There is no better way to learn then experience is what my journey till date has taught me being an entrepreneur.
After completing my MBA in marketing from Ahmedabad University in year 2011, I got offer from Reliance Industries Limited and ICICI Securities during campus interview and finally I joined Reliance Industries. I did enjoyed and learned a lot during my tenure of 3.5 years at RIL. I was part of few market expansion projects that gave me good exposure. However, I realized that getting into routine isn’t something that suits me – I personally look for dynamism and challenging work environment together with flexibility to do the work in manner I wish to do. And obviously it is difficult to get such environment at early stage in your career for most of us.
I belong to Marwari family where business comes in blood and from early graduation days I had dream of doing business. So after my stint with Reliance, I ventured into textile industry and entered in entrepreneurship. This was a partnership firm which was formed with view to get benefit from each other’s expertise only to find that the partner ditched by moving out suddenly leading to closure of my venture.
This wasn’t happy moment for me as I wished to take this on new heights but I believe all that happens is for good sake. There was a time when those who knew me well lost trust and confidence in me. I have to fight back lot of negative comments for myself and for my way of work. And the fight becomes more difficult when you have to have to encounter your dear ones. There was time when I was alone with self-destructive thoughts. But I hold my nerve and gathered myself. Now I am venturing again my firm with all new energy and positivity, with new vision and enthusiasm.
As I started the experience is best teacher and I was no exception to this- I made lots of mistake in my 2 years of business but that has improved me a lot. I personally believe that it’s better to try and fail; then not to try and regret. From selecting poor suppliers to poor people to wrong partner, I did make mistakes and I am proud to admit that. Committing mistakes is dreadful obviously; but accepting them is first step to find solutions and this also ensures that you are better than you were before mistake happened.
My learning:
1. Understand your industry, clients and suppliers well. Invest your time and efforts in learning more and more. That’s the point which divides successful and unsuccessful ventures.
2. Innovation is life-line to any business but it is not necessary to have innovative product/service to be entrepreneur. Innovation can be done even in the way you carry out your day-to-day activities that gives you an edge over others – helping you to delivery better products on time, providing better service at least cost and so on. All this sounds theoretical but this comes from experience.
3. Rely least on looking for funds outside. Quite a good number of start-ups or business ventures were forced to shut owing to lack of investors. Work hard and make your venture profitable. Don’t just increase sale, increase revenue too.
4. Invest on improving product / service quality before investing in marketing/branding. With sub-standard quality products and heavy investment in marketing, you are surely digging the grave for your business.
5. Most important, Journey in initial years will not be smooth, but will surely be worth. I read somewhere that “Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”
