I was Infected by a Bug called “Startup”

And, I’m glad that I think I won’t recover from it

Back in 2011, I was like most college teenagers. I went to college primarily to meet my friends, bunk classes, go out for movies, and have fun. When most of my buddies were sleeping with their eyes open during lectures, I would sneak myself out of it. So basically, I was this guy who wanted to have fun at any cost.

Then something happened…

As an IEEE volunteer, we did many things that were important and fun… And, one of those things that we did was promoting the events that we organised. We realised that, just as much as a business wouldn’t exist without paying customers, an event can’t be anywhere close to being successful without attendees.

In an attempt to get more people to attend our events, we learned how we could spread the word… And, using social media effectively was one among the many ideas we had. During this learning period, I came across an interesting tool called Buffer. Being the curious head that I am, I started to dig the internet to learn more about Buffer and I ran into this blog post by Joel Gascoigne where he says:

It is easy to look at the success stories of the world and think they started at the top. Let’s try and question that and think how all successful ventures or entrepreneurs started with something small. Facebook started just at Harvard. Google started as something used by just a few at Stanford. Richard Branson may be trying to bring space travel to the masses with Virgin Galactic, but he started out with a magazine called Student. The spiral of success is what you should focus on — trust that with each achievement you will be more informed and better positioned to tackle the next, slightly bigger challenge. Don’t go for space travel right away. It took Branson 38 years.

This article helped me realise a very important & basic concept about companies — Startups are born with an obsession to solve a very specific problem and the ones that become big are the ones that continue to have that obsession.

If you asked Mark Zuckerberg on what his future plans for Facebook are, he’d still talk about how much more he can do to help people stay connected (like he did at his recent visit to India). If you asked Elon Musk, he’d talk about how he can help conserve energy. If you asked Stewart Butterfield, he’d talk about how he can make teams at offices more productive. Notice the pattern?

Reading more on this topic helped me realise that this alternative world is challenging, exciting and intellectually rewarding. One thing that I didn’t realise (or expect) was that I would get so inspired by reading these articles that I would title this story the way that I did. I was infected by the Startup Bug. I had that prevalent itch that I couldn’t ignore. It became an obsession. Suddenly, the world that I currently lived in started to look normal, and boring.

While all my friends were busy preparing for job interviews or their higher studies, I was too fascinated about this alternative world. I was busy reading books, articles and blogs about startups. I interned at a startup called Vibeapp (They got acquired! Yay!). I refused to apply for a job at any company that wasn’t a startup, and I took a leap of faith… I started my own venture.

But, things weren’t all pretty flowers and butterflies. It wasn’t going as good as we would’ve wanted it to… And my startup failed. It was an emotional rollercoaster. I went through nearly all the emotions that Nikki points out in her article. I was drained, both psychologically and emotionally.

It was a tough pill to swallow, but I guess the patient needed it… Because, looking back at my journey, I think it was totally worth it. The opportunity to meet, and learn from other entrepreneurs, investors, and advisors who were creating the new environment, was something that I would have never imagined at a regular and robotic 10 – 5 job.

So here I am at 23, having started a new chapter 6 months back, feeling appreciative to be a part of another startup family, and enjoying every minute of this new challenge.

So, were you infected by the startup bug too? I’d love to hear your story! 😀