“Quitting plush jobs to become an entrepreneur is not a distant dream     now. At times it is noteworthy to trust your instincts over unsolicited advice.”

Each time I see students opting out of placements to hone their entrepreneurship skills reminds me of my old days. It is always easy to go with the flow but going against is supposedly difficult. Knowing students from IIMs selling staples after completing their PGDM is all the more surprising. But knowing about people in their 50s branching out to follow their passion and gaining worldwide traction is above everything else.

It is well said that ‘Each problem is an opportunity in disguise.’ Sometimes they almost break us but that’s what makes us stronger, we always have two options in life either to accept life as it is or resist and make our own way. Means to become what you want to see in this world, it is better to be happily unsuccessful than unhappily successful.

Remarkable people are amazingly innovative, they might not know anything about innovation but through following the right path and making their own mistakes they become the ambassadors of innovation. Most importantly, innovation is your own creation which can never be taught in the university. If you are engrossed in a muddle, busy with your daily schedule, having back-to-back meetings, in fact, have no time for yourself, innovation can’t happen. You can’t take the second step until you take off the first, hence to be productive you have to be free from the clutter consuming all your time. You can change your life instantly once you start giving time to yourself. There are multifarious examples of people who have quit their well-paid jobs to follow their entrepreneurial instincts by doing something different, had they been involved in their busy schedule they might not have become ‘happily successful today.’

Here I would like to share some of the most interesting success stories from people like you and I, they had the courage to change their world and make a visible difference in others’ life. Here we go…..

Name it and have it

nameita. This is what I can confidently say today you just name what you want and you’ll get it delivered at your doorstep within reasonable time without even paying for it in advance. What else can anybody expect in today’s fast moving world where life has become so hassle free. Getting staples or goods delivered is quite understandable but on the contrary getting prashad delivered from any temple in India at your doorstep sounds so unrealistic. For everyone can’t visit temples  across India, many people due to old age, ailment or their busy schedules don’t have that much time or let’s say the money to make a family trip to their favorite temple, so there is hardly anything left for pilgrimage. But it is now feasible to get the blessings by ordering prashad online through www.onlineprashad.com and the prashad will be delivered to you after being presented to the Gods through priests or professionals at the temple. Sounds amazing, One of my acquaintance Goonjan Mall, 24 made many people’s wishes come true through is unimaginatively entrepreneurial acumen.

It has not been even 6 months and he has started delivering prashad to people residing in countries like Dubai and Singapore. This business has a long way to go without looking back, this is the value of innovation + faith. But most importantly you have to be with the right people to do the things and have the urge to keep going when the going gets tough.

Seeing his article in the Entrepreneur I called to congratulate him on the success of onlineprashad.com and discussed some facts about running and managing such business, since online business is not that easy to maintain as it is to start. One message out of that conversation is worth sharing that, ‘There is no-one to spoon-feed in the market, you have to have a vision and the ability to make people believe in you.’

That reminds me of what Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”

b. Littering is not something new if we talk about especially in India, we throw waste in our own country but behave obediently inlitter countries like Singapore, UK and the US. I remember, during my college days, when I was on my way for a movie at Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, kids from a passing by car threw a banana peel in the middle of the road. I and my friend pulled over and rushed toward the same car requested them to roll down the window while moving at the same speed and gave back the banana peel saying, ‘you left something behind.’ Couple of years later I saw the same incident in the TV commercial however the message is clear to get rid of the garbage in their cars people don’t mind littering the roads.

Often we see an unobtrusive chocolate wrapper tucked into the glass-holder of our car, a collection of toll tickets behind the steering wheel, an empty packet of chips on the backseat that children left behind or a used wet wipe that you did not want to throw on the street. All that is languishing in our cars just because we don’t want to litter streets but what about the garbage lying inside our cars. Well if we ponder on any problem for little long the solution will surely appear and that is what happened with Nupur Rajvanshi, 40 and husbank Anshul Rajvanshi, 44 who espoused the simple but meaningful idea, who have travelled several countries owing to the job of Merchant Navy and realized that streets overseas were cleaner than in India came up to resolve this glaring problem and set up Lighthouse Management Pvt.Ltd in Mumbai. They make car bins, suitable for both wet and dry garbage generated if the car made from hard plastic and cloth with waterproof material inside. Affordably priced at Rs.399 and Rs.499. The car bins are now mandatory for all public vehicles in Uttarakhand, they couple has started receiving orders from companies in India such as Tata motors, Toyota to international companies in Dubai. They have been exulting and enjoying their entrepreneurial journey, however they are all worthy of this exaltation.

Well the manufacturing of the product is still been outsourced, which doesn’t matter much as long as the idea is worth implementing especially in country like India.

travelc. Most of us go through the daily hurdles of life, some people complain, some ignore and some think for a solution. Pushpinder Singh, 41, is one of them. Last minute meal, that too hygienic and healthful, if we get at railway station over the call or through internet can work wonders. The problem of non availability of packed food for people travelling through trains turned out to be a business opportunity in disguise for Sings. Around three crore people travel by Indian railways every day. After working on facts and figures he launched www.travelkhana.com in 2011 to help train travelers order food which would be delivered to a railway platform of their choice. Now that it is so much in vogue that people can order food from their website i.e. www.travelkhana.com, through voice or short message service (SMS) as well. The company which started with just few meals a day now delivers 500-550 meals round the clock in 95 locations all across India and the business is growing at about 40-45 percent per month. Covering 2000+ trains Singh has served around 46,000 passengers after partnering with 110 restaurants till now.

All the innovations happening in the country are either out of a long standing problem or the ability to think creatively, we are inundated with such examples but the point is by doing so we can contribute to the growing economy of our country.

According to the index that measures the ease of starting a business in a country, India ranks 173rd that means it is not a cake walk to start a business in India but are passionate enough then India is the right place for you. As it is said, “If you wait for all the lights to be green in India, you will never be able to startup. Success comes to those who stay alive long enough in the game, to get lucky at some point.”

To become the developed nation by 2030, our economy needs to continue to grow at about 8 percent per year over the nest two decades. India is the only country in the world which has the largest population (572 million) under 24 year age group. And most importantly there is no age to start a business as you could see in the examples above, in this country every person has the opportunity to do something, to give something, money is bound to follow.

They say there is no age to fall in love and I believe there is no age to become an entrepreneur, I urge, for those who think it’s too late, think again. You are invincible!

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