Hi,
In the 4 years, 9 months that we have been in business it has been a fairly great roller coaster ride. Like every entrepreneur one has the infallible belief that one is always right...unless proven wrong! and for an entrepreneur nothing is as devastating as being proved wrong financially.
We learned that the hard way in the past 4 years. It took us multiple failures before we realised that we know only one business well and its best to stick to that one rather than divert our attention and monies onto new things.
As an entrepreneur when one is reasonably successful in one venture, one gets that infallible feeling that one has a midas touch and that every thing that every venture that one is likely to get into would also be equally successful. It need not happen that way.
We were about 9 months into our first venture when an opportunity to set up a call center came our way. We had these two promising young 'wanna-be " entrepreneurs who had the knowledge, the skills and contacts in the industry who wanted to set up their own small call center. We took the plunge along with them and invested into a new company. For a few years everything seemed to be fine until the recession hit everyone. The call center finally began to bleed and bleed badly ...finally forcing us to realize that this was one venture that we could not hope to succeed in. We lost money behind it...big time.
A year into our primary venture, another opportunity presented itself in the form of retailing. Since we were allready focussed on the telecom industry, we decided to take another bungee jump into telecom retailing. 8 months down the line we had 15 stores spread across the country. For a time it felt great telling our peers that we had 15 stores!! Alas, although the venture fed our respective ego's a lot..it did nothing to our coffers. A year later we folded up the operations and took another large hit on our monies.
Not satisfied with 2 losses, we decided to further invest behind another 'wanna be ' entrepreneur friend of ours who had come up with a brilliant concept. Although the poor chap tried his best ...there were other forces that worked against the concept and about a year later we all had to woefully agree that this venture was not to be. Another nail in the company coffers.
4 years, 3 successful failed ventures in which we had invested our monies and lost big time. Friends and well wishers tend to ask me " why did you do it?". " You could have used the money that you invested in others to give yourself a nice bonus or dividend!!".
Sometimes i think i am fool to have not done that ..but most times i tend to believe that i followed an instinct. Entrepreneurship is about following your instinct. It is about believing in yourself and in people around you. I believe that entrepreneurship will bring about social changes in our society. I believe that people should be encouraged to become intrepreneurs or entrepreneurs. I am a prudent man by nature. If i have lost money behind ventures, i know that the people i supported have also lost - their time and their money behind it. But i also know that all of us have learned from that experience and that this experience will help each one of us to grow as professionals. Today i know more about the call center business, retailing and telecom distribution that possibly many professionals in the industry...because i have learnt it the hard way.
Would i do it again? Yes of course!! As i write this, i am contemplating venturing into other business's ( provided i can raise the funds to do so). Why do i do it?
I do it because i am an entrepreneur. I want to do something new.
Until next time. keep walking the path!!
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