The Road Less Travelled

Feb 3, 2019, I decided to give up, Giveup Waiting and dare to submit my most contemplated idea to IIM B. I told everyone I am waiting it to be sent down with improvements so that I can improvise or for it to be rejected as I am not serious about it. But I checked frantically my email everyday. Because in reality, I was burning with ambition to initiate a startup and make it a real business. And that day on April 09 2019, I received an email from IIMB Entrepreneurship cell. I opened it with no expectations and It Read “Dear startup, We found your idea interesting. Please confirm your availability for mentoring over call or in person at IIM B campus on 12th April 2019.” I was happy and never expected this. It's not just me who is in constant denial of their passions and their natural talents to start the entrepreneurship. But most of us have their hidden passions that were stored in the attic just to pursue our life journey on the Road everyone travelled.

The reason is not simple because what’s scarier for a middle-class person than hearing the words ”Stop wasting your time. It won’t give you food”. In other words, your passion won't make a livelihood for you. But These are the words almost every entrepreneur heard over and over in their journey. But these are the words many of the entrepreneurs loved to disagree. As the examples are contradictory, This is not a story of only IIT people but also of a college dropout Azhar Iqbal who made news by launching News in shorts app which cuts to the chase by relieving us of the task of reading the entire newspapers. This was started as a Facebook page and received 25 cr funding a few months back. Sridhar Vembu the founder of Zoho corporation whose company values around 1 billion is successfully competing with the core products of Google, Microsoft. In SAAS. But he hailed from a middle class family background completed his BTech in IIT and later went on to become a successful entrepreneur. Mahesh Gupta of Kent RO and Kailash Katkar of Quick Heal systems.

Another thing that’s holding back much of the entrepreneurs is that we need a formal education which is not true. And you just need to scroll your Instagram to prove that. Where you see several small businesses marketing themselves in the social media network and achieving pan India customers and more than ever sales and thereby increased revenue. There are also stories of uneducated woven bound to their homes are selling cakes online. One such woman has reported about 90 cake orders in a month. Same with the online tutoring services and fashion shopping in Instagram. Most of these services reach maximum number of requests beyond their catering power and started to put a limit to the number of requests. How cool it is. Working from home. Where you can allot a specific room in your home for your office and play video games there all day, broadcast your videos and earn about 2-3 lakhs per month. This is the true story of two brothers in Hyderabad who are avid players of free fare whose names, unfortunately, I can’t disclose ..These guys are earning more than their peers of the same age. Video games are not just fun or time pass but can also earn money, fame and it doesn’t need any special skills.

But all this is one side of the story. Nothing is a cake walk. Even the most passionate, talented and hard working people do fail. But when you are following your dreams and taking a road less travelled. The success and fun will be yours as much as the failure is yours. But just as you don’t discredit your success, don’t discredit your hard-earned failure. This was the lesson that Einstein taught us when he picked up the failed experiment of Michaelson and Morley and explored why it failed and came up with the theory of relativity. Don't be the Michaelson and Morley who dare to go after their dreams of ether and work hard experimenting and leave after one failure. Be the Einstein who cashed a failure into a giant success. Cant we?

Why not? We heard that we are special by our parents. We all have dreamed about something to become when you grew up. We all had honed and tried something as we grew up. But we discarded it all just because of the myth that it's impossible. There can be examples of failure and examples of success but the truth can be moulded into any one of these vessels. Even scientific surveys and truths change overtime. Don't wait for something to be proved or approved. Follow your passion. Work hard. Travel the road less travelled. Fail and fall but learn, smile and rise up. This doesn’t mean selling your cash cow and being a nomad. we can start including our passion in our daily job. There are ways in which we can find time to spend on our hobby today that may become a side hustle tomorrow and maybe a startup later on. We never know, But all we can say is if we do something we love we can be happy. So that we can stand out by being ourselves with wide smile on our face, success in our pockets and happiness in our heart. So Don’t fumble,

 ..Choose the road less travelled. 

What’s better than being yourself.