Turn Into An Entrepreneur, Yes, But Don’t Disregard Life’s Practicalities
When I was growing up, I was clear about what I wanted to do. I summed it up in three ways:
- Go to the US and pursue my PhD degree
- Join NASA and become a space scientist
- Ultimately, to become the first man on Mars.
However, by the time I was 24, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was directionless and confused. I had a bachelor’s degree in physics from Delhi University, after which I started applying for PhD programmes and got through to Michigan University on a scholarship. Which was the only way I could have afforded it.
I was doing well on my PhD and physics was something I was good at, but I was not happy. Being good at something and being happy about it—they could be entirely different things. At the point, then, I dropped out of my PhD programme and came back to India.
My friends at this stage I do something that most confused people do: get an MBA degree. The Indian School of Business was relatively new at that time, and while it was very expensive and I had to take a loan to get in, I attended the one-year programme. And that one year fundamentally changed my life.
At this stage, something happened that fundamentally changed my life.
After that year at ISB (2006), I joined Kearney as a management consultant, but alongside that job I worked with a couple of ISB batch mates on my first venture: secondshaadi.com. In 2009 I quit consulting and focused entirely on startups. We thoroughly enjoyed building products. The big one was gaadi.com, which we eventually sold to goibibo.com.
In 2010, I got in touch with this company Groupon, which was a new company started just a couple of years earlier in Chicago. I set up their India business as the founding CEO and led the business for four years.
At that stage I realised that Groupon had its own problems to take care of in US and Europe because of which they couldn’t give India the attention it needed. And I was seeing a lot of potential of growth in India. So, I went to Groupon global and made an audacious proposal: that I would buy Groupon’s India business and make it independent. After months of back and forthing, we were able to buy majority shareholding of Groupon from Groupon’s India business and made it into an independent entity: nearbuy.com.
In 2017, after two years of running nearbuy.com, we were approached by Paytm because they liked our business model. They made an investment and we became a Paytm company.
In 2019 for the first time we became profitable and at that time I decided to hang my boots and take a break to figure out what I wanted to do next in life.
Instead of committing myself to goals and targets I committed myself to habits. Here are the three things I stand by
Spend time with people who are nothing like you: because you are never going to learn anything new from someone who agrees with you. You will only learn from people who challenges your point of view.
Never feel entitled.
Face your fears: Everything around us is built to make our lives easier. Everything you want is just a click away right from clothes to a cab. But the people you look up or aspire to be are on a daily basis are taking a path of maximum resistance. They stand in front of a mirror and say I am gonna to face my fears, what I am scared of. When you get comfortable you stop growing.
It is important to realise that whenever you speak about the ‘entrepreneurial mindset’ it is impossible for you to have an organisation built of entrepreneurs. You will only have a very small percentage of entrepreneurs. And you will be lucky if that percentage is greater than one per cent. Your job as a leader is not to get everyone to think a certain way but to identify that one per cent. Those are the people who feels that they don’t need to be compliant or subservient to be successful in life. They are questioning and challenging authority. They are individuals which system choke first. They need a leader that shields them.
Talking about becoming an entrepreneur, here’s what you must not do: don’t quit your job and follow your passion. It is impractical. And disregarding the practicalities of life is never a good idea. The way to do it is to stay in your job but don’t necessarily focus on winning the Employee of the Month award. Do your job well enough. Work on your entrepreneurial ideas over weekends and at nights.
As ideas occur to you, you should become the eliminator as against a lover of ideas; as an entrepreneur you don’t wanna be falling in love with your ideas. You don’t want to have an ownership bias. Then in one or maximum two years you will have either of these two situations: one, the conviction that the idea you are working on is absolutely the right idea, and you should now step down from your job and work on the idea; or two, the realisation maybe you are better off focusing on a flourishing, and fulfilling professional career.
People today ask me what my core skill is. I tell them it is teaching. I think of myself as a teacher. I have the ability and full intent to simplify things that seem to be complex. The topic could be anything, but as long as I understand the topic, I can break it down and simplify it through a combination of storytelling and the ability to be able to step into the shoes of others.
My life motto is “DO EPIC SHIT“, where DO is about action, EPIC is about a cause larger than oneself and SHIT is having fun while living life. I live and breathe this motto by being action oriented, picking up large difficult problems to work on and thoroughly enjoying the journey rather than aim for a goal.
About the author
Ankur Warikoo is a serial Internet entrepreneur and a mentor to first-time entrepreneurs. He is a public speaker, content creator, and a social media influencer with huge following. He also conducts digital courses on entrepreneurship, careers and personal growth.
Ankur spoke at SpeakIn’s Live Learning session in December. His subject was “Lessons from my Entrepreneurial Journey”. This article is a condensed version of his talk delivered on SpeakIn’s Live Learning platform.
