Two stints separated by 15 years

After reading the first post on "Entrepreneur Diaries' Ashutosh asked me write about my first stint as well. Ashutosh is my friend for 46 years who happens to be my cousin, classmate etc etc - so when he said something I had to attempt it!! 

My first stint as an entrepreneur started way back in November 1997 with no experience of business development, no strategy- but with a strong desire to be an entrepreneur! Even with my optimism, today I do not dare to call the opportunity with which I started then , as an opportunity - one of my brother-in-law's friend was traveling to India and he had casually mentioned that if he gets right people, he might hire a few for his US firm. First lesson learned resonates with famous quote by the micologist George W Carver - "Start wherever you are, with whatever you have, make something out of it and never be satisfied" - the stint started with a reasonably successful first assignment which resulted in few of the zillion stupid incidents of my life - when my first client asked me to send an invoice, I went to my father to ask him about how to write an invoice!! So amused was he that he still laughs when he remembers that!

So how was entrepreneurship different for me in 90's? well in lot if ways - I still remember having a character based shell account where you had to use kermit commands to download a single word file - got my TCP/IP account a few months later and it was a big deal to have that in a dial-up mode!! General access to information was limited and there were no portals when I set up my hiring business! Voice calls still competed with mails as a mode of communication! 

I'm also grateful to that stint as it taught me vagaries of cashflow and it washed away my sense of entitlement! Just because you've done work you can't count the money unless it is in your bank. While my short stint of corporate life had taken me away from some ground realities, visit to bank due to lack of internet banking introduced me to the real world away from the corporate world! It was humbling to see small time traders and grocers dealing in more money than you with an ease! The biggest gift that stint gave me was to help me overcome my insecurities of any kind - you are just standing there  your own with no 'logo' backing you and no 'title' elevating you above the ground level! 

While I did well, I felt I cannot go beyond recruitment business unless I build some serious profile and get an exposure to the larger world! Thats when I joined back the corporate world to get my exposure!

While there are lots of differences in then and now, there are a few things common - I still believe in the best planning tools I had back then - the two i's - instinct and intuition. With a whole world of information at beck and call, I have come to believe in it even more! Entrepreneurship was lonely back then and with all due respect to social media, lonely even now - which kind of suits an introvert like me!

The way I see my entrepreneurship today is a continuation of my first stint separated by a great higher education program - hopefully I will keep learning now on the job!!