Entrepreneurship is not a piece of cake and probably comes with several adversities. However, if you want to have a start-up, and give kick start to your career, then the battle against hardships is certainly worth it.
Thriving start-up founders, are not super humans, just humans with a lot of will power, motivation and hard work. These are the only distinguishing factors between a mediocre and a successful start-up founder. The latter has an idea in mind and the inspiration to execute it.
They’re ready to work hard, leaving their comfort zones and cushy jobs in order to create history and flourish.
Similar was the scenario with IIT-Roorkee students Sachin Gupta and Vivek Prakash. When Sachin Gupta graduated, he had no idea what life had in store for him.
The college mates together had been building a software system HackerEarth, for engineer recruitment.
GSF Accelerator, a Bengaluru seed-funder for technology start-ups, made an offer to them which came with a caveat: the two would be required to work full time on the start-up, if they were to get the initial money.
This was their first challenge. In order to work on the start-up, Gupta had to leave his comfort job while Prakash was required to miss a semester, which they eventually did for their start-up. The IIT-Roorkee management allowed Prakash to complete his final semester out of Bengaluru.
They finally commenced the work and the founders started whiteboarding their product. Within a span of four months, they received $ 120,000 in angel funding from GSF.
Soon the two ‘kids’ became founders of a flourishing start-up from college students and thus, their life transformed.
They felt overwhelmed for they were attending official meetings, looking at legal documents, receiving money and the like.
They now had to focus on accounts, Sebi regulations, reporting structures, foreign investments to name a few along with writing codes and figuring out the product. In a series of funding, HackerEarth raised $ 4.5 million and today the company has 1.7 million developers with 360 clients across 57 countries.
However, it isn’t always fun and easy.
Gupta says that there are days when one doesn’t feel like attending meetings or look to legal matters. But one has to do it as it is part of running a business. He gives due importance to his mentors and advisers who helped them in the initial days.
The execution of a brilliant idea is the cornerstone for the founder of a start-up. Anu Sridharan, a student of Berkeley College, doing her masters in Civil engineering, had formulated a water supply distribution business plan.
In order to carry out the plan, she moved to Karnataka, to begin Nextdrop but with trifling business skills.
The 24 year old, took online courses, googled management skills and read books. With the help of internet, books, advice from mentors, local supportive government and needless to say, her determination, a smart-grid application to track water supply was built.
But she had to discontinue the product and start a new company, overcoming all the flaws in the first one.
Things didn’t go well enough as she had foreseen. She then launched a new company also named Nextdrop.
The product used IoT devices and data to connect water tankers with apartments and businesses. She also started helping the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board to analyze leakages in various localities and plug them.
She says that one must have the courage to take a decision, take up plan B if it doesn’t work and learn from the experience.
The CEO of Quaich, a company of cinematography and videography says that running a business is more than simply following one’s passion.
It requires one to be involved with legal contracts, accounts, management and convince clients. Mehta in 2014, built all-terrain vehicles into a drone company. “The initial gains may not be much but one needs to stay motivated throughout” he adds.
All it requires to be successful is determination and the right guidance. These help to transform a raw idea into a successful business.
There are a lot of examples to look for including Vishen Lakhiani, founder of Mind Valley, Nellie Akalp, founder of CorpNet(dot)com, Sachin Bansal, founder of Flipkart, Kunal Shah, founder of Freecharge to name a few. One just needs to look up for inspiration and carry out their decision.