Start up

The Start Up culture continues to grow as the younger generation prefers to be their own boss. As they move forward, quite a few of them may realise the amount of mental and physical stress that they might have to endure not just for ideating on what solution they should offer to the customers but also, funds to sustain, how to run the set up, financial planning as well as sustaining and following a certain discipline to run these businesses. Once these internal struggles are met, they also need to take stock of external factors like competition, government policies while maintaining the business development activities etc.

If anyone thought that a Start Up is going to be easy, that would be their first step towards failure. While it may not seem so, but trust me working as an employee is much easier. When you do a SWOT analysis of a Start up, you realise that some of the threats like collections from the client in any market is never going to be easy. Usually, 90-120 days is an average credit period. While it may not seem like a big thing initially, finding good partners, managing a team, having a fixed cost, every day and every month end trying to see how to beat that benchmark cost figure and getting into a profit is not easy. If you add the credit period to this long list, you will also need to arrange for the working capital and maybe need to invest more to sustain in the absence of money flow from your clients/creditors for 3-6 months to say the least. Its almost like the feeling I used to get when I thought of investing in a house for myself and the EMI at the start of the month was a nightmare. What if I lose my job, what if something goes wrong.

I know some Superheroes, call them so, since these guys had the courage to take the leap, to start their own venture while they were doing well in established global companies. I asked them, what made them take that step, what motivated them and also what challenges were they expecting and did they actually face those or faced some entirely new demons on the way?

Ex-colleagues of mine, Deepak & Bhuwan, who left a comfortable job with a global ad agency and started ‘ColourBars’ a film production company. Deepak, one of the partners had this to say; “When one is young, you are filled with such tremendous energy and enthusiasm to explore new opportunities, discover innovative ideas and solutions to execute your plans! Perhaps that was what prompted me to quit and start on my own along with Bhuwanji who had much more experience than me! The most inspiring experience at ColourBars was working for such a diversified clientele including various agencies and corporates at the same time. It was so much fun and a learning experience for both of us !! Even today when we are not able to find much work, we never regret the decision we took some 15 years back, we still have the hunger to go for the kill despite going through some tough professional challenges in the market.”……. “Mainly resources… at times, financial – like when you want to execute a big project which requires capital and mostly human resources- good editors, technical crew to create an awesome output for the client. And yes one requires a lot of marketing efforts to sustain in the industry, which has always been a never ending challenge.”

I am sure you would also know some of these Superheroes from your past or present life. Salute them, as it is not easy to invest in your START UP. I salute ColourBars and ‘Deewan’ (DEEpak bhuWAN), as I call them with immense Pride.

With over 19 years of experience in advertising & marketing communication and having been involved with many global & local brands across different segments, I have put in 12-18 hours of work on a daily basis for many years before life became a bit comfortable. I still consider myself a lazy human being, who can never become The Superherol. I did not have it in me to start my own firm in my initial years and as time flies, it seems more and more difficult.

If you are someone like me, I have a middle path.

I started writing on topics based on my interests and passion in one professional digital platform which was meant for executives and was a formal set up for the online world. But when sometimes you have a topic that is from your heart, that digital platform was not the place you could share. After many restless nights, I finally decided to start DILSAAY.

DILSAAY in Hinglish, is a Heart2Heart emotional rendering on things that I feel strongly about. An emotional approach to unemotional and emotional topics, you might say. It’s just a start and while I continue to do my day job, the nights will be dedicated to my DILSAAY.
My passions include, food, travel, music, movies, politics, cars and gadgets. That’s a long list, which I will tread into slowly.

Now isn’t that something like a real Superhero. Common man by the day and vigilante by the night. This gives me the opportunity to talk about experiences, emotionally without losing the perspective.

I hope you will like some of my thoughts on dilsaay, if not all. Looking forward to your feedback and suggestions to make this a better experience for all.