Ideas- Get Bashed but Keep Going Ahead

           When the sun was setting in the ‘valley‘; it was rising in the India with new ray of hopes. And I was dreaming of the next big idea with my eyes open. I was still sleeping and idea started to convert into a flourishing business. I found myself pitching the idea to inner self. Woah, I was again successful in convincing myself to work hard on it (with the time now I have developed good presentation skills ;) ).

All of a sudden there was this annoying sound which was increasing slowly and sounded familiar. I realized that it’s my mobile’s alarm ringing. I looked on my mobile’s screen with half closed eyes; it showed 8:30 AM and I was already late for my class. I stood up from the bed and rushed towards the institute.

 As I reached in the class professor was standing there with another quiz. I sat on a bench where a friend was sitting; and mumbled to him “why he takes so many quizzes without teaching anything?” And then professor was calling out my name saying “focus on your paper” and sent me to the first bench where no one was sitting (Yes, in college there is always space for you on the first bench). I started reading the question; wtf! I don’t have any idea how to proceed the question. There I was sitting on the first bench with no idea of how to solve that problem of ‘Communication Systems’; and the same thought popped into my mind again. Only difference was that I was not sleeping this time. I thought about it again and realized that this idea actually has good business potential.

After the class I was not interested in discussing the quiz instead I talked about that idea to a friend. He did not seem to be interested. I came back to the hostel and started researching about the idea and its potential. It was getting interested and I saw its lunch time now, but who cares about messy mess food.

I spent few more days on writing a business plan for the whole idea. Now, I was all set to pitch it in front of people; the final users of my product. I started talking to the people around me. First person was not interested in it and so was the second. I was backed down but I was still optimistic (you always have to be optimistic while you are working on a start-up). I pitched the idea to few more people; still there was not very good response. My seemingly good presentation skills were not showing the results this time.

The foiled attempt was making me furious and I started thinking that people generally say “when we will have next facebook or google emerging from India.” And after this I realized if things remain same we can’t see next facebook or google emerging out from India; because in India people don’t really care about your idea and your aspirations.

At the same moment another thought came into my mind that if someone in India would have come up with idea of facebook; people would have told him that:

“Why we need something which will connect friends on internet; we have better things to do over internet. We have cell phones, telephones, and posts (letters) to connect with them. And even if they are not sufficient we have pigeons (kabootar) for accomplishing the task.”

Out of frustration I started browsing internet and stumbled upon an article which brought a smile on my face. Few of the final lines were:

Whatever the current scenario is don’t forget you are an entrepreneur. Only you can bring that ‘change’ in the society. So, if you have got a ‘whacky’ idea, get feedback from few good people; go ahead, build the product and take it out to the market. We all know people will not support you initially but once you have validated the product they will. So “Keep Calm and Innovate.”