The road not taken
My life choices have been uncommon.
I had seemingly all figured out — I had topped the engineering entrances, went through IITs with mostly blazing colors, and was admitted to a PhD program at MIT. I was destined to be in research & academia. Instead, I dropped out of my PhD, returned to India, and after a short corporate stint — spent the next decade as an entrepreneur in the impact & small business space.
Many I know would have thought about such choices, but not dared to take them. And many more well-wishers who could not fathom me. I used to advise those who ruminated on their past decisions that the decisions are never right or wrong — it’s the actions one takes after the decision that makes them right or wrong. However, the decision-maker, out there seeking validation from others for investment or support, may have doubts creeping in about his once very sure choices.
Having just recently stepped out of founder life, here I’m revisiting what underlies my decisions.
“Where no man has gone before” — Star Trek
A single key theme underlies my efforts — to take on an incredibly hard problem that needed to be solved (health for poor, make small businesses to be made more efficient) but was largely ignored, and wherein technology had a role. I jumped into it, irrespective of hardness — or whatever skills it took. So, it could have been providing affordable quality healthcare for our poor, building a model digital-savvy efficient lean small business, and building marketplace-SaaS solutions for small businesses as efficient as (and competitive with) Zaras of the world. Arguably, none of these had been done before.
“… all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be…” — Pink Floyd
There were always naysayers — externally or even the prospective users, but what would I know. These could be long, arduous, and often frustrating journeys. What keeps us going through the journey?
In my case, it was the process of creating smaller pieces, the smaller achievements, and the diversity of experiences these implausible tasks offered.
I chanced upon my college BTech thesis recently, after 2 decades. While I didn’t think of it very highly at all, I now see some ground-breaking work there.
There were many impressive wins in entrepreneurial life. And what of the experience — taking me through the places — in towns, villages & slums, to community forums, factories, local markets & government offices, to people of all kinds, on journeys that one only sees in movies or reads in books!
