could help me see that thought taking shape. I needed to be able to do, just that, to be thoroughly and happily engaged through out my day. To return to bed the night of the same day, with my inner voice as alive as it was in the day, every single day.

…it was all in hope for a very specific cause that I matured to between 2009-2011.

I was doing all this hoping to lay a foundation to nurture my dream that originated from a strong desire to nurture ideas with my fellow believers; because it was appalling to know that even though the world will agree that by not nurturing the ideas and the people behind those ideas, it was losing the key thinkers, game changers, the future leaders and their potential creations; yet, there was little being done to ensure a better culture of bold initiatives, right through every institution we are subjected to in our evolution; the first being our family, the next being a set of herd factories like our school/s, then our college/s, then our office/s and so on and so forth.