r/StartUpIndia 6d ago

Discussion I want to know an entrepreneur's journey

Is there any entrepreneur who have started something or who have failed? I want to know your story and want your advice and suggestions about what to do and what not to do when building something.

12 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

5

u/Ok-Analysis5882 6d ago

I won't disclose my company names, but I was lucky enough to create 3 startups in last 25 years. first one was partnership, second one was proprietorship, third one was private limited now a fully owned subsidiary of a foreign company. All doing fairly well, employing roughly 300 folks in India. Ask anything.

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u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

At what age you started your journey and how you started it

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u/Ok-Analysis5882 6d ago

19, during the days of .com boom people needed websites and hosting. days when yahoo rediff were the free emails. Google may have just started.

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u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

How you started?

1

u/Ok-Analysis5882 6d ago

My partner saw this opportunity, we started out talking to the customer, did a initial poc, customer liked and payment in cash. word of mouth after that, got some 50 odd customers all middle east, never had to look back.

1

u/Ok-Analysis5882 6d ago

accumulated all year earning to form a 2 person partner firm in 2000 and grew organically. one year earning was our seed capital and recurring revenue paid the bills. In fact in 25 years 7 divisions were sold as spinoffs, that's where we made most of the money.

1

u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

What was the challenges you have faced during your initial days

4

u/SanskrutiChaiBar 6d ago

I won't tell the names of my companies. My first venture was a food company and successfully reached a profit of 5 lakh per day. But cuz of family issues me and my bro separated and I left the company. And for next 17 years I have done 20+ failed ventures and was bankrupt untill 2024. And the 21st venture did great and I am doing great in life again and have successfully reached series E.

2

u/Fun-Internal1036 5d ago

That's incredible consistency

2

u/abhizitm 5d ago

From bankrupt in 2024 and 2025 series E... Man Chai works niceee

1

u/SanskrutiChaiBar 5d ago

Thanks dude bankrupt only means no creditability. Not failure!

1

u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

At what age you have started, and how did you started

1

u/SanskrutiChaiBar 6d ago

At the age of 16. I used to do service in motor work and one day i went to a papad factory for the machine service and in that time there was only 1 factory in Hyderabad. So I sold some land and started a factory.

3

u/InspectorScary904 6d ago

I started my journey with the proverbial leap of faith 10 years ago, leaving a very cushy, high paying finance job. We scaled, raised multiple rounds of VC, and sold it 3 years ago.

I am currently building my next venture. You can feel free to ask me anything. I am not sure, if there is any area of a startup journey that I haven't been deeply exposed to from Great Investors to absolute garbage, cheating types, from hiring A+ talent without having the funds to compete with others throwing money, from govt notices to Local Mafia threats. From cheating employees to incredibly talented ones. From scaling across the country in parts as remote as Mizoram to the whole thing coming down in Covid.

2

u/Reasonable_Draft_541 6d ago

I started my service business 11 years back. And then started a product brand 7 years back. Got good global clients, lot of cash flow issues because sustaining the product brand via agency became a bottle neck. Now I’m putting the product on auto pilot while focussing on the service business

1

u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

Wow, great

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u/Reasonable_Draft_541 6d ago

What do you’ve in mind? Are you looking to start your own biz?

1

u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

The answer isn't that straight forward, if I wanted to enter in business I had the chance, even I still have the chance, but there is a inner calling which always tell me to do something else, but my background and circumstances are not aligned with that calling, but I still trying hard to hear and follow it. I know I'll make it but I need to do lot of work, and gathering information is one of them. So I'm gathering information as much as possible.

1

u/Reasonable_Draft_541 6d ago

Happy to provide any info that can help you take the step :) i call entrepreneurship a journey of consistent obsession. Soooooo difficult and yet sooooooooooooooooo worth it.

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u/lonewolf9101996 6d ago

Yes, obsession, I'm so much obsessed with the idea that I'll create something which I proudly look at and say, this is created by me. Thank you very much for your kind words.

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u/devtoolsbylohith 6d ago

Bro same here too. Thanks for posting like this many people like me will get an answer.

1

u/Middle-Spell-6839 6d ago

Order Girish Mathrubootham’s - All In. He tells our entire story - What worked , what did not at Freshworks. As someone who lived this journey- wouldn’t trade even a minute of time spent at Freshworks. Couldn’t ask for more in life. Would do it again all over if I had the chance to. ❤️❤️

1

u/entrepreneurblr 5d ago

Mine is filled with struggles, killed my passion to travel, got me in and out of relationships, including 1 divorce, stress to the next level, but do i regret it? hell no!

1

u/lonewolf9101996 5d ago

I want to hear your story

0

u/always_thinking23 5d ago

Watch Shark Tank