Bringing a Childhood Cricket Dream to Life: My Journey as a Player
February 11, 2023
Starting a business can be both exhilarating and challenging, and my journey has been a testament to that. I had the privilege of starting two businesses with my college seniors, Digendra Singh Rathore (DSR) and Yadwinder Paul Singh.
In my early days, I had no fascination for the solar industry, but it was my close friendship with these two guys that led me to become a part of their idea and eventually, the co-founder of SolarWaale. My passion for marketing led me to spend a lot of time designing logos, business cards, and website pages, but little did I know that this was the least important thing to do as a bootstrapped entrepreneur.
Anyways, despite being a full-time student pursuing my undergrad degree in chemical engineering, the entrepreneurial journey of SolarWaale was a roller coaster ride with its fair share of successes and failures. Our first major milestone was being part of the accelerator program of IIMA-based Infuse Ventures (https://angel.co/company/infuse-ventures/funding), which funnily also opened the doors for me to experience my first-ever airplane journey.
After graduating from the program with INR 1 Million in grants, we had our biggest dream come true when we were shortlisted by YCombinator for the final round of interviews in Silicon Valley. That March was probably the most happening month ever in my life, but the excitement was short-lived as we couldn’t make it through the final round and had to return to India to start from scratch again.
After a lot of deliberation, we decided to focus our energy on another business idea in the real estate domain, and that’s how Fella Homes was born. This business was more successful and gave us the success we were looking for (More on this later).
What happened to SolarWaale, you might ask? It almost shut the shop, but thanks to our Ironman friend Somnath Kapoor, who kept steering the ship and took over the company. After 1.5 years of consistent hard work, he was able to turn the tide, pivot the business model, and rebrand the company to SolarAMC, which is now one of the leading AMC players in the Indian rooftop solar market.
This story is a testament to the fact that success is never final, and failure is never fatal. It’s not about how many times you get knocked down, but it’s about how many times you get back up. Entrepreneurship is a journey, and it’s a learning process. Embrace the challenges, keep pushing forward, and never give up on your dreams. I’m grateful for the experiences and lessons learned which have helped me to be a better individual.
Do share your stories/experiences in the comments. I’d love to read them.
PS – This journey started on May 14th, 2014 during the summer holidays (when I first arrived in Delhi with a small of team interns) to start working on the tech product of SolarWaale.
#Entrepreneurship #SolarIndustry #RealEstate #BusinessJourney #StartupStory #NeverGiveUp