Because Shit Happened

by Harsh Snehanshu

  ‘I have always tried to take care of you, don’t say that,’ I stammered insincerely.

  ‘Yes, always. Like now, when I am all alone,’ she said.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘It’s over, Amol. Keep your concern to yourself. You only said that I revived our relationship on a lie, so it is bound to encounter a dead end. Good bye.’

  I could not dare to call her back. It was I who was hapless then. A part of me wanted to take the blame for the disaster on myself while the other part tried to shun it off. It was because she allowed me to take her for granted that I could dare to. I came up with a sermon and posted it on our fan page. It said, ‘If you will always allow people to use you, get prepared to be treated like a dustbin.’

  The next day, Mishra sent us a long mail highlighting his key strengths and explaining why he was indispensable for the company and could add value as a co-founder. His points were quite irrefutable.

  I joined YourQuote to work for free (even though I had my own brother’s web development company) since I liked the idea, the team, and was promised to be made tech co-founder. I’ll try to justify myself as a tech co-founder so that you can take your decision.

  A tech co-founder is somebody who:

  •

  Has belief in the idea

  I claim to have the belief.

  •

  Can work in a dedicated way

  Considering the fact that I had no ownership in YourQuote till date, I did what all could have been done by a tech guy single-handedly

  Can wait patiently for the time when revenue will actually start generating in decent numbers

  •

  Should have the domain knowledge

  I believe I have a decent amount of domain knowledge, as much as Amol and Rishabh have in their own domains.

  •

  An understanding of the intersection of business and technology decisions

  I have always helped in strategical decisions from the technology perspective, which means that I am now comfortable enough to understand the business requirements

  •

  Can contribute to finance if required

  The major portion of online marketing revenue was brought through my personal and business contacts. With my broad technical network, I can continue to do so

  If required, I’m ready to invest from my side on the business.

  •

  Should have the managing capability

  Can be verified from the fact that developers/designers I have personally managed are always happy with me just because I know how to interact with them and always consider it important to add value to their learning.

  A point raised by Rishabh: what investors would say to hiring me, a student?

  Why should my life be dependent on investors (who don’t even exist)? Isn’t it the authority of present co-founders to choose another one and decide their ownership on mutual discussions and trust basis? Even you guys started while you were students.

  Another point raised by Rishabh: We might need a few more technical partners in future.

  It’s a very justifiable argument that you might meet better persons than me in future. FYI, you will also require a lot more marketing persons and creative heads in future. What does it has to do with the present marketing and creative co-founders?

  Let’s move on!

  I’ll always keep YourQuote at top in the list provided there is a reasonable offer for me simply because I love the idea. Waiting for a response at the earliest.

  Cheers!

  In the next few days, we discussed with various people about the kind of offer that we needed to make to Mishra. Keeping in mind the fact that Mishra had still got one year of his education left which would prevent him from joining the company full-time and the fact that he hadn’t contributed anything financially to the venture till date, we figured out an equity of somewhere between 8–10 percent for him. Our decision was given a green signal by all our mentors with some even saying that it was more than what he deserved. We realized how grave a mistake we had done by not hiring him right from the very beginning with 5 percent vested equity over two years. Now that he had proven himself indispensable by not allowing any new techie to come on board, and in the process, his value had increased and he could dictate our terms.

  On 25th, exactly two weeks after Mishra initiated the dreaded conversation, we invited him to our place to present our offer to him. He didn’t find our offer lucrative enough and argued, ‘The company is right now valued at somewhere between 2 to 3 crores. You guys have invested 5 lakhs till now, so that makes around 3 percent equity for your money and you can take 7 percent equity for your idea. So, as far as I think, the rest 90 percent equity needs to be divided equally amongst each one of us, because all three of us are equally indispensable to the company.’

  Handing over 30 percent of the company to Mishra! The mere thought sent shivers down our spines. His demands were unrealistic and at some level, even barbaric to us, especially when he knew about our financial conditions, our dependence on him for technology, and our inability to offer him what he desired.

  Rishabh had a brainwave at that point of time and he asked Mishra to prove his candidature for a 30 percent co-foundership by working like one over the next one month and if we were satisfied, we would honour his demand. He argued that Mishra had always worked like an employee, with one of us having to always sit on his head to get work done from him.

  Mishra went away saying that he would get back to us on mail in a day and left us full of uncertainty.

