It’s a daunting journey!
One that probably has no destination.
How the heck do you march ahead then?
One step at a time!
Resilience and drive
Resilience keeps you from being pushed backwards.
Drive moves you forward.
Courtesy: Founders at work article
Should you turn your hobby into a business?
A lot of people ask me this one question.
“What is your opinion on turning your hobby into a business? You turned your photography interest into a business. Do you like it this way?”
Dude, whats your vision?
In 2010, I developed an itch.
To do something on my own!
When it grew strong, I simply quit from my job. I had no clue in life as to what I would do next.
There were a few sleepless days – driven by fear of going nowhere. However, the itch was bigger and helped me stay put.
Over the next few months,
- Tapprs happened.
- fear of not having a salary disappeared.
- fear of not being able to do something in life went away.
Things looked bright.
- Tapprs looked like the light at the end of the tunnel.
- We crossed 7 figure revenue in reasonably quick time.
- We resolved a fraud that had almost no information.
- We turned bolder.
The itch was different now. We were gung-ho about an all-India reach-out plan.
Books I’ve liked: Personal finance, investing & entrepreneurship
Every now and then, a friend asks me for a book recommendation, especially on personal finance, entrepreneurship and investing. Not because am an investing guru (which I am not), but because I read a ton of them!
I thought I will note it down here as well.
All these are books that I have read and liked a lot.
Few like One up on Wall street gave me the confidence that I too can be an investor in the stock market, which until then was crocodile infested space to me. Few like Intelligent Investor have been a huge huge help on almost everything finance. Few like Where are the customers yachts? changed my opinion on the stock market quite abruptly and changed my style of investing drastically.
And yet, few like Richest man in Babylon made me realize that simplicity and a principled method matters. A few like Extraordinary popular delusions helped me stay away from making costly mistakes.
Perhaps, there have been a few that have led me astray as well. Rich dad poor dad? Could be!
Responsible consumption
Am back from attending the 3 day JLR NTP (Naturalist Training Program) at the Bannerghatta national park, conducted by JLR’s Chief Naturalist, Karthikeyan.
It is an amazing program (and Karthikeyan is a super-fantastic teacher) and I am extremely happy that I attended it. A long pending wish got done in my bucket-list.
During the program, one of the discussions was about how much effort actually goes into food production and how we trivialize it into simply idli and sambar. We often do not realize how intricate and inter-connected things are in our lives.
We take for granted, the plate of rice and often end up wasting quite a bit. There’s so much that goes into the process to enable that plate on our table.
We pay for it. We pay in paper currency. Why bother with trivial data? Why care about some farmer’s hard work? Or about the involvement of nature in it? Or the time it takes to grow it?
Life plan before your business plan
“Entrepreneurs make the mistake of focusing on their business plan before they’ve focused on their life plan”.
– Norm Brodsky
I don’t know if I am an entrepreneur yet. But I am glad I read this, because I was on the same path. Focusing too much on the business plan and ignoring the much more important life plan.
Life’s a roller coaster these days!
On days when I have many enquiries, I feel on top of the world. On days when there’s hardly an email or two, things look doubtful. Will I be able to cross last months revenue? What the heck am I doing here? Should I go back to a job? Questions plague me.
My way of overcoming those questions is usually by hitting the gym. Running does wonders to my mood.
Small steps
“Think big”, an oft used phrase.
Think big, one should definitely do provided the thinking isn’t beyond means and methods.
And for small ventures, “think big, act small” is more ideal. This part, you and I know already. Many books and articles have been written.
“Think big, act small!”.
We read. We listen. We nod in consent.
Yet, when it comes to doing, we forget!
Value chain
Many of us first time entrepreneurs get it wrong.
When we conceive an idea and execute it… most often we get excited and blinded by the greatness of the idea that we fail to study something vital. (Or like in my case, after wanting to start something exciting and not getting any great idea, start something without actually studying vital information.)
That vital thing is value chain. (I don’t know if there’s a better phrase for it.)
After 3 months
It’s been 3 months since I quit my job.
And I can relate to a quote by Derek Sivers I read recently.
“Most people over-estimate what they can do in one year, and under-estimate what they can do in 10 years.”
To start with, I guess I had too many options to choose from and hence, had been facing a problem of plenty. Naturally, that meant dissipated attention.
Deciding what to do next is not easy and I have been behaving like a flip-flop. Here, here and here.. I have had different opinion. Initially, I thought I would do something related to my hobbies. Then, after some deliberation, decided against it and thought my interest in personal finance and analytics (my regular job) were worthier things to work on. If not my own startup on Analytics, perhaps a job in a startup, I felt.