Can’t stand the heat? Get out of the kitchen!!

I say, “Can’t stand the heat? Turn on the AC.”

Wanting to start out on your own is easy but actually doing it is tough. It takes some amount of guts and a lot of foolishness to “do something”.

My inspiration was not Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or Larry Ellison. It was someone from my part of the world, N.R. Narayana Murthy who founded Infosys and nurtured it from a startup to a global phenomenon.

So anyway, this urge to start something on my own has been something that had been in the back of my mind ever since I started on my first job in the USA in 1987. Of course what was never clear was WHAT “that something” was. There were several efforts but all of them on a part time basis. Needless to say, half hearted efforts met with no results whatsoever. It was always a chicken and egg thing.

One of the things I find with people wanting to start out on their own is that they want to do something while they are working full time, and then change over once the business stabilizes. Guess what? This never works. It’s only rarely that you hear of someone succeeding this way. For most of us, the road to “success” is the scenic route. Long and Winding. No short cuts.

If you are not prepared for sleepless nights, no salary, snubs from previous acquaintances then DONT EVEN START … unless you have a rich uncle who is ready to invest AND give you business on day one with no questions asked. If you have such an uncle, please let me know and I’ll put myself up for adoption.

Having said all the “negative” things about being an entrepreneur, it is perhaps the most exhilarating experience you can ever have (I’ve never tried drugs though 🙂 ). I’ll take the highs and the lows anytime now rather than working for somebody else.

Hopefully the lessons I have learnt over the last 3 years will make it easy for another entrepreneur. To make fewer mistakes. To be more successful.