I am excited, with a tinge of nervousness (!), to announce that I have stepped out of my full time engagement with a software development firm based out of NOIDA, NCR, to create my footprints on entrepreneurial landscape.
Excitement to kick off entrepreneurial experiments, nervousness rather butterflies in the stomach about how to make firm steps toward my future endeavors.
After years of working as a full-time employee, somewhere I found my career was not moving further in my present engagement. Rather it was stranded, and my career growth has virtually come to a naught.
I have had the entrepreneurial zeal since early 2000, but I couldn’t muster enough courage to pursue because of lack of confidence (which is still there), and compulsion of earning livelihood. And, interestingly, charting your course of action is somewhere contrarian to ‘middle class values’ that signify-study hard, get a good job with hefty pay package, and remain happy rest of the life with secure income and steady salary.
And, definitely, transition from a 9-to-5 job requires a leap of faith. (Entrepreneurial Wisdom) 🙂
However forced by the flat career growth trajectory, I couldn’t wait anymore. Now, it is high time, now or never for me, it’s time to run my own show. It’s about breathing life into something (?) and then working to make sure that life becomes something beautiful.
At this juncture, various options crop up: Consulting, Development of Information Products, Affiliate Marketing, Content Marketing, Content Curation, and, eventually, Social Media Products. It seems I have too much stuffs up my sleeve, enough to lose my focus, which is an anathema to a person charting out an unknown territory.
But, I don’t see I am losing any focus. Rather, I think that I have so many options to try out in my everlasting entrepreneurial journey, which is about to start. Sort of iterative business model of a lean startup. 🙂
If you look into the areas where I am planning to venture, you can sense a pattern. Being an Information Scientist, I have had varied experience working in various industries right from Securities & Finance, to NGOs, to Career & Education, to Information Technology and Digital Media.
I have spent almost 9 years into IT services marketing, doing content writing, technical writing, marketing communication, corporate communications, web strategy and online marketing, web 2.0 products and social media product development, corporate blogging, online reputation management and digital media.
Having such varied experience, Consulting in Digital Media, Corporate & Marketing Communication, Marketing Collaterals, come out as a natural and sustainable option to continue with my entrepreneurial journey since I have been in this business for over 15 years.
Building Information products will help to create product portfolio that showcase learning, understanding, capabilities and expertise, which will eventually help exploit the most attractive business opportunities. In addition, it can create an additional revenue stream.
More importantly, selling information products and affiliate marketing are the two most successful internet business models. And, interestingly, content marketing and content curation are natural extension.
All these initiatives are seriously meant to have a sustainable business model. Somewhere instinctive call! Being entrepreneur requires tremendous amount of small leaps of faith to continue.
Now, let me harp on development of Social Media Applications and Analytics Products, leveraging cloud computing and SaaS model, which will undoubtedly be my entrepreneurial aspirations, and may come at a later stage of my entrepreneurial journey, if things go well. 🙂
In today’s networked world, cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS) in particular are increasingly being accepted as an effective way of reducing the risks and cost associated with running and developing applications in-house.
Moreover, the adoption of social tools is increasingly seen as an effective way of improving workforce productivity, communication and knowledge sharing both internally and externally. Social media data, the Big Data, on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, which is highly time-sensitive, are going to be used for Sales, Marketing and Customer Service applications, and for predicting political sentiments.
If I pursue all these activities with some changes to meet business objectives, products development will be, hopefully, “a must-have” in my portfolio. Seemingly a preposterous overstatement! Or, an entrepreneurial vision!!
Making mistakes is a part of adventure of entrepreneurship, and quickly recovering from them is what’s most important. In business, there is no substitute for entrepreneurial experience. So if I set out on a journey, I’ve got to go.
So burn it up, baby. My entrepreneurial zeal and business ideas are counting on me.
