2nd April 2011. India won the cricket world cup. And the reason I remember that day is not because India had won the world cup, but because it was my last day working for someone else. It was the last day of my job and a day before I started on my own.
Eleven years have passed, even as the memory remains fresh of that day in 2011. As I bid goodbye to my colleagues, my heart was racing in two directions.
One, towards excitement as I was getting a chance to take control of my life. That is what I had been waiting for for years.
One, towards excitement as I was getting a chance to take control of my life. That is what I had been waiting for for years.
Two, towards anxiety, as I was taking a chance on my abilities even as I was uncertain about what I would exactly do to feed my family and myself. I was never a “business” type, and I had never learned how to deal with people. I was too shy to even talk to people.
That I had my wife’s complete support and faith in me, and that I had zero liabilities and some savings to start with, were the only saving grace for me to actually take that plunge.
As I plunged into an unknown future, it turned out to be one on the deep end of the pool. My son was born a month later, and he was premature and hospitalized for 20 days, which took away a large part of my savings. But I had started with no Plan B, and that remained the plan.
I started as a content writer, trying to offer my services to anyone who was willing to hire me. I got jobs paying ₹ 1/word, to write several 100 words articles every day. I hated that kind of writing. It was mechanical, boring, and cheap. But I started. I had no other choice.
Three months into writing such cheap, meaningless stuff, I was approached by someone to write a 25-page report for an IT product company. I had no idea what to write, but I accepted the offer.
It was paying me ₹ 10,000 for that report, and it was big money for someone who was earning ₹ 1 per word. I wrote that report, it was bad, and I received just 50% of the money.
Life kept moving, and I tried to keep up with its pace. A few more such writing projects came. Some people paid in full, most did not. I did not lose heart, because my wife did not lose heart. Life was good, as I got to spend almost my entire time with my family.
Meanwhile, I started SN in July, again not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I had to write on value investing and teach people how not to lose their money in the stock market, but I had no idea how that work would pay, and how much. Again, I had no choice but to start.
Life kept moving, and I again tried to keep up with its pace. Writing projects had dwindled. And I had no choice but to jump headlong into writing for myself. I used to write two articles daily, one on investing, and one for my other website on writing (which I closed).
There were days when no one signed up for my free newsletter on SN. And on the days when one or two people signed up, I used to shout out happily to my wife that someone signed up. A few months passed, and I kept writing and writing, even when very few people were reading.
Early next year (2012), I planned my first investing workshop in Bangalore. Why Bangalore? Because that was the only place where I had a friend who had a conference room that she was offering me for free to conduct my session.
And since I was too shy to ask my audience for any money, I kept the pricing at “₹ 0 to ₹ 5000, anything you want to pay after the workshop.” After each such session, I went to my room and the first thing was to open the envelope to see how much money people paid.
Most paid ₹ 100 to ₹ 500, and a few paid ₹ 5000. I think the first person who paid me ₹ 5000 was @ashishkila in Delhi, a fellow investor I admire a lot, not only for that ₹ 5000 but also for his wisdom. Thank you Ashish, if you are reading this.
I trusted my workshop audience that they would pay me at least to cover my costs, and they returned the trust by doing what I expected of them. There was just one incident when one person did not pay anything and left a message in the envelope that read – “Lunch was not enough.”
As time progressed, the site got more readers and subscribers, but the inflection point came when I interviewed Prof @Sanjay__Bakshi, and he posted that interview link on his site.
I had 1000 subscribers before that. 500 more joined on the day he posted that interview on his site. Thank you, sir, if you are reading this.
As years passed, the snowball that I could barely see in 2011, got bigger in size. I launched the Mastermind Value Investing course, then the Almanack newsletter, a few eBooks, and finally The Sketchbook of Wisdom and The One Percent Show.
People suffer from recency bias, that they remember the recent past with the greatest vividness. For me, the most vivid memories are from those early years of struggle. Life was highly uncertain, but the days were still joyful.
As I look back at this journey, I realize I have been so lucky to have walked this path and survived to tell the tale. The risk-taking worked, and the practice of “do your work, trust your fellow humans, and don’t worry about the outcome’ worked.
These 11 years seem to have passed in a jiffy, but the time moved slowly when it all started, and I enjoyed and cherished each one of those moments. I live with no regrets. Instead, I am proud of the fact that I have walked this path with complete integrity...
...never even thinking about wavering off what was meant to be a path I had chosen for myself. There have been numerous mistakes I may have made along this journey, and a few people I may have turned off. But I regret none of that.
All I remember is the path, with all its roses and thorns, and that you've walked a bit of that with me. Thank you for that, and for reading this.
By the way, I danced on the night of 2nd April 2011, not because of the start of my new life, but because India won the world cup.😇
By the way, I danced on the night of 2nd April 2011, not because of the start of my new life, but because India won the world cup.😇
Loading suggestions...