My Experiments With Entrepreneurship
Elon Musk once said, “Creating a company is a very difficult thing. Starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss. You have to do lots of things you don’t like. There’s no time to wallow and lick your wounds. Don’t let stress sideline you. Instead, use it as fuel to keep rocketing ahead, maybe even all the way to Mars.”
Today, as I complete 6 years as the CEO of OMLogic, I can for sure tell you that I have eaten glass, stared into the abyss, licked my wounds and have rocketed ahead. Hopefully, we will soon get our Mars landing too.
Having been at the helm of affairs (and mis-fairs) at OMLogic for the last 6 years and being a part of the founding team since we began in 2007, I look at OMLogic as a perfect example of “True Entrepreneurship”.
I personally have never believed in the concept of 10x engineers or 10x anything for that matter. When I look back today, this one thought has helped us emerge as the leading digital communications agency today. This thought has also transformed as one of the principles that we as an organization now live by, which is why absence of highly experienced investment bankers or IIT/IIM topers have never affected us. We as a team have more grit, determination and hunger for success than all of them put together. It is this grit and determination that has brought us here.
As a start-up, we had to ensure that our company culture is over and beyond flexible timings and awesome parties. We had to ensure that our culture is deeply rooted in morals and ethics that we choose when things are hard. This is what I am most proud of, both for OMLogic and myself. We have never played with our ethics and values. We have always been true to it, and it has paid us extremely well. This is one of the reasons why some of the large brands such as HBO, Oriflame, Hexaware and UPES have chosen us as their digital partners for over 4/5 years now. Digital as an industry is known for its promiscuity, our ethics and values have helped us create and maintain trusted relationships with such brands.
Running a company in India (and an agency at that), it looks like a dream. We have had our moments. I have myself been on the slippery slope few times, but am proud of the way Team OMLogic has always pulled me back. We have our own streak of failures but we have always tried to come out of them stronger than before. We of course have a long way to go, but what we have achieved to-date is nothing short of miraculous.
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been associated with OMLogic for their constant love and support. First and foremost, each and every team member of OMLogic, you guys ROCK! I am sure 2015-16 will be fun-ner and more exciting than 2014-15; our customers and strategic partners, for their enormous trust and support and our ex-employees and ex-customers for having been part of the journey.
We sit today at the cusp of breaking away from our current mould to a very different company. OMLogic as you know and love today will now extend its services business into an innovative hub, providing brands with social products. Currently, we are working on two of them – Mad On Ads and Efluencr. More on this later!
6 years back, eating the first piece of glass did hurt, staring into the abyss did want me to run back to US and re-join the team at IBM headquarters, every rejection did bog me down. But I am happy that I took each of these roadblocks head-on and it helped me understand the very core of being an entrepreneur – A successful entrepreneur is not one who is associated with people professionally (as a customer, vendor or employee) but rather one who disassociates well.
2016 looks exceptionally promising! We are looking forward to exploring the digital landscape like never before and are buckled up for thriving and driving businesses globally! To Mars! J