  On 26th, Rishabh’s interview was to be telecast on TV first and would be uploaded on websites of news channels an hour later. Many team members and followers tuned in to the news channel to catch his interview, as advertised by us all across social networks. We didn’t have a TV at our place, so we had to wait for an hour. Phone calls started coming soon after the telecast and everyone congratulated him, for he had spoken very confidently. My parents called me to let me know that he had mentioned my name on a number of occasions and had even said I inspired him to take the leap of faith.

  I was happy to know he hadn’t forgotten about me completely and went to his room to congratulate him for the good work done. He was stuck to his laptop, aghast.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Mishra,’ he whispered.

  I rushed to his laptop with a premonition. There was a mail with the subject: Felicitations.

  Congratulations Rishabh and Amol for the interview.

  You wanted me to prove my candidature for co-foundership, didn’t you? After seeing today’s interview, where you could not even mention my name for building the website, I accept the challenge in my own style.

  Welcome to the world of talents: Talent Market—the fastest startup ever, an idea in 1 hour and a kick start in 5.

  Mishra had gone ahead and started his own company! We were devastated, not because it meant competition, but because a disgraceful employee whom we had invested so much faith in, broke away to become an entrepreneur.

  Five hours later, Talent Market was up and running. The site had a countdown timer that said, ‘Launching in 30 days, 20 hours, 5 minutes, 12 seconds’ and on the team page, Mishra Anant’s name shone with his brand new designation. In that disastrous moment, all I could notice was that he had taken the first right step of proclaiming himself as the Founder CEO right from the start.

  When we read the about page, we realized how Mishra had copied our ultimate vision of becoming a one-stop creative networking website for all kinds of creativity; because his website Talent Market was to cater to all kinds of talents viz. photography, design, painting, and writing. We realized we had given birth to our competitor!

  October 31

  Mishra was history. Thankfully, he had let us go with the codes for free after Rishabh literally begged to him to take mercy on our financial condition. Priya had managed to remain single despite my reckless attempts at patching up. I reflected that both o
f them had left because they thought they were being taken for granted. It was one of the greatest lows in our entrepreneurial lives and my personal life.

  The moment demanded great patience and determination from both of us. During this time, Anjali became a part of our household, spending more and more amount of time with Rishabh which didn’t go down well with me.

  She seemed like an intruder into our house and kept Rishabh away from work by taking up a majority of his time gossiping about personal issues. Once when Anjali stayed over for the night, they took up my room without even asking me if I was okay with it. Thoroughly uncomfortable sleeping in another room, I was counting cracks on the ceiling when loud sounds of moaning made my ears stood up. I instantly gave Priya a call.

  ‘Hello,’ she said groggily.

  ‘Chatpat news. I can hear Rishabh and Anjali making out!’

  ‘What, really?’

  ‘Yes. The room is shut, but I can clearly hear what’s happening behind closed doors.’

  ‘Wow, good for them,’ she said with a marked indifference.

  ‘Yeah. So how have you been?’

  ‘I’m good. Happy after a long time. Don’t spoil my mood by talking about a patch up, okay?’

  ‘No, I won’t. Why would I? Remember I wanted to be single, and I am now. So I’m happy,’ I said.

  ‘Good. You know, I met your friend yesterday.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Shendu’s best friend, Anirudh Arora,’ she said.

  Anirudh Arora, plump, extremely fair and tall, was my batchmate. We weren’t close friends or anything, but we did talk occasionally for we shared several common interests such as music and writing. He had even recommended me a course in creative writing to hone my skills further. He hailed from an affluent business family and much like me, he shunned a corporate job to pursue his passion for teaching. He taught Physics at a prominent JEE coaching centre of Gurgaon. However, we differed in one aspect completely. He had become a dope addict lately, while I was totally against it.

  ‘Ya, I know him,’ I told her.

  ‘He is a very different kind of a guy. Has got great taste in books and sings really well,’ she continued.

  ‘Wow, where did you hear him singing?’

  ‘He came over to Shendu’s place. We were drinking together.’

  ‘Have you started drinking once again?’ I interrogated. I didn’t like what I heard.

  ‘Yes, occasionally.’

  ‘Why? Why do you do it? You had promised me you won’t.’

  ‘I promised you as a girlfriend, which I am not anymore.’

  ‘No, you promised as a friend.’

  ‘Okay, alright. I won’t drink. Now don’t nag early in the morning.’

  ‘Good girl,’ I said, relieved. ‘So, what did you do with Anirudh?’

  ‘We talked till three in the morning while everyone else was sleeping.’ Her statement pierced me like a knife because I had sent her two messages last night and she had not replied. She further told me, ‘You know what? He said that Shardendu used to like me, until Kamna came into the picture and took him away.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said, being grateful to Kamna. ‘Did he say something about me?’

