Shared Dreamers- Short story of a budding startup

So the time has ripe for me to share a story of aspirations, desire, fame and of course a dream, colossal which might one day be a dream for others. I have to track you back from time to let you know what it takes to start up because that is how you connect dots that make sense. Some natural instincts which I got from my very first breath have always forced me to think big. My birth was the very start of the seed to make something big. To take you into the story first I have to let you get the feel of things which I felt.

Being a student from a tier 2 city in a developing country, I always wanted to do something which is ahead of time because that’s how you make your presence felt in this vast changing world. Carrying dreams, responsibilities, and lots of aspirations to fulfill, I landed in Delhi, the most happening place in the country. Similarly, five more guys were from different parts of Andhra Pradesh with different exposures and mindsets have also landed with the same baggage.

Things were very casual initially, until a day one of my friends approached with an idea of a startup which would bring a change in the education system in semi-urban and the rural, but things didn’t materialize as desired. But the desire to start up was just growing.

It was an end of winter and onset of spring, the time during which new aspirations and endeavors build up. This was the time when students of a varsity rush for internships or take up courses to keep themselves occupied and avoid parents Bhagavad Gita. Even I joined the race to apply for an internship, as many as possible. We tried running hard for the internships, but suddenly we stopped and gave ourselves a chance to think and question. Are we meant to join the race or create a race?  Destiny had something in store for all of us. Just another day in everyone’s life but a very special day for all six of us, we finally decided that it’s high time to start up and know how it’s like to build an organization. We felt like we were framing the constitution for newly born country India in 1947. This was the time we decided to start up immediately, and we set a target for ourselves, by next summer we should be in a position to offer internships across India. The next hurdle was to decide to start upon which aspect. Usually, people start up to provide the solution to a unique problem. We had to identify a  problem which is unaddressed. So we did many brainstorming sessions to come to a conclusion. So, we decided to start up on “STUDENT MARKETING.” Where a student markets a product and the target segment is student community, the unique idea right?.  Next problem arrived immediately, what name should be given to this new startup. Many ideas, many suggestions at last someone had to compromise with the name. But in the end, everyone wanted to give the best name possible, but it’s what your startup is going to be called when the history is retold.

Now we called our startup as ” Brandunia ” our main motto was to offer creative branding and marketing solutions to businesses of different sorts, so the name. Even the domain name availability on the internet was one of the considerations while naming our brain child. Popped up immediately another issue, what are the services other than our USP “STUDENT MARKETING” are we going to offer to clients, see the change we started calling customers as clients. We have begun using business jargon.

Then we had to check our skills set, what we are capable of offering to the customers oops sorry clients. Then everyone started to list their abilities, and we even had to check our level of expertise in that particular skill. So finally we decided to improve ourselves in the existing skills and learn new skills which market desires.

Summer vacation started all six of us have begun our journey to Hyderabad, the place famous for biryani and confluence of different cultures across the world. We even had a fear in one corner of the mind, will things work? Earlier before the vacation, we all decided to spend one month of vacation to improve our skills and then the next month to hunt for clients. Well, the plan went as per our will, again I have to thank the unknown force driving us.

Now we made up our attire, had business cards, website and overall strong will well packed in our hearts to make a difference. So we approached clients ranging from a small boutique to huge MNC’s. We with our fresh energy managed to acquire a decent number of customers within a span of one month. Each time we visited a new organization for our business proposal and presented our ideas, we learned to smile, to speak, to respond to their spontaneous questions. Initially, we were stumbling, but that’s how experience and knowledge are absorbed. The best thing we all cherish is we broke the barrier stopping us from speaking to a stranger who is well experienced and knowledgeable, in an impressive way.

And the end of the day we were filling our bag of life with many challenging, funny and everlasting memories.

This was our pursuit of happiness.

This was my way of perceiving life!

P.S: This is a repost.Post originally written by a much younger Sujan in the year 2012.