Today met few college friends. We were recollecting the career aspirations we all had then & how much we achieved. I was one of those rare youngster who had more than 1 career choice and amongst the rarest of lot having more than 3 career paths. My friends remembered those choices & It dawned on us that I fulfilled those multi career aspirations. Till today, even I had not taken cognizance of this. Guess thats why friends are for. They make you see how good you are. My choices was on the roles in the Working World.
As Student I wanted to:
- Be a Businessman:
This was the reason after school, I chose Commerce Stream instead of Science. In the 1990s most businessmen were with Commerce education. Immediately after graduation, I started my 1st business. The reason to be businessman was not to horde money but to Act on an Idea, Be my own Boss, Create an open culture & employee friendly workplace, Deliver exceptional product & service, Evangelize an Enterprise. - Be a Consultant at the BIG 4 consulting firms:
As a student pursuing CA, CS, aspiring to be in IIM, Its natural to dream of landing your 1st job at one of the BIG 4 consulting firm. However I left the academic pursuits to start my 1st venture. After 2 decades of doing business, in 2018 got an opportunity to transient from An entrepreneur to An employee. Guess what? This 1st job I got, was at the Big 4. I was appointed in June 2018, at Ernst & Young (EY) as Project Manager in Transaction Advisory Service. - Be a Serial Entrepreneur:
I wanted to start multiple businesses. I believe am an idea man & visionary. I sense consumer trends & new industry before they become mainstream. Hence my wish over course of life was to turn many ideas into scalable businesses. I am happy to say that Till now I have founded 6 different ventures in varied new age industry. And all of these businesses I started well before they became mainstream (for e.g Web development in 1998, Web software in 2001, Ecommerce in 2010, Digital payments in 2014). Watch our for more transforming Ideas into businesses, the entrepreneur in me is not done yet. I have left in me 1-2 more ventures before I bid adieu to entrepreneurship. 1 venture getting ready to launch soon. - Be an International Businessman:
I wanted to do business globally, Have global clients. Do business in many countries & Open International offices, branches. I got an opportunity to visit different countries & we had clients in more than 15 global cities. We built affiliates in many countries. I also started a new company in Dubai, UAE. Heck, I even visited Pakistan, Libya for business development. One of the aspiration was to Startup in USA & bought by an American company. Well an American company did acquire 1 of my venture but Starting Up up in USA is still an unfulfilled career aspiration. - Become an Entrepreneur with Successful Exit:
The 1st company, I co-founded was acquired but the deal went bad. So as an entrepreneur was always looking to build business with an objective of selling in the future. I have huge admiration & respect for entrepreneurs who build business to last. I realized during my entrepreneurial journey, I lack those skills. My 2nd venture ran it for 7 years, I was exhausted. Since then have focussed on building businesses to sell. I believe it requires different skill to take business from scale to growth and at the same time my skill is to make something out of nothing. Hence from idea to scale is what I have knack of. Finally the last 2 businesses got successful exit. I got an opportunity to sell my stake & exit these ventures. Though this happened later (always want faster) & lesser (always want more) than planned. Future goal is that next venture will exit at the valuation of minimum 50 million $. - Government Administrator for Public Policy & Evangelist for Citizen Welfare Program:
Since school days, I was interested in Administration & Public Policy. I won the 1st election held in our School. As Head Prefect, I used the influence & power to bring instrumental changes & new activities, processes rules for students betterment. I consulted with Students, brought teachers & other school stakeholders on common platform. Since that experience till now, I understand the great power of authority & influence. This power should be channelized to do good and make a difference. As part of EY Government Advisory we have consulted, advised and advocated citizen welfare policy & program. Assisted Government in administering program & implementation of these policies. As EY consultant had limited influence and we were at arms length. In future, Looking for more active role within Ministry, Government Department & organization and assist in Nation Building. I am most passionate about this ROLE.My choices were varied from a businessman to a politician to a government administrator to a big 4 consultant to a serial entrepreneur.
Like my friends said that it requires more than 1 life to achieve all of this. It was possible for me to achieve in lesser time, as I started young (1st company at age of 20). I started as an Entrepreneur then turned to be an Employee at EY & performed role as a surrogate Public servant. IMO, the reverse way is very difficult to achieve meaning from an Employee to turn to Entrepreneur or as Public Servant to Entrepreneur. So my advice & suggestion to every young person looking to enter the with your own world of doing business.
How much did I achieve Materially was another discussion we had & will write in due course about that discussion.