No final destination!
I thought of being a little metaphorical about this one, but I failed. I will be straight and open. My life right is now too close to reality. On all fronts, I cannot for a second fool anybody and myself of what is happening. You see, it has been a year since I got into this formally. It was tough. I couldn't cry in front of my parents. I had decided this path for myself quite against their interests of what I should have had in my life. So I held back to open up about my recent fallout from a partnership that was quite picking up pace. My parents are my biggest support, but i was not in a mood to put them through the horror of seeing their son going through a bad patch. I was greatly motivated to reverse my situation. The thing was just this; there was one issue, and that was nothing but money. I was involved in a partnership that did not have a legal status yet. And before we were able to decide a name and put a plan for it, I had to come out of that. It was three tough months that I had to endure, before the three of us decided to get together and go for the kill. And in March 2018 something phenomenal happened. With no back-up, after giving up everything that I worked for, after going through a roller-coaster of a ride, before letting go of the second attempt to have a company, we pulled it back in time. On 28th of March 2018, Directsubzi Private Limited took birth, with three directors and absolutely no money. Today, it is one year for our baby.
I dont want to really give out all my emotions and become light today. The work has just started. We have started on our journey. Had enough pivots, taking feedback from the farmers, customers and listening very keenly to the problems of the rural industries and co-operatives. We were serious about the work that our competitors were doing. We were observing their moves very carefully to have realised what is working out in the market and what is not. It was exciting to have a new outlook into our work. But at the very same time, it was a tough thing to let go of your own ideas sometime for a larger cause. We had no team. We built a small team that was just enough to get through the orders we receive. We were not marketing. We never reached out in intent to customers. We knew we had to get the ecosystem in place.
It requires a lot of patience. Not just our own employees, our investors, our working partners, our farmers, our customers and also our well wishers, everybody had just one question in mind. Why are we not adding more customers? It was quite a tough question to answer. We had products that were selling. We had examples through paying customers. And I had at the same time, had spoken to my parents about my marriage interests with the girl I respect and love. They expected me to draw a salary at least. My mother was, as fair as it can be, was rushing to know when will the company make profits. My father had much bigger concerns at this point, but being the person he is, was never boldly vocal about it. I am sure he secretly prayed for my success. They knew that it was my company and there was literally no boss who paid a monthly salary. There was no visible changes in terms of increase in operations and revenue. The pressure was seemingly increasing from all sides.
There was literally no work to give our people. But we needed them. It is a crazy chicken and egg problem. We were aware of the burn rate showing up sooner or later. We had no case to raise money again. We had raised once and stopped. We didn't complete the round. We thought it was necessary to work on increasing the value of the company before raising the next chunk. We knew we had to fall back onto our own network of well wishers for this. We were clear so far that we will not push our parents to involve in all these. My father who is retired and living on his pensions and savings had already come forward to help. We wanted to go through the struggle ourselves. At least for me everything in my life has come very easily. I am actually grateful for that. But this was something we badly wanted to build ourselves and make every fortune on our own virtue. Well, fortune is still quite a journey away and deserves another blog post in the future, I hope. But virtue is something that was very much in our control and we wanted to make good use of that.
Having started with 3 people, today we are a team of 8 people working on this idea. We have started partnering with Engineering and Social Work colleges for internships and job offers. We have signed working agreements with a no of rural co-operatives and producer organisations. We will be opening two more warehouses in the next two months and practically become capable to deliver products across Bangalore. We have an incubation with Sandbox Startups in Hubli, where we plan to house our technology team. Starting with 30 types of just vegetables, we have over 300 products today covering all aspects of what a typical urban household requires. A newly designed app is on its way. We are excited about this. We will continue to add products supporting our rural folk. After having gone through a pretty lonely journey as co-founders, we have learnt and realised the importance of having a team. It is never about the people who start with an idea. Idea will progress. And one person cannot do everything. We need people to come together for a cause with a clear focus. And it is up to the people who are with you to achieve what is planned for. We should be a team of 20 people by the end of this year.
One year back, I was afraid. But we still kept a step forward. Today, I am super confident. I am not afraid of reaching where we want to reach. On the work front, my co-founders have been my biggest support. Especially the role of Saurabh Awati, who is a co-founder, a brilliant friend and more brother-like has been very critical through out to help me keep my head focused and my mind positive in building this company. And personally it has been my wife, Deepika, who took the brunt of all my mood swings through all this. She has been the shoulder I always rested upon. My parents and my brother are my biggest support. Their belief in me is what continues to encourage me to go for things that seems to be out of my reach. I am greatly motivated to make my life so worthy that all the sacrifices my parents and brother did for me find a real good meaning. Partly the reason why I choose to break out from the 9 to 6 life I had. Although I feel like celebrating today, I wont. We have felt every single day go by from March 28th of 2018, so clearly. Work is pending. I'd say, some real work is pending. The bus has just started on its journey. It is on its way to a destination that doesn't seem to exist right now. That is the point. There is no final destination. We are crazy about this journey, we are crazy about what we are building. Saurabh and I promised to each other that we will work in such a way that our 2nd year work anniversary will be a public event. Until then, we will work to survive, we will work for Directsubzi to see the light next year.
