The Dream: How I Learned the Risks and Rewards of Entrepreneurship and Made Millions by Gurbaksh Chahal
Authors: Gurbaksh Chahal
Ads: Link
week or that month, but attitude gets you noticed, and the right attitude reaps rewards. It’s a simple lesson but an important one. Never relax. Never rest on your laurels. And always look for a way to deliver more than is expected of you. And even when you’re doing well, don’t get complacent. Stay hungry. And work harderthan the competition. In order to stand out in an increasingly crowded field, I had to be better than the rest of them.
Every morning, before I left for school, I would start my day by reviewing a checklist—all the things I needed to do to keep the business running smoothly. Much later, I learned that most businesses do this and that they have a name for that list: key performance indicators (KPIs). This is a simple system they use to measure their progress. It looks at all the variables—customer base, turnover, profitability, debt, and so on—to help determine if there are any weaknesses that need to be addressed. I was doing it by instinct. Then I would look at the daily revenue reports and at the forecasts for the day, the week, the month, and the quarter (hoping I might last an entire quarter!). And when I was done with that, I’d spend a little time looking at what my competitors were up to (new clients, announcements, etc.). Finally, I would roll up my sleeves and begin making calls to potential new advertisers and new publishers.
Before long, I was getting more and more accounts and generating significant amounts of money. I would get a $50,000 order, fill it in record time, and double it the following month. And this was happening over and over again.
But I was still a one-man operation, and that worried me. I had a snazzy Web site, yes, but there were plenty of areas where I felt I was coming up short. I was writing checks byhand, for example, and that looked unprofessional. So I fixed it: I got a simple computer program that generated slick looking checks. Then there was my answering machine. It was cheap and tinny sounding, so I sprang for my own phone line and a professional voice-mail system. These might seem like minor details, but they are significant: A company that looks good and sounds good inspires confidence. And when a client has confidence in you, he will have no qualms about recommending you to friends and colleagues.
The business continued to grow, but I wanted more. I wanted to get bigger faster, so I did what anyone in my position would do: I began to look around for investors.
Toward that end, I found myself up at a conference in Santa Clara. It had been set up by TiE, an organization established by and for Indian entrepreneurs. (The letters stand for The Indus Entrepreneurs.) I made only one contact in the course of that day, with an Indian gentleman in his mid-forties, but it sounded promising. He agreed to meet with me the following week, at his home in Atherton.
On the appointed day, my brother drove me out to Atherton, undoubtedly one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country. The guy lived in a mansion behind gates. A housekeeper met us at the front door and guided us through the palatial foyer, to the library, where he was waiting for us. I introduced my brother as my business partner, and the man nodded andoffered us a drink, which we declined. We then sat across from each other and I began my pitch, telling him a little about Click Agents, which I assured him was on the brink of greatness. He listened without much interest, and I could see his eyes beginning to glaze over. When I paused to take a breath, he started talking about himself and his own accomplishments. The guy was in the semi-conductor business, so I’m not sure he even understood what I was doing, but it didn’t really matter: I got the sense that I was there only so he could brag about his phenomenal success.
After the meeting, as my brother and I were driving away, I turned to him and said, “Well, that sure went great.”
“It was interesting, anyway,” he said.
“I just learned
Every morning, before I left for school, I would start my day by reviewing a checklist—all the things I needed to do to keep the business running smoothly. Much later, I learned that most businesses do this and that they have a name for that list: key performance indicators (KPIs). This is a simple system they use to measure their progress. It looks at all the variables—customer base, turnover, profitability, debt, and so on—to help determine if there are any weaknesses that need to be addressed. I was doing it by instinct. Then I would look at the daily revenue reports and at the forecasts for the day, the week, the month, and the quarter (hoping I might last an entire quarter!). And when I was done with that, I’d spend a little time looking at what my competitors were up to (new clients, announcements, etc.). Finally, I would roll up my sleeves and begin making calls to potential new advertisers and new publishers.
Before long, I was getting more and more accounts and generating significant amounts of money. I would get a $50,000 order, fill it in record time, and double it the following month. And this was happening over and over again.
But I was still a one-man operation, and that worried me. I had a snazzy Web site, yes, but there were plenty of areas where I felt I was coming up short. I was writing checks byhand, for example, and that looked unprofessional. So I fixed it: I got a simple computer program that generated slick looking checks. Then there was my answering machine. It was cheap and tinny sounding, so I sprang for my own phone line and a professional voice-mail system. These might seem like minor details, but they are significant: A company that looks good and sounds good inspires confidence. And when a client has confidence in you, he will have no qualms about recommending you to friends and colleagues.
The business continued to grow, but I wanted more. I wanted to get bigger faster, so I did what anyone in my position would do: I began to look around for investors.
Toward that end, I found myself up at a conference in Santa Clara. It had been set up by TiE, an organization established by and for Indian entrepreneurs. (The letters stand for The Indus Entrepreneurs.) I made only one contact in the course of that day, with an Indian gentleman in his mid-forties, but it sounded promising. He agreed to meet with me the following week, at his home in Atherton.
On the appointed day, my brother drove me out to Atherton, undoubtedly one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country. The guy lived in a mansion behind gates. A housekeeper met us at the front door and guided us through the palatial foyer, to the library, where he was waiting for us. I introduced my brother as my business partner, and the man nodded andoffered us a drink, which we declined. We then sat across from each other and I began my pitch, telling him a little about Click Agents, which I assured him was on the brink of greatness. He listened without much interest, and I could see his eyes beginning to glaze over. When I paused to take a breath, he started talking about himself and his own accomplishments. The guy was in the semi-conductor business, so I’m not sure he even understood what I was doing, but it didn’t really matter: I got the sense that I was there only so he could brag about his phenomenal success.
After the meeting, as my brother and I were driving away, I turned to him and said, “Well, that sure went great.”
“It was interesting, anyway,” he said.
“I just learned
Similar Books
