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New Delhi: It’s the dream of many to leave their day job and become entrepreneurs. Many people see entrepreneurship as a life of freedom, flexibility, and independence as seen in social media. One Indian startup founder, though, recently took a different route and he’s publicly admitted to it, and his candid disclosure has now caught on like wildfire on the internet.
Entrepreneur Mehul Agrawal has revealed the problems he faced after he quit his job to launch his own startup in the corporate world. Mehul shared a video on social media where he said that people talk a lot about the freedom that it provides to be your own boss. In fact, he claimed, the feeling ended after “11 minutes,” because he felt it was time to move on. This humorous but heartfelt tweet was easily picked up by people online.
Mehul said that right after quitting his job, he initially felt excited and motivated. He was like many other first-time founders, who think that he will be able to make all the decisions and have absolute control over his time. He envisioned a life free from the stress of work, meetings and an overbearing boss giving him assignments.
The first couple days was so new and fresh and exciting. He woke up early in the day, did business planning and was thinking ahead for the future of his business. But things soon changed. On the third day it hit him. He knew he was no longer under the boss’s orders, but that everything would fall on him now. All of his decisions, problems, deadlines, and business challenges were to be made alone.
Mehul said that he had been accustomed to grumble about the load and stress from the managers in his normal job. However, once he became a founder he found that the start-up lifestyle can be even more challenging. He didn’t have a set time for his students’ classes, but rather he thought about work, money, growth and plans.
Also he said that there is a different kind of stress involved in entrepreneurship. In the corporate world, individuals typically have an understanding of their pay dates. However, startup founders may experience uncertainty, risk and fear of failure. This pressure can manifest itself in mental health and personal life too.
His genuineness and honesty resonated with many online, especially young entrepreneurs and young professionals. Several users commented that there is a trend to showing only the glamorous part of starting a business on social media and the hardships aren’t shown. Some loved Mehul’s candidness about the emotional and mental toll of the process of starting a business.
In addition, many viewers resonated with his own internal dialogue regarding major career changes, and how it can be difficult to reconcile those decisions. Entrepreneurship can be independent, but it requires discipline, patience and dealing with pressure on a daily basis, some users said.
But with Mehul’s video now going viral, there’s one thing that’s always been so evident: there is a lot more to setting up a business than it appears on the web. Entrepreneurship is a route to creativity and growth; but it is also characterized by uncertainty, long working days and enormous responsibility. During an era when startups seem to be everyone’s dream destination, Mehul’s journey presents a more grounded view of the reality of being a startup founder.
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