Visit blogadda.com to discover Indian blogs Blog Directory Entertainment Mind Trends - Blogged MindTrends: Startup Dreams_Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?!
Loading

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Startup Dreams_Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?!


I really am excited, I rush up to my room and bang into Sirjee’s room and found him all alone. I thrust the paper in front of his face and gleefully “Find anyone familiar?” Sirjee looks into it and say “This is good put it on the notice board.” At that moment I realize the extent of his selflessness. Not on word about when did this happen why did you not tell me. He had every right to know as he had worked on it putting in nearly as much effort as me. But, I wasn’t very sure about the outcome so I had not updated him. And to a small extent he wasn’t all that gung –ho about the entire project.

The next person I told in person was “S”. I wasn’t sure about his reaction, but one look at the paper and he was all wow and congrats. Now I am not an expert, but his wishes sounded genuine, so I told him there might be future PR events too and if he would like to join it would be possible. Respectfully “S” said,” Srikant keep me out of it, I have done nothing to deserve any kind of mention. You asked for help and I did just that.” Now that felt good, when someone helps you without any predetermined intent, it normally means they respect you, believe in you or both.

Anyway I send out the web link to the class representative and that guy is surprised as well,” You never told “, he said in a kind of accusatory tone. Now even I did not know that this was to happen and I am not in the habit of talking about things before they happen. I just shrugged and let that comment pass. However, he dropped a mail to the entire batch and predictably it created a flurry. There were some congrats, some back thumps but everybody was far more interested to know if I had made some money out of it, which I did not. However this answer was not palatable and not many actually believed it. Certain people often believe what they want to and no amount of alternate convincing would make them change their minds. On the contrary, sometimes it would just strengthen their perceptions of the same. So I again smiled and shrugged away their disbeliefs.

This episode of press PR also galvanized me into doing something for areapal. There other such events and some local channels and dailies also covered us. The hit count of the site went up and the idea which me and “S” worked out was well received and possibly one of the good ways to monetize the site. Kavi however decided to defer the design part of it. He was more interested in increasing the registration, and I suspected Rams mandate behind it. I however was more worried about activities post registration. If people don’t find anything worthwhile inside they are just bound to remain a statistic on the database and not an active user.

In the midst of all this I got a call form Joji. Just to refresh this was the guy who I met at the IE interview and who was also working on areapal. I was rather surprised to hear from him, as we did not usually interact. Joji did not bother with any preliminaries and immediately went to the point. Seems he had run the plan I recommended to a couple of his friends and had a few suggestions. That seemed ok, but is till could not understand his intentions in calling me. I was to fathom it later when he digressed into a tirade against Kavi; his style of working lack of planning and all.

Click Here
  1. Chapter 1 - It Aint So Easy !!
  2. Chapter 2 - All Angels Dont Have Wings ..
  3. Chapter 3 - Began with a Bang 
  4. Chapter  4 - It is all in Packaging :) 
  5. Chapter 5 - Bangs Ending up in Whimpers?

2 comments:

Pradeep said...

Mr. S?? Seems like IFMR had a new person whom none of us knew except u :)

and abt the blog...to be frank the 1st 2 posts were a little boring but the last 2 are back to the best...

Srikant Rajan said...

All of you knew man, i just want to keep him confidential...at his request only :)