A trek through uncharted territory
I believe there comes a point (or a few) in everyone’s life when you get to make a choice that defines you. Such was my choice to start up on my own. Admittedly, I did not fully comprehend what it entails to be an entrepreneur, after all I was just a kid, barely out of school. And so began my first tryst with the startup world! My very first startup, Cedar Info Solutions. Armed with the naivety of youth and a love for technology, a couple of my friends and I set off to change the world with our very first product, KeralaMedInfo, an all in one directory for looking up doctors near you. We built the tech, got incubated at an organization called ICFOSS, and even got some local press! Unfortunately though, we didn’t get much further. We didn’t have any real paying customers, and we soon realized our little bootstrapped startup, didn’t really make much sense anymore. But once I got a taste of entrepreneurship, I was hooked! For a while that hunger to do something lay dormant within me, waiting for a chance to come to the fore.
And that’s when it happened, SV.CO! SV.CO was a new digital incubation effort by Startup Village to promote student entrepreneurs. When I first saw the post calling for applications for the first batch of SV.CO, I knew it was time. I had been to Startup Village a couple of times before, and had loved the atmosphere there. By now the walled classrooms of college had become too restrictive for my liking, and I had no trouble finding three of my classmates that felt the same. Together we formed MindFox Technologies! After a battery of technical tests and a team interview, our application process was done. It wasn’t perfect by any sense of the word, but they must have seen something in us, because shortly after, we got word that we got selected! :D
And so began a 6 month long adventure that completely changed the course of our lives. Any startup needs an idea, and we had none, yet. Many a long brainstorming sessions later, we had our product, ZPay. We envisioned a unified system, easily accessible to any merchant to accept virtually any form of payment, from credit/debit cards to prepaid wallets. Of course when we started off this wasn’t so clear in our minds. Like a fine wine, ideas mature over time.
Once we had a rough idea, it was time to get cracking. We started putting everything into building a good prototype. For weeks on end, we spent sleepless nights till we finally had a prototype ready. Being a technical founder, I knew there were some glaring gaps in my skills, especially when it came to the business side of things. I had to learn everything from how to build a good deck, how to manage accounts to how to pitch(just a fancy term for a presentation about your startup!). Now this is where the support of SV.CO really helped us out. The long chats with Sanjay, Vishnu and the rest of the faculty at SV.CO helped us a lot. By now we could see our startup slowly taking shape.
One major advantage of starting up with SV.CO was that we actually got a chance to present our ideas to real industry leaders. And that’s exactly how we got to pitch to ICICI bank. My first real pitch! With limbs frozen with excitement and terror I somehow managed to get it over with. To be able to talk to some of the very top influencers in one of India’s largest banks and have them actually take us seriously, now that was awesome! We were elated after the positive feedback from this pitch. And then came the Askme.com pitch. Now this was a totally different flavour altogether. Our product got ripped to shreds and we were forced to see the flaws in our work. By the time it was over, we were shell shocked and kind of depressed. But such is a startup journey, full off ups and downs, and that is after all the beauty of it.
As time progressed, we pitched to more people, and bit by bit refined our idea, product, and business model. Although there was quite a bit of positive feedback in general about the idea, we slowly came to the realization that to implement such a system in India would require us having to jump through serious legal hoops, and worse still, even if we did all that, our product wouldn’t end up being much better than the already existing solutions in the market. This is when we slowly came to the realization that we’d have to let go of this idea.
Now even though our idea wasn’t going to be feasible as a business, the learning we got through the whole experience was solid. And this came to light when it was time for our graduation from SV.CO. We got to pitch in front of Tally Solutions. Tally realized the value of our experiences and offered to hire our entire founding team! Today I work with Clustr, a startup within Tally. Where my journey will take me next is yet to be seen, but today when I look back at my decision to start up and join SV.CO I know it in my heart that it was the right decision.
At the end of the day, a lot of factors come in to play when deciding the success or failure of your startup. In real life, there are no “Overnight Successes”. There will be months and years of dedicated hard work behind every success. Whatever the outcome may be, once you’ve been part of a startup, it changes you. That feeling you get when you make something with your own hands and take it to real customers, that is something I cannot put into words! It fills you with a confidence and pride that will stay with you for the rest of your life. This is a journey I feel everyone should take, at least once.
I cannot promise it’ll be all roses and rainbows, but what I can promise you is that there will never be a dull day that doesn’t push you to the end of your comfort zone!
I’ll end this small article with a bit of unsolicited advice for the wannabe student entrepreneurs out there. If you feel like the traditional education system and career path doesn’t do justice to your dreams, if you feel like you want to change the world, if you want to start up on your own, then I urge you, believe in yourself and go for it!
Resources:
1. SV.CO Website: https://www.sv.co/
2. A short intro on starting while in college: https://www.sv.co/startincollege
3. Our Startup Timeline: https://www.sv.co/startups/z-pay
Feel free to reach out to me at vg@vargheseg.me if you’d like to know anything more!