  ‘No, nothing at all. He is very chilled out.’

  ‘You are saying as though you have fallen for him.’

  ‘Come on. I just like him,’ she said. I didn’t know it then but this was going to become her pet dialogue for months to come.

  All Hell Broke Loose

  I was worried for Priya. I had believed that I loved her so much that her happiness would always make me happy. But now when she was actually happy, I did not like it one bit for I wasn’t the reason for her happiness. Someone else had taken my place in her life.

  On the work front, our new revenue model had been put in place but we were making very limited money with it. We used to run eight crowdsourcing contests a month, two each week. While we charged 10,000 rupees per contest from many of our clients, we were also entertaining a lot of barter deals that ensured lucrative prizes for our followers and some publicity to keep our followers hooked to our brand. Each of the contests brought us, on an average, 3,000 rupees, totalling 24,000 rupees per month. Subtracting our house rent of 15,000 rupees, we just had 9,000 rupees to run our website, home, and marketing with. I had never seen so much poverty in my entire life. My own little money which I had earned from my books had been spent in the past few months over the security for house rent, brokerage, servers, and buying basic appliances like a washing machine and a refrigerator. I had painted a very vague picture of my life in front of my parents, whom I had told them that I was drawing a salary of 20,000 rupees a month and had sufficient money to run my home with.

  During this time, when I found a five hundred rupee note on the side of the bed where Rishabh used to sleep, I shamelessly put it inside my pocket without giving it a second thought. The abject poverty had numbed my conscience completely. Lack of money fostered dishonesty not only in me, but in Rishabh as well. He trapped naïve but rich clients out of nowhere and tricked them into hosting a contest on our website with a fee as high as 30,000 rupees, by showcasing our 20000+ fans on Facebook, instead of a mere 250 active users on our website. In this phase of penury, I could not even ask for financial help from the only person I could—Priya—as I had lost meaning in her life.

  While we had completely forgotten about Purnesh of Excel ventures, he approached us on November 7 as he’d promised and asked about our progress. With the stormy entrepreneurial environment that we had encountered in the previous weeks, and right hand Mishra leaving us, all we could do was to beg him for another two weeks’ time. He wasn’t impressed and we feared that we would not hear from him again, but he gave in. His extension of the deadline meant that this time, we had no other option other than putting our asses on fire and getting the venture up and running within two weeks.

  Ever since Mishra left us, Rishabh became more and more authoritative. He designated to me the task of finding a technical co-founder on LinkedIn and other networks. He said, ‘Tell anyone you find that we are ready to give him as high as 20 percent equity and a designation of Technical Co-founder,’ which I agreed to. A good offer was necessary for getting the right person on board.

  There was a sudden shift in paradigm in our stinginess with equity. Whereas we couldn’t earlier think of handing over more than 10 percent equity to the person who had built our website from scratch, we were now ready to shell out as high as 20 percent to an untested new person.

  Rishabh, in the meanwhile, got involved in outreach and got in touch with people who could connect him to angel investors. We realized that with the kind of progress that we were making without a skilled technical team in place, it would be impossible to scale without money. From a marketing point of view too, we desired investors who could get us big clients. An investor associated with the media and the advertising industry could have added great value, for he could get big media houses and corporate to become our prospective clients.

  Rishabh’s consistent pressure hindered my creative freedom and I wanted to shift to a new place along with my sister. When I proposed this to Rishabh over mail, he sent a very sentimental reply saying that even his brother was in Gurgaon and his parents had been forcing him to live with him ever since he graduated, but he said that he rejected it for me and our company. Truth be told, he rejected it for himself—so that he could smoke, drink, and sleep with his girlfriend for free.

  All the while, I had kept a vindictive watch on Mishra’s progress. He was following our procedure of generating social media traction before his website was up, which in my view was bad methodology, as we had seen with our website. He had managed to get 4000 Facebook fans within just two weeks. Rishabh diplomatically won over Mishra by publicizing his venture on our fan page. Thanks to the generosity on our part, Mishra agreed to connect us to the founder of Click2Closet, who he disclosed was interested in investing in us and help us in case of any technica
l difficulty until we found a tech partner.

  November 14

  Rishabh and I had been invited to an entrepreneurial seminar at the five-star hotel Surya on Ashram Road. It was a networking lunch and elevator pitch competition organized by a prominent entrepreneurial network. Thanks to Rishabh’s connections, we got the passes for free, which otherwise would