When I joined my first job, work was on full swing to launch 99acres.com . I was part of the team which did all the technical work and the site was launched one month after I joined. Thereafter, I launched Sukip.com in Jan 2007 and Saleraja.com in Aug 2007. After moving to Bangalore, I worked with Jivox.com for 18 months. Recently I started PickaFight.in, this time as a non-profit initiative. In all these endeavors over the last six years , I got a good exposure to starting up and scaling up websites, both from a technical, product and business point of view.

There have been many lessons along the way, most of them learned the hard way. Here are seven important points I would like to share with one and all who might be interested in starting a web based business. Update – Here are eight more lessons which I wrote as a follow up article

1. Passion in what you are doing

Always do what you are passionate about. If you are starting a new website based business, it will keep you awake at nights and make you work on weekends. So it is very important that it is something you are really excited about.

2…. Read the rest

Right from August 2007, when we started SaleRaja, it has been like a baby for me. It was something on which we had great hope. SaleRaja was supposed to be our way out of normal day-to-day jobs. I never thought I would have to work for any other company again at that time, and we even got a promising response in the beginning. But soon, the growth in terms of traffic and registrations began to steady out and it was clear that we would need a lot more funding and resources to scale it up to the next level.

With the recession in 2008-09 and considering our background (having only technical skills and no financial, marketing and sales skills), we struggled to get any funding. There was one remote chance of funding or a tie-up but unfortunately we blew that up. Also, my partners decided to part ways because of impending personal issues like marriage and finances, and there I was, running SaleRaja alone in Dec 2008. I got together with one more guy in the beginning of 2009, then with another girl for sales for 3-4 months, at the same time myself managing my day job at Jivox and coding for SaleRaja in the… Read the rest

It was December 2009, and although I was still working on SaleRaja, it was now more as a burden than for interest. I was stumbling in the timelines for feature changes that I had set myself, my enthusiasm was low and I was unsure about what the future had in store for me and SaleRaja. Finally, after managing SaleRaja alone for the whole of 2009 , I decided to let it go and focus on my career through a job. That means I was soon looking for a job when at one time I thought that I would not have to find another job ever. My motivation levels were at an all-time low, and I was confused and unsure about what next?

But I decided to take a break from entrepreneurship, focus on my career through a normal job, and come back to entrepreneurship some years later. It was not an easy decision, and it took me around six months of consideration to finally stop running SaleRaja as a business. Looking back now, 16 months after that decision, I can laugh over those uncertain times and say that it might be one of the best decisions I ever took. The first few months were tough, as I… Read the rest

I am a big fan of quotes and one liners, but it took me experience to believe in the truth of this quote by John D. Rockefeller – “A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship“. Now I can verify that. I started SaleRaja with 2 of my closest buddies from school whom I have known for over 10 years. It looked like a perfect match then, but I was to realize later that while it is important to have somebody trustworthy as your partner, friendships often carry other baggage which can create problems, particularly when the business is in trouble or growing well.

We ended up parting ways soon, as our vision for our personal future and the future for SaleRaja did not align. It was a perfect case of both sides being right but the situation being wrong. We were the right people in the wrong place. We did not share the same vision for the business. We always thought that since we were so good friends, we would always find a mutually agreeable path in case of conflicts.

We could not have been more wrong. There were times we ended up… Read the rest

Want to wake up early for a jog, want to write on your blog more frequently, want to change a job, or want to learn something new. Motivation is one thing you will need the most to get you started and then to keep you going. So how to keep yourself motivated, day after day, and week after week.

There are some rules which have worked for me over the years to keep yourself motivated. I am going to mention them below :

1. One Liners – Motivational Quotes have worked wonders for me. You can find them around me everywhere. I have a quotations booklet at home, there is a one liner as my status message on chat networks and social networking sites, I have registered to many RSS feeds of motivational quotes and one liners. One Liners are great to say and make a great example to follow. Just read a book of motivational quotes when you are down and you are pumping again… This has worked for me for the last 5 years now and continues to work wonders..

2. Goals – Set yourself goals, then break them down into smaller goals and go after them… Read the rest