I started this journey with a jolt this January, when I got laid off from my job as a Manager at a big MNC. In the notice period, they did offer me many other roles, one of which got finalized and was about to accept, but something in me kept telling me to use this opportunity to fulfill the startup dream that I was dreaming for a long time.
First there is a bit of flashback. I came from humble background and during final stages of engineering had to sustain myself and to get enough money to come to Bangalore. It is during those days I got hold of telephone coin box ads and became a reseller of them in the remote region of Karnataka. Within few months I made enough money to get through engineering and landed up in Bangalore. While the journey in software industry has been great and it provided me a huge exposure, I have often wondered what would have happened, if I had pursued the coin box business. That is the reason; I never brought EMI obligations on myself and kept myself relatively free to startup.
So I quickly connected with a friend with whom I shared a common passion of fitness. Started working on a software product (SaaS) idea for gyms. Our plan was to spend a year building the product and see where it goes. So in a way not a great plan. That is when I heard about the pre-entrepreneur bootcamp called iKEN from iSPIRT and duly signed up.
In the hindsight it was one of the best decisions I took. The program itself was great, I learned a lot, but I was struggling in the class and didn’t/couldn’t complete many tasks specially ones focusing on the customer specs and asks. Meanwhile things unraveled with my co-founder as well and I realized that he isn’t ready to quit the job and we parted ways in a civil way. With things back to square one I started thinking very hard about the whole thing. Everyone in the batch from anchors (Prasanna, Rajan and Manjula) to fellow batch mates was trying to get me back on the trail.
Finally a hard, blunt discussion with Milindh a fellow batch-mate who asked me really hard questions made me wake up and I started applying the fundamentals that the boot camp tries to focus on.
First one was “What I know, who I know what I have”. I realized building software product with high-end technology is not my strong point and my biggest skill is selling things to folks. My telephone coin box experience was a good memory and data point for this.
Second was the “bird in the hand principle”. I realized that while the gym software is a viable product, I didn’t really have the money until the product is ready which could take months and will burn lot of money without a technology person on board. My “affordable loss” at this time was only the opportunity cost and not anything more.
So at around 9th week of the program (it is a 10 week program and I didn’t graduate), I simply decided to drop the idea and went back to the drawing board. I realized one of the problems that I was constantly facing was getting a water can delivered to home. There are just too many delays and multiple folks to call to get it delivered. Most were unorganized and tracking them was very hard. I realized I could potentially make this process simple smooth and efficient. What’s more? This could be a cash generating business very quickly.
Armed with this theory, I literally hit the road on my two-wheeler, chased down the water delivery guys, met factory folks and many corporates. It was an immense and exhausting field research but the amount of real data I had convinced me that I am on the right path, so I sat down and set up a website (www.bookacan.com) and started delivering to my first few customers. There is huge “co-creation” happening with delivery guys and factories. I am happy to announce I have a steady business now and lot of new things in the plan.
While I understand it is a long journey before I call it a success, I am happy that I reached the clarity needed and am up and running. Please check my project at www.bookacan.com and drop me a line if you are interested in collaborating and co-creating.
Contributed by Prabhu Stavarmath, BookACan