My Adventure Rant as an Entrepreneur

Adventures… I started out as an average student, Bachelors of Commerce, then exams for getting into a good B-School for an MBA. I was an average student at the B-School as well where I was supposed to be mastering IT and Systems. Campus placements led me to a small company run by four principals, where I learnt about things like business process re-engineering, value chain re-architecture, innovation and creativity and within twelve months of asking my boss every month “Why the heck are you paying me?” – because I don’t think I did much work anyway – I quit.

I moved into my folks home in a remote part of the country – my father used to serve with the Indian army. While I was there I decided to use online networking to help me find what it is I should be doing next. I got numerous job offers from other management consulting firms, which I turned down. Then I started working with Joyce in the US – I met her through LinkedIn and I worked on her websites and other design requirements that she had – she paid me an hourly rate and I was thrilled that something I’d loved doing all my life was turning out to be commercially successful as well.

Hence the idea of www.aside.in which I have now been running for about 5 years – I am a freelancer, all the work you see on it has been done by me – no team. I’ve also tried a couple of other ideas while I’ve been using the internet to drive business for me : www.protoface.com which hasn’t really taken off because I have not done anything to promote it or strategize it further. Then there’s www.bootstraplogo.com which is doing better than I expected.

I also do some photography : www.studioaside.com/blog

I have a handful of friends who are always throwing around ideas for new ventures and businesses and it makes for interesting, adrenalin-induced conversations on lazy weekends. There are a couple of ideas we’re trying to convert into businesses – nothing concrete.

So I get to do what I love, I get to make money off it, I got to take long vacations whenever I want, I get to meet some awesome people who are entrepreneurs themselves or business owners, I get to sleep as much as I want and dress the way I want and work 24/7 when I am in the zone.

The only company on the planet where I’d still want a full-time / part-time job is IDEO – in any other scenario, I’m not prepared to give up what I have. Even with IDEO, I don’t believe I will be giving up any of it – I’d just be adding some more!

So there – that’s my adventure rant 🙂 Thank you for indulging me! What about you?