The most real story of every young Digital Marketeer
A sneak peek into a conversation with an entrepreneur, from an entrepreneur to an entrepreneur — the writers, the designers, the manager’s tribe.
They say you have to see failure as the beginning and the middle, but never entertain it as an end.
And then you begin, not knowing whether your beginning would be a success or a failure. But somewhere at the back of your head, you know this — it sure is going to be an amalgamation of some lessons brewed for someone who dared to venture on the path previously unknown to him.
Life is sometimes brutally black and white. You can’t seem to find the grey. Until you sit one evening again, with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand, and an HBR in other. That’s when it happens — while reading something sufficiently out of context, suddenly a grey strikes you.
And you find sense in that grey, and suddenly you want to unravel every mystery of your first successful failure.
“It all starts with one random thought while scrolling Instagram, manoeuvering through meme and brand pages that this thought pops in your head — Oh, this one’s funny; wait, 1000+ likes for this? Damn. This is no genius; even I could do it — I am funny.”
You will read here, the conversation snippets between me and a friend who dared to venture into the unknown, stayed resilient during the journey, came out of it alive, with some bruises sure.
And when you finally know how to drive, you don’t want to stop ever, do you? So he isn’t stopping either, nope, not anytime soon.
Later that afternoon, eating ice cream and reading Entrepreneur news and diving through all the guilt of just adding calories and having accomplished nothing in life combined — you finally decide your fate — maybe I should do it too.
Next day brought a new morning, and a unique dedication and discipline. Within a day, he had a team of four co-founders, a mentor, and a business idea that was just a few thousand seconds away from colouring the pink city red and white.
You got it, red and white were the brand colours.
Founders? Check.
Mentor? Check.
Name? Check.
Target Market? Check.
Ideas, ideas, and ideas? Check.
A little bit of cliche and a whole different level of creativity? Check.
A new obsession with the city’s cafes? Check.
Fast forward to a few days, and Jaipur saw its first-ever Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, in Jaipur’s first-ever co-working space, organized by Jaipur’s first-ever Digital Marketing Agency driven by AI.
It all begins to give you a rush with that first client — that very first payment — those first few comments and likes on your post that you designed for somebody else, gaining traction. Deep down, you say to yourself — I knew it, I am good at it. I am gonna get better and become the best. After all, I am different from the rest of the tribe, I think, and then design. These brands need somebody like me. *Putting on the imaginary shades*
When you are building a startup, you just don’t shape the idea that has been rendering you sleepless at night. No, you also make a family.
A family you can cry with, a family you get angry at, and a family with whom you want to share everything that comes up.
And the essential component, that makes a family is, knowing when to let go.
Often, you have to make decisions that are tough for you, but they help you grow so much professionally.
And letting go is one such decision.
But does letting go mean its the end? No.
Letting go means you respect each other’s decision, and that is enough. Knowing my family respects my decision of leaving would bring me closer to them.
So he made the decisions, tough ones. He forged a family, and then he had to let them go.
But this wasn’t it, as it never is — there were a few more lessons time had to teach this young entrepreneur.
Right now, everybody is happy. Your customers, the users, you. But then, the real hustle begins. The likes drop, the comments drop, the customers start to complain that there’s no revenue addition. You try your best, but they are just not satisfied. It begins with one revision; then, there’s always a few revisions for every post. You start to believe that they no longer have a sense of taste.
What brings Digital Marketers into this industry? The dynamicity of this industry.
This dynamism is the challenge. This dynamism keeps the blood flowing and bread coming.
One who can match their speed with the speed of the industry survives here. If you are running a smidge too fast, or a smidge to slow; survival becomes tough.
And this entire game keeps the greens flowing to this industry.
Wait, what is the net worth of Mark Zuckerberg again? $82.6 bn, you get my point.
However, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, that one single step.
Then what went wrong?
People. People are the most crucial resource for any organization. And as you would imagine, managing them is the toughest job.
“We accomplish all that we do through delegation, either to time or to other people.” — Stephen Covey
Understanding your people, delegating the tasks, and defining a strict organizational structure in the earlier stages of the startup is essential.
Otherwise, the later stages would not be very kind to your new-in-the-industry-and-hustling self.
Businesses might work on the principle of continuity, but life doesn’t work that way. And sometimes, businesses don’t, either.
Which brings me to my question — Is passion enough to drive companies?
Then one day, you contemplating and realize things have become so repetitive. You are writing to somebody who doesn’t care. You are creating good content but ain’t nobody engaging — while the shittiest posts out there are going viral. You start blaming — first the customers, then the users, then yourself. And finally, the hour arrives when you eventually question yourself — Is this something I want to build my career on, or it was just my infatuation for the external validation?
And the answer, I figured, is straightforward — Seeking validation keeps you trapped, and following passion makes you independent.
So passion might not be enough to drive companies, but passion is enough to drive you as a human being. And as long as you are passionate, you can build as many companies you want.
And then that one idea strikes again, and this time you want to do a premortem, an MRI, a CT Scan, and every other scan known to humans at this point.
Because when a wave falls, it wants to rise with twice the fervour.
When you retake risks, you do the math. You put your information about calculus, algebra, trigonometry, and every other metrics that have been invented in this lockdown period.
You Nike it, sure, but this time, a little more calculatingly.
