Starting a Company

avi said:
I have to agree with you here with my past experience of entrepreneurship. It's very very difficult to find co-founder someone who understands everything, the technology involved, the idea and every other strategy. IMO, finding a bride is lot easier. However you still need to get someone. It changes the whole game altogether. You will be able to do much more work and things will improve.

however in your case its difficult. cryptocurrency is still a new concept for many Indian devs.

and people don't PM me for your bitcoin ventures, I was just kidding :p
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The idea wasn't to find someone who understands everything. Hell I will certainly like a person who doesn't understand. He will ask a lot of questions and it might lead to some epiphanies; ideas I wouldn't have thought of. The issue was cryptocurrency space and people asking monetary gains upfront.

I did get a friend to eventually help me out. Lets see how that turns out :)

Btw, you were interested in making tons of money, now you have ample opportunities. Take a chance ;)
 
I believe in finding a partner or partnering up only if the other person brings something completely different and new to the table, especially their skill set. I do not partner up for any other reason, not even a truckload of money.
 
Having started at least 5 ventures in my life and working on my most successful till date, I can give you some advice

0) Figure out who's baby this is. Who's the lead? And make sure he/she gets majority stake in the company. Will make future a lot lot easier.
1) Make an org chart. Assign responsibilities, and duties. This will also help you decide what all you guys will be doing. One person may even take 5-6 different roles. I did.
2) Get an office. Paying expenses, really forces you to think financially.
3) Start working.
4) Register your company and rest of the trivialities.

Its not that hard, and you dont need business plans, or even too much money. Boot-strap everything, and then sell your soul to a VC when your big enough.

Also if your gonna be a small skilled company, you can easily follow the ReWork philosophy. But if your gonna be a company that is large, then for every time an unanswered questions, start formalising a policy, and keep a corporate mind-frame.
 
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Sure.

During college, as we all know money used to be short, so I would do whatever to earn money, teach people Macintosh, unlock iPhones, make websites, start businesses :p

My first venture was Collegefest.in. Started in college with a few friends, made it on Joomla with a nice theme. Was designed to make navigating College Festivals easier. Lost a maybe 2-3K on that.

Second venture was a company called Zen Simplify. I had discovered dx.com. Me and a few friends figured get cheap electronics, rebrand and sell. A lot harder than we thought. So that flopped too.

Third venture another web idea called Locatr. It had started off with a friend of mine, who wanted to make a site. Soon enough I was his partner. We wanted to make something rivalling Four Square and wanted to pay 50K for it. Well long story short, we had our ambitions too high and more losses happened.

In my final year in college, I met a designer, who was amazing at Photoshop. So I figured he can make designs, I can make websites, and my other friend does flash work. So we decided to start Doorknob Design. First project was Ajantainfraltd.com. Our bank account opened in October 2009, just to get this money.

After college, my only option was to work in Central Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, IDEA, Dad's Contacts and finally to continue doing what I was doing. So I stayed on, added 1 more partner (4 now) and a few employees. Put in 50k, got some PC's, got an office near Kennedy bridge for 9000 a month, in August 2010. Rented our next office in Nariman Point in May 2011 for 40K a month. Business had picked up by then.

Our turning point came when we got our first massive project, a simulator for Mahindra Earthmaster in July 2011. Paid us a nice sum, and we delivered it in Excon 2011. Got appreciation from everyone. During this period we also got a few other major projects from eBay, MVL, AirFrance etc. This was due to a college colleague who was working in Zenith Optimedia.

It was then that 2 of us (from Doorknob) and my agency friend started Eccentric Engine. Moved to Andheri in Oct 2012. Work has been awesome since then, and now we recently opened our second office in Andheri, right next door to our primary one. We employ close to 25 people now in our offices, and have become great at our work.

Thats my story. I hope you enjoyed it, I did :D
 
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