Entreprenuership is rarely a Linear path

The above picture about Entrepreneurship is one of the best pictures about the journey of running a Business Venture. It is never a straight line,always filled with challenges, peaks, valleys, mountains to cross, calm rivers, rough seas , regulatory issues, cash flow crunches, employee challenges. I can keep on adding to the list.

When I started my first venture with my friend back in 2011, first we got hit by the 2012 recession, then followed by 2 years of really bad business practices, then a year of distraction by trying to diversifying little too early , finally took us another 2 years to set the process right and find our feet back and then 3 years of good performance. Things were getting pretty interesting and we were expanding territories, portfolio, channels. Our Team was set and people were enjoying the challenges. We had become quite a decent sized enterprise with our business discipline and focus. However When things were going well, to our bad luck we first got hit slightly by the Economy Slowdown especially the Auto Slowdown last quarter and now this Quarter with the Corona Virus.

I feel the the Corona Impact is going to set us back a year or so, But it also opens new opportunities and challenges to work on and look forward. This will be a blackswan event in the lifetime of many of us - we have not seen such an event and we probably may not see such an event . 

Rarely it happens that the whole world is in lock-down mode and the economic impacts are going to come from every corner in every country. There have been lots of lives lost which could have been saved, lots of live will be lost if the situation continues to deteriorate, peoples spending  pattern will change, consumption will decrease for a while but life has to go on to ensure we and rest of the business units work towards minimizing the impacts. At the end of the day, We are responsible to our customers, suppliers, employees and the people who in turn depend on them.

Luckily this break has  helped me to think through, conceptualize new ideas and there are somethings we intend to do differently

1. Look at the possibilities of on Manufacturing for some of the times  that we import from China

2. Look for opportunities outside our Core Portfolio and minimize the Risks

3. Look to increase the Service Offerings in the current segment

4. Look for continuous improvement in the current opportunities and  processes

5. Look to offer one new product line and one new service line this year.

The last few  weeks have been quite stressful and giving me sleepless nights when I think how this impact is actually going to hit us and every other Micro, Small & Medium companies and in-turn create a ripple effect on the overall labor situation in the country !!

In a weeks time we will step into our 10th year of existence and this probably is the most toughest battle yet but we have our boxing gloves ready again for another round.

This is one of my favorite quotes on Entrepreneurship - Entrepreneurship is not a sprint or marathon. It is a series of races where you need to crawl, walk, run, duck, jump, swim repeatedly every day in and out. Whatever you do you have to keep moving.

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