Becoming An Entrepreneur:
From a very early age, I have been the kind of person who connects with everything around me; everything that I do is at a deep emotional level. My inner passion to bring about a change was the drive towards entrepreneurship. Even in the businesses that I ventured into before Future Fit, I was always trying to solve something or change something that I saw as sub optimal. I have always felt that our country lacks opportunities for kids to be physically active. No matter how much we complain about kids being lazy and glued to screens, we as parents and caregivers have not been able to deal with real issues relating to pollution, safety, etc. which makes us restrict kids access to outdoor activities.
These issues were the genesis for coming up with Future Fit. I worked and researched to put together the best of the coaches, imparted them the necessary training required to work with younger age groups, created the best of the facilities and offered the most researched programs for kids fitness. We added to this a garnishing of fun and love and in the year 2013 Future Fit was born.
Financial Security in Self-Employment:
The alternate path is scary due to the financial stakes involved, the variety of skills required to succeed and the high failure rate. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, but I think the connect with the larger purpose of a venture and the drive and motivation that creating something gives, is unparalleled. Corporate life will often be about how efficiently someone can walk or run on a road, but the thrill of building a road for others to walk is what entrepreneurship provides. A candid self-assessment of what a person wants to do in life and what are the priorities should form the basis for getting into entrepreneurship instead of a Corporate Life or vice-versa.
Initial Challenges:
My challenges in becoming an entrepreneur were not very different from an average Indian woman who chooses this path. I started this journey at a very young age and I only had a strong passion to make up for the lack of experience and financial back-up. As a person reaches late twenties, she starts acquiring multiple roles of a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law and today if I look back at that stage of my life, I would happily say that I never gave myself an opportunity to compromise on any of those roles even though my entrepreneurial pursuits were taking up a majority of my time. My family has been supportive throughout my career, but since all my ventures started bootstrapped, there has been a lot of pressure to make financial sense in a short span of time.
Your Advice:
I believe that the success stories we read in newspapers may be good motivators but end up setting the wrong expectations for a lot of new entrepreneurs. The chances of failure are high, the odds of getting it right the first time are low, but there is no reason to not try. One should have the ability to hang in there and be self-committed to giving whatever it takes to get it right eventually. The basic life skills of being self-driven, open to feedback, negotiation skills, communication skills, etc. are the ones that finally define a successful career as an entrepreneur or otherwise.