The new age entrepreneur

I was just collecting all my thoughts today which used to ponder around my head for more than an year now! It was more than an year back that I had set out with loads of dreams in my eyes! I joined MBA with an intension of meeting like minded people there with whom I can hopefully end up being an entrepreneur. Not because it was in the air, but I had a dream and my parents supported it. So I decided to give up my personal time to discover my dream. Went in search of people... the right idea... the right moment... In the due course, many new ideas came in... this made me shift my thought process of just a software engineer to that of a person who can actually make a difference in the top management! I became more and more creative... everyday was a new discovery for me... every night was tiring... We used to slog our nights out for just one small hope of making the real difference! We used to meet a lot of young / old guys who were there making a difference. A lot of marketing ideas came out of our brains. We began to observe each and every small thing around us like never before. Hope was at its highest level. We had gathered all courage to go ahead and take the ultimate step. Then came the great American recession! It just shattered our business plans, all the courage was washed out in just a very short span of time :'( ... The markets were hit!! The forecasts were bad!! Hence we had to do the thing we were never prepared for... We dropped the whole idea for the time being...

I didn't want my creativity to die ... I had started photography in the meanwhile and had picked up quite well in a short span of time. Hence decided to play in the market with it being a tool... setup a supply chain of my own with tie ups with 2 local vendors and a retail store. It was a real learning for me! I learnt to make business there... Though I came into the limelight, the recession had hit the art market also. I learnt a lot from the retail store manager (a Punjabi). This gave me the real essence of running a local retail business. It was an amazing experience nevertheless. Later on the ideas kept on coming in making some online business, thus making money etc... finally I tied up with an art market startup to sell my photographs. But it again failed!

Then came a dry period where I just had my normal job and MBA had become screwing now demanding a lot of my time and attention. But my dream was still ON! Then came a time where I got an opportunity to actually join an already running startup to build the sales and plan for the future marketing prospects. Looked like a deal for me! But somewhere inside I did not have a great feeling towards it (probably because it was not my original idea). Nevertheless I agreed for a few things with them. Went ahead and put in a lot of ideas and the real work of a sales and marketing fellow was done. This is when I met a few clients as well trying to convince them about the offerings and stuff. But this feeling which had initially developed in me made me feel more and more tired. I used to go back home everyday in the night with an amazing amount of headache! This is when I realized a few other things and decided to concentrate more on my health.

This was an amazing breathtaking, mind boggling journey for me. Though there was absolutely no monetary benefits for me, it changed me as a person and made me thick skinned! Today I have no fear to failure! I have got over all that. In the due course I discovered quite a few real good people who will be associated with me for lifetime! Even if not physically in contact, at least I would never forget the difference they made in my life!

There was a lot of learning that I take back from this experience of mine! Here it goes...

• Never compensate for your health! You just will loose the interest and the potential if you loose your health!
• Identify who is what and exploit the goodness in them rather than cribbing that they should have had this etc.
• You should have a core team of people with REAL stuff. The idea cannot be implemented otherwise.
• Go behind your dreams and not compensate for anything at least in this. If you are in a mode of compensation, get out of it. It is better to have a job and work for someone else.
• There is a lot of difference between what happens in the real world and what is being portrayed.
• Always have a parallel source of income which serves your bread n butter. This is required if you are not filthy rich or have a family who is dependent on you.
• Have a vision beyond 10-15 yrs. Things will not work out overnight. You cannot expect a sale to be done in 3-4 months, esp if you are a startup!
• Create a buzz in the market, even if your product is virtual!
• Customer is really the emperor!
• Learn from your mistakes; but don't repeat them. You will burn your fingers otherwise!
• Do not neglect even the smallest of the market triggers. The bull whip effect actually exists in the normal business scenarios as well!

These were the few learnings which I would always want to have in mind! This has not been a phase of failure but a learning phase for me! As of now, taking a good break and concentrating more on my health... But will definitely return to it one day with a new idea; a new initiative! The energy is still ON! Also looking at how to change the way India is working now... Any bright sparks out there ...??

Photography & Nudity

Before I start, let me make you guys aware of the fact that this is a pretty matured write and I would expect a professional thought process running through your mind while reading this. Thanks for your co-operation.

It was just a lazy afternoon for me at Reliance timeout near office. I was trying to get some inspiration for photography which has kind of dried up off late :'( ... I was just flipping the pages of this book called "The Photo Book". There were a lot of Nude photographs in the book which took my thoughts to a conversation I had with my marketing professor almost an year back. He had one of his friends who was into Nude photography esp black n white. I feel a nude photograph taken in black n white is a great combination! You will have a LOT of scope of expressing the feelings through a perfect mixture of lighting and facial expression.

Even today nudity is usually considered as a taboo in the Indian society especially with so many narrow minded a**holes around. But even according to the religion, nudity is the purest form of a human being. It is his/her own self. It outrightly displays the amount of confidence portrayed by the person. The day Indians get this into their nerves, we can expect a lot more matured approach towards issues related to it.

Just found this excerpt from the wiki ...

"Nude photography is a style of art photography which depicts the nude human body as a study. Nude photography should be distinguished from erotic photography, which has a sexually suggestive component. Nude photography should also be distinguished from glamour photography, which places more emphasis on the model and her/his sexuality, and treats the model as the primary subject.

Many photographers consider an art nude photograph to be a one that studies the human body, rather than the person. A photograph of a person that is meant to be recognized is called a portrait, and nude photographs often do not show a face at all. Nude photography is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still position. As an art form, nude photography is a stylized depiction of the nude body with the line and form of the human figure as the primary objective. Photographers sometimes use extremes of light and shadow, oiled skin, and shadows falling across the body to show texture and structure of the body."

I feel Nude photography is a very matured way of expressing your thoughts. It not only involves a lot of photography skills, but also is a lot dependent on the expressions of the model! Even with a lot of good work towards lighting, if the model doesn't have good expressions, the pic will be filled with vulgarity. It is a thin line of demarcation which a photographer has to be careful about! Even with a proper lighting set, the photo has to have a good exposure of colors. This will help to differentiate in the depth of the different shades of gray.

Even as an observer, one has to understand photography to actually make out the inner meaning of the photograph so that it can be appreciated and not blamed for vulgarity reasons.

Just took this topic to write about today... Hope you guys liked it... Happy blogging!!