Priyank Verma

As a 16-17 year old you try to figure out what you want to do with your life and then you just imagine yourself doing that. I am a kind of person who imagines stuff very vividly. Few years down the time river here I am, trying to work as hard as I can in the scorching summer heat on something that I always wanted to do.

Second month working on the startup I always wanted to do. Another month passed by, another month that makes you realise that time doesn’t stop for anyone. It doesn’t care if you have excuses, if you are not prepared enough. It just continues to flow. So the best strategy is to just go with the flow and moving forward, even if it’s the tiniest step possible.

This month I tried to put my full team to action. We bought the domain after many discussions on the name. We agreed to the name “Rainbow Shelf“. Personally I find this name very me. The word rainbow depicts my technicolor imagination and how I see this company grow.

After many arguments on what should be the core features that we want in our MVP, we finally got to a truce point.

Assigning roles to team members is something that you don’t want to force too much but yet you want that to be perfect so that it covers the strengths of every person. Out of hundreds of roles that you have to play in your startup, i wanted to make sure that everyone picks the one that they really love. Because if you don’t like what you are working on, what’s the point of working on a startup. I am still not sure whether I have got this right, but it seems to be moving in right direction.

While working on your startup you always have to keep on your helmet, just in case your heads caves in. Out of the blue some team member will raise concerns about the whole idea that you are betting on and you have to handle that and act optimistically no matter how scared you are inside.

During this whole month and for coming months, I am working with a startup based in Bangalore (http://healthgraph.in). The CEO is the best mentor I can ever wish for, seeing him work is what makes you push to go that extra mile and stay up that extra hours in a hope that it’ll make all the difference in the end.

One more lesson I have learned is that you just can’t expect every person on your team to work as hard and passionately as you. You have got to respect their capabilities.

At the start of the month, I created a timeline, a master schedule that we were supposed to follow. Recently I cut that into 1/3. Just so that we always remain on our toes.

Under thing that I have realised is that, don’t panic if you find out that your startup idea is already taken. Chances are that your idea is already present, if you haven’t found it yet then may be you haven’t researched that well. Afterall nothing is new under the sun.

Building a successful business depends less on uniqueness of idea and more on how you are filling the gaps in the market.

One more habit that I have developed is to read a good inspirational book the first hour and the last hour of the day. Just so that I can start and end the day with the correct mindset.

That’s all for this month. Stay Tuned!