Psychedelhic Times

“Next year I’m going to start up!”

This week I roughly complete three years since resigning from my job at Oracle, a decision that took me quite some time execute. I’m sure lots of wannapreneurs deal with this situation every day, maybe more so around the new years’ eve.

“That’s it, next year I’m starting off on my own!” This is carried forward from the list of resolutions from the past year, placed ambitiously between “lose weight till I look like Brad Pitt” and “learn to play the guitar like Satriani”. Various tools are employed to come to this decision. Spreadsheets are made to calculate how long savings will last. Mind maps and decision trees are drawn on the walls to weigh the pros and cons. Friends are consulted, booze parties are held for ideation. LinkedIn account is brought up to date, with the network expanded to even include the newspaper delivery man (who knows, he might be useful when I start my thing).

Sounds familiar? I hear you. Been there, done (some of) that. There are people who start projects on the side, and use that as the motivation to quit one day and go full time into pursuing that project as a startup. I envy them. I simply “wanted to do my own thing”. No side projects (my job was pretty demanding), no business plan, no prototype, not even an idea - except the idea of building something that could impact a lot of people. The idea of being my own boss.

I quit my comfortable job, relocated to my home town and moved in with my parents, who had a tough job convincing friends and family that I wasn’t really laid off in the economic recession. I dreaded the “what’s up?” routine more than anything else. My social circle was left behind in Hyderabad, and I’d no easy way to rebuild it in New Delhi. As crappy as it gets.

Fast forward to today. I’m still living with my parents and my bank balance is the stuff of legends (i.e., the initial chapters where our protagonist is pretty much broke). Friends are buying cars, getting married and even contributing to our nation’s massive human capital. Meanwhile I’ve started and folded one startup, with proceeds going to a second startup which is still a work-in-progress. On the finance, health and relationship front things have never been worse. Fatigue is setting in. Frankly, a lot of shit has happened in these years that only few friends know completely about.

But the glass is not half empty. I’ve met some amazing people, made great new friends and shipped kick-ass products. I’ve got more love letters than a high school hottie. I’ve succumbed to the joy of creation so badly that nothing else matters.

In these very intense three years of my life, I’ve second-guessed thousands of decisions. On days I’ve been more excited than a kid on Christmas eve, and on others, grumpier than Scrooge on, um, Christmas eve. But the one thing that never happened was regretting the decision to quit my job.

I’m sure this post qualifies for “I’ve-heard-this-sh*t-hundreds-of-times-before Award of the Year”, but if I can read your crap, you should read mine too! Anyway, at this point I’m supposed to insert a preachy “follow your dreams” punch line and end the post with an inspirational quote from Steve Jobs, but for now all I offer is some matter for that new brainstorming session you’re planning tonight before you finally put in your papers tomorrow. Or maybe not. I don’t care.

2011 was the year where the worst-case scenario played out for me multiple times, so I’m very optimistic about 2012. Who knows, it might be the year when I finally fit into my old corduroys.