How One Chat Changed My Life
- Sidarth Wadhwa
College, aye? The fabled land of wonder that everyone looks forward to when they’re in school. The freedom from parental supervision, the independence to make your own decisions, and the many potential new experiences all add lustre to the idea of college. But once you do get to it, the shine tends to wear off after a while. The monotony of going to classes, the oft uncomfortable hostels, and the underwhelming food provisions soon have freshers longing to go home. Me, being a first year college student myself, had a pretty rough experience with adjusting to the schedule and environment of my college. I had a lot of time on my hands and not much to do with it, besides studying. But I hadn’t come to college just for the studies. I wanted more. I wanted to achieve something more than just being good at studies. I wanted to explore different avenues, chase my ideas and realise them and see how they pan out. This brought me to something that sounds pretty intimidating to someone who is yet to set his life up proper- entrepreneurship.
College, aye? The fabled land of wonder that everyone looks forward to when they’re in school. The freedom from parental supervision, the independence to make your own decisions, and the many potential new experiences all add lustre to the idea of college. But once you do get to it, the shine tends to wear off after a while. The monotony of going to classes, the oft uncomfortable hostels, and the underwhelming food provisions soon have freshers longing to go home. Me, being a first year college student myself, had a pretty rough experience with adjusting to the schedule and environment of my college. I had a lot of time on my hands and not much to do with it, besides studying. But I hadn’t come to college just for the studies. I wanted more. I wanted to achieve something more than just being good at studies. I wanted to explore different avenues, chase my ideas and realise them and see how they pan out. This brought me to something that sounds pretty intimidating to someone who is yet to set his life up proper- entrepreneurship.
One of my seniors worked for a club related
to startups and entrepreneurship. One day we were having a coffee at our
on-campus café when the conversation tipped towards the idea of
entrepreneurship- the dangers, the highs, the lows, and of course, the
experience. I decided to pitch to him an idea for a product that I thought was
needed. It was a very basic pitch. I’d been flirting with this idea for a
while, it had come to me on one of the many afternoons I spent sitting on my
hostel room bed, pondering over what I wanted to do with life, but I had never
thought that it’d get to see the light of day, at least not via me. I always
expected some other company to make it, always expected some other big brand to
put it out. Anyway, I still went ahead and told the idea to my friend. He
seemed interested, albeit slightly apprehensive about it’s validity in the real
world. So, we decided to do a pilot (which is basically a very small scale
launch of a prototype model of your idea to see the response it gets) in our
college itself. He put me in touch with people from his club who could help me
make my idea a successful reality.
Two months later, we are almost ready with
the prototype that we would put out for the pilot. Even if it fails, I’ll still
be glad. I finally did something. After the many academics focussed years spent
at school, I did something that was tangible. The experience of creating
something worthy of putting out to even a few people made me realize the power
I posses. We all have ideas, the difference arises because very few of us pay
attention to a fleeting thought and make something real out of it. This little
taste of entrepreneurship made me want more. It instilled me with confidence,
the confidence to chase my dreams, go beyond the prescribed curriculum and
reach out into new domains. It really added to me as a person. If nothing else,
it gave me the opportunity to work with many great new people and taught me the
work ethic required to build something of your own.
I would urge
everyone to explore what their mind comes up with. You don’t know what the next
billion dollar idea’s gonna be, and nothing says that it couldn’t be from you.
And best of all, you don’t need any qualifications to come up with a brilliant
idea. Just make sure you get in touch with like minded people who can help you.
And off you go, on this beautiful and unexpected ride of entrepreneurship.
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