04/11/2019
I am chronicling the journey of our team. Our association dates back to two decades ago, but as partners in business since 2003. My journey as an entrepreneur was not a planned one. My association with a large, prominent, US based medical transcription company earlier was cut short as it went into a downward spiral. The short stint nevertheless fine-tuned me offering valuable insights that would eventually come in handy taking over a sick unit and turning it around with the help of a resilient and committed team. At that point in time, I had no clue how things would pan out. I just jumped into the ship believing it could get no worse!
I think it has been an interesting yet challenging journey since then. We have come a long way as people as well as a business venture. We haven’t made tons of money, neither have we become the talk of the town! However, the journey has been fun and has allowed us build small sustainable organizations in both transcription and software product outsourcing domains. Since 2011, we invested majority of our profits actively supporting young entrepreneurs in spaces which may not necessarily give 10x returns. In other words, we invested on models which addressed needs rather than wants. So our portfolio ventures in India cover Mental Health (www.mindpiper.in), Agri & Livelihood (www.sanjhitokri.com), Boutique Co-working (https://unboxedcoworking.com/coworking-noida), and Food Tech (www.restolabs.com). More recently, we initiated strategic ventures in Bhutan (joge.bt) and also in Russia. Not all went as planned as a couple of ventures bowed out of the race namely Inmotion (www.inmotion.in) that focused on small savings provision for autorickshaw drivers and Whitebox which was in to server management space.
The reason I am chronicling this journey is today two of my dear friends / partners (Rajiv Agarwal and Nihar Ranjan Rout) are taking a step further in this journey of supporting sustainable entrepreneurism, and I thought this would help in spreading the word and building the connection.
They along with two other fellow travelers Kunal and Sameer are on a 5000 Km road trip across rural India, Nepal, and Bhutan spanning a period of 15 days from today! This is going to be cross-pollination trip interspersed with adventure as they go in pursuit of grass root business models as well as potential entrepreneurs. The intent is to exchange ideas as well as provide access to network, skills, and explore the possibility of funding promising individuals.
The first leg of their journey will be to Lucknow (the City of Nawabs & Kebabs) to meet potential agri-entrepreneurs.
I wish them an enjoyable, safe, and rewarding trip as they undertake this road trip in the brand new Isuzu D-Max 4x4.
Look forward to more snippets from me as their journey progresses. :)
