Get Set and Go....
It’s startling how one can realize one’s dreams in today's world. It’s just an idea and slowly and steadily you see it shaping up. That indeed, is the biggest achievement of all! In today’s digital era with the common man’s pocket getting slightly heavier and investors keen to acknowledge fresh talent; budding entrepreneurs have a fair chance. You look around and you find so many start-ups, youngsters turning businessmen in no time. With mouth publicity, famous in the Indian context, we have today social media pages and groups to convey ideas and reach masses in no time.
Well, of course there are failures, but taking risks is inevitable. An article ‘Thank God I failed!’ shows every cloud has a silver lining, provided you continue to persevere. Also, there are unforeseen circumstances that may appear out of the blue. Eg. Deepak Ravindran form Bengaluru founded Innoz. Its flagship product, SMS- Gyan allowed mobile users to search the web by sending an SMS. This was the time of 2012, not far behind, when having internet in mobile phones was not that common. Innoz raised $ 3million. And just the following year, the boom of technology threatened to make text messages redundant. So you see the amount of uncertainty. Today you buy a laptop and you think I am updated; and don’t need to worry for at least the next five years and you never know the tech giants may be planning to launch something new at the same time, different space zone. Well, that is the fact. But Ravindran didn’t step back. He rebounded with ‘Lookup’ that helps merchants chat without sharing their numbers. Eventually, Lookup raised a seed funding of $ 4,00,000.
Furthermore, we know the stories of Walt Disney and Oprah Winfrey. “It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts”, says Abhishek Kumar. Now when you read somebody clubbing the idea of traditional business of Benarasi sarees with an internet venture, it seems a brilliant idea. It did work well for a short period, but the luck god had other plans. Within a year, two of his ventures BeanrasiSarees and a career guiding forum doomed. But for his next, Kumar was back with his area of expertise- SchoolMitra, cloud based app.
“Failures are the stepping stones to success.” I know it is easy said than done. But here I feel like reiterating the great Thomas Edison’s quote- “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” So, you can just push yourself that extra inch, you may be next to accomplishment. But we wary to invent something that looks apprehensive like Ahmed Mohamed’s invention (Pun intended). He invented a clock that seemed like a bomb to his teachers and thus, was arrested! But soon, he was backed by the US president and Zuckerberg. Not only this, this 14-year old chap has an invitation to the White House and Facebook! So all’s well that ends well!
For guys in the digital age, there’s nothing that can hold you back. Also with PM Modi relaxing the entrepreneurship norms and encouraging start-ups, you can count on Achhe din. It was also Abdul Kalam’s idea and he mentions it in ‘Ignited Minds’ that start ups should be encouraged. Government should stop being skeptical; believe and trust the capabilities of innovators. We wouldn’t have had Facebook for Mark Zuckerberg and ordering goods from Snapdeal which was started as a daily deals platform in 2011 by two graduates. So let your ideas blossom. You never know how far you can go until you start!
