An Impasse

So far the career has been a tale of progress starting at a minimum wage in tier-I city in India to getting decent enough wage to live comfortably (almost) after three years and two jobs. It did make my parents proud. But I am not completely happy with the current situation. I mean yes I am kind of enjoying the better standard of living and all, the freedom of making so called hedonistic choices in life. But I still feel off course in life or without course at all. A sense of no achievement. Like living life without superior goal. And if I compare what I thought in college where I would be by now to whare I actually am now, it makes me wanna die. I have reached an impasse in life. What follows is my ideation on plan to overcome it.

So people of my age who are living decent life in a city belongs to following (oversimplified and stereotyped) categories

those spoiled brats who have no apparent goal in life than enjoying life and showing off by living envious lifestyle. And when the time comes they settle down in their father’s already established legacy.

Others like me coming from lower middle class and have landed in thriving IT industry of India. Allowing for them to mimic the life style of those spoiled brats discussed above.

So I have reached an impasse in my life. And so should rest of the people of my category at this stage, what is next in life. Settling for a mediocre job is definitely not an option. Where should I take my carrier next. If I don’t do any thing about it then at least I can get some other job of higher pay. But thats just same stupid situation with ability to buy expensive shoes. With current skills and experience there is no scope of having drastic career change. An entrepreneurial career is what I dream of every minute of my life. What are the current opportunities for a person of my skills and experience to kick start a startup. In India; however, You can easily start a services company.

Another option is to go to academics. Do masters and PhD. Settle down as a lecturer at a prestigious Institution. I think I might like that. May be do a theoretical physics research. Unify the quantum mechanics and theories of relativity. Or solve the mystery of dark matter. Okay may be I fetched it too far. But you get the point.

Well, lets just stick to the computer science. Make a product that solves real life problem. I think I can do that. But first thing is to get an idea. If I get an Idea then build the team who can help me take it further. Then execution which requires pouring money. and launch it to market and live happily ever after. In theory looks great. But there are practical challenges. Based on my heuristics here it goes.

The first challenge is finding a dedicated team. “Dedicated” is important because when you ask anybody to join the team every other dick head will say yeah “I am in” but really end up wasting your time. Another problem is that avoid ending up with wanna be Steve Jobs who are basically filled with phony confidence, obnoxious arrogance and “I am better than all” attitude. One more thing about founders’ team is that if you are not communicating on an average two hour a day then your idea is in trouble. Communication and constant sharing of thoughts is very important. So it can get tricky if team is geographically apart. Your team as roommates is the ideal scenario.

Second problem in this plan is that you have a job and you have to do this start up in parallel. It can take lot of motivation to keep it going. Also applies to all those involved in the team. Then comes the execution which requires money; decent amount of it. Blowing away personal savings as on a risky product launch is not what I would do as a middle class Indian guy. Also not having any is a different problem altogether.

And launching and getting decent user base would be a tricky thing but it is a matter of intuition, hard work and to much extent luck. And then comes investor into picture and if things workout you feel life was worth living and all. Story ends.

But right now I have no product idea nor a team. So all I can do is do my job, learn new skills and make more friends.

Oh wait, I can instead work on side projects that can enhance my skills and add to my heuristic instinct. ROI on those is actually very high (intangible of course).

So yeah, see you on Github!!



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