I dont want to really give out all my emotions and become light today. The work has just started. We have started on our journey. Had enough pivots, taking feedback from the farmers, customers and listening very keenly to the problems of the rural industries and co-operatives. We were serious about the work that our competitors were doing. We were observing their moves very carefully to have realised what is working out in the market and what is not. It was exciting to have a new outlook into our work. But at the very same time, it was a tough thing to let go of your own ideas sometime for a larger cause. We had no team. We built a small team that was just enough to get through the orders we receive. We were not marketing. We never reached out in intent to customers. We knew we had to get the ecosystem in place.
It requires a lot of patience. Not just our own employees, our investors, our working partners, our farmers, our customers and also our well wishers, everybody had just one question in mind. Why are we not adding more customers? It was quite a tough question to answer. We had products that were selling. We had examples through paying customers. And I had at the same time, had spoken to my parents about my marriage interests with the girl I respect and love. They expected me to draw a salary at least. My mother was, as fair as it can be, was rushing to know when will the company make profits. My father had much bigger concerns at this point, but being the person he is, was never boldly vocal about it. I am sure he secretly prayed for my success. They knew that it was my company and there was literally no boss who paid a monthly salary. There was no visible changes in terms of increase in operations and revenue. The pressure was seemingly increasing from all sides.
There was literally no work to give our people. But we needed them. It is a crazy chicken and egg problem. We were aware of the burn rate showing up sooner or later. We had no case to raise money again. We had raised once and stopped. We didn't complete the round. We thought it was necessary to work on increasing the value of the company before raising the next chunk. We knew we had to fall back onto our own network of well wishers for this. We were clear so far that we will not push our parents to involve in all these. My father who is retired and living on his pensions and savings had already come forward to help. We wanted to go through the struggle ourselves. At least for me everything in my life has come very easily. I am actually grateful for that. But this was something we badly wanted to build ourselves and make every fortune on our own virtue. Well, fortune is still quite a journey away and deserves another blog post in the future, I hope. But virtue is something that was very much in our control and we wanted to make good use of that.
Having started with 3 people, today we are a team of 8 people working on this idea. We have started partnering with Engineering and Social Work colleges for internships and job offers. We have signed working agreements with a no of rural co-operatives and producer organisations. We will be opening two more warehouses in the next two months and practically become capable to deliver products across Bangalore. We have an incubation with Sandbox Startups in Hubli, where we plan to house our technology team. Starting with 30 types of just vegetables, we have over 300 products today covering all aspects of what a typical urban household requires. A newly designed app is on its way. We are excited about this. We will continue to add products supporting our rural folk. After having gone through a pretty lonely journey as co-founders, we have learnt and realised the importance of having a team. It is never about the people who start with an idea. Idea will progress. And one person cannot do everything. We need people to come together for a cause with a clear focus. And it is up to the people who are with you to achieve what is planned for. We should be a team of 20 people by the end of this year.
One year back, I was afraid. But we still kept a step forward. Today, I am super confident. I am not afraid of reaching where we want to reach. On the work front, my co-founders have been my biggest support. Especially the role of Saurabh Awati, who is a co-founder, a brilliant friend and more brother-like has been very critical through out to help me keep my head focused and my mind positive in building this company. And personally it has been my wife, Deepika, who took the brunt of all my mood swings through all this. She has been the shoulder I always rested upon. My parents and my brother are my biggest support. Their belief in me is what continues to encourage me to go for things that seems to be out of my reach. I am greatly motivated to make my life so worthy that all the sacrifices my parents and brother did for me find a real good meaning. Partly the reason why I choose to break out from the 9 to 6 life I had. Although I feel like celebrating today, I wont. We have felt every single day go by from March 28th of 2018, so clearly. Work is pending. I'd say, some real work is pending. The bus has just started on its journey. It is on its way to a destination that doesn't seem to exist right now. That is the point. There is no final destination. We are crazy about this journey, we are crazy about what we are building. Saurabh and I promised to each other that we will work in such a way that our 2nd year work anniversary will be a public event. Until then, we will work to survive, we will work for Directsubzi to see the light next year.
Comments