My father or my MBA

I have spent all most 25 years telling everyone who asked me what my qualifications are about how working with my father was like doing a MBA, starting today I share the stories (short for sure) my father made me learn working under him, on this special day, his birthday - 23/05 

Kandnery Mohammed Moosa (joined me spiritually on 13/8/2008) was his name, very typical Muslim name and with looks doing complete justice to his name, but for what ever reasons, there was never this one person who would ignore him, make him feel a mis-fit or not listen to him, he always got his way around things and people, so till the point you are done readying these serious of blogs, you would surely know how to get things your way and more.

Here starts my very few but important learnings I will carry all my life from him. Today's blog is for Trusting Yourself.. 

The day he called me to his office for the first time, and just asked me to jump into the car beside him and drive down to Chennai, my journey with him in business started from Chennai and so here I am sitting in Chennai on his birthday, writing this blog. He spoke about his product, a fuel stabiliser for internal combustion engines (could not understand a word what he said) followed by the fact that he was as of now making me the Managing Director of his company (I was exactly 18 years 4 months) and I kept looking at him and was fine it, after all it was just a post under him, I was cool with it. He drove down to IIT-M and in an auditorium full of faculty from mechanical department he put me on the stage announcing I was the MD of his company and will now talk in detail on his upcoming product. I wanted to kill him, myself, that very minute. So here I was on this stage, with no clue on what I am going to speak and I looked at him, my eyes to his, "Dad, I will ruin your chances you or your product have over here in this campus" and he looked back, "it's your dad's product to screw it up, no body else's" I knew he wanted me to do anything which I felt was right, trust myself and never to look back, what ever the outcome be. I did exactly that and I cannot deny that the talk went really well and we signed a R&D contract with IIT-M in not later than a month of that talk, but it's been 26 years and I have never let go of that learning, this is the reason you will never see me fear anything in life, you will never see me hesitate trying out something new, you will never see me doubt myself ever. 

So do that to yourself, trust yourself because the biggest and the most important asset you have with you is yourself and if you doubt that for start, there will be nothing in this world you will ever trust. Move ahead today and never look back and what you carry along with you is THE TRUST YOU HAVE ON YOURSELF..

Next one coming soon... 

How do u know if you're on the way to build the next big Startup?

How do u know if you're on the way to build the next big Startup?

After spending a decade between startups, hearing those beautiful stories of all the Facebooks, Apples, Whats app buy outs, Airbnbs and the list continues, I would always think, whats is it that our startups are missing out on? why does it feel like, it would never be the case with any of our entrepreneurs? There were moments when I would question our mentoring, our approach, our strategy, our suggestions and at times, sit back to consider if even continuing with this as our profiles. 

Then came across these two participants, totally unconnected with each other, for our annual event in Startups Club, DemoDay2014, Khuzema from Chennai & Arjun from Vellore. Both, no way similar to each other. On one side was this young, super aggressive, super naive and super loud and on the other was this young, super clear, super sensible, super passionate, super driven, super experienced in tech and I looked at both of them, as they got mentored to pitch their own ideas to the panel. I noticed them in various mentoring sessions, some together.. some in groups and they really did not look any thing similar.. their attitudes, their approach, their ideas.. The only three things common about them were 1. they both were young 2. they both wanted to be successful entrepreneurs 3. they both loved being associated with us.

Today, 1 year down the road, from those thoughts, long hours of discussions, longer hours of fights, unimaginable hours of working things out, we, the two young entrepreneurs and us, Prudence (Vivek, me and our team) are the three founders on board of this food related startup. Now, as I write this, I can clearly answer my question, will one of our Startups be the next BIG THING? Oh yes.. definitely it is and in fact we can see it happening already...

Lets see how, may be you could get the formula of making a successful one and if you do, don't forget to let me know through comments;

1. Team - not perfect, no way from the same age group, not from the same back ground.. BUT.. a team which is never ready to let go of the reins to make the progress. There is always this one of us who will always ensure the things move ahead. Trust me, we have taken turns.. all of us, at some point of time.

2. Idea - Idea was completely different from what it is today, but what we have today, is what our food lovers wanted & felt was missing, we were able to connect with our users at a very.. VERY early stage of the journey and get their problems, understand their needs, talk to them in person and make them realise that solution is on the way.

3. Fear Factors - Still exists, blogging here, just 1 day to go for the Beta (Soft launch) at 3:15 am, just saying a good night through a whats app message to the Tech Director, who had his whole team in Chennai sitting with him till now working on the website, we fear, his last message to me was.. "I am nervous" and just couple of hours back, my message to him was the same. So this has been on and this will be on.. but we are sure that at times one of us are at that point of time where we fear things ahead, the others will pull us up, so we know and are confident, that we will fight our fears.. that is the reason fears exist right? to fight them out.

4. Investments - Woooo.. this is one word.. which just typing the word out, gives me some crazy thoughts of all the time we have changed our strategy, thanks to this one word. There was a point of time, some 6 months back, the complete initiative had seen a dead end, if it was not for the youngest student founder who pulled us all back together and took this up, maybe this blog would never have been written.. So, yes, Investments has and will be one of the issues but then, do you know what we believe? if there is no need for investments, we would not be going ahead anywhere, the fact that we need funds is a proof in itself that we are progressing.

5. What now?? - We do not know, it is the bloody truth.. You can ask us all together or ask us individually, we would have the same answer to this question, we have no clue whats going to happen, but we are happy at the place we are in, that matters to us. We have our users waiting for the launch, who are joining us for the launch on 15th May at 5 pm, our HomeChefs cooking for all the foodies, we have not come across one person who heard us talk about our Startup, say a WOWWWW.. we are getting stronger by the day as a team and we are progressing, that is all matters to us for now and what lies ahead of us, is left on our hard work and our users, so why break our heads on that.

So, here it is, just 5 things which could come to me for now, but by the end of this, I am so glad to write that I am so sure, clear, confident and aware that we are building the NEXT BIG THING in Startups.. 

Give your thoughts or try our HOME CHEF's yummy foods by being our FOODIE on...

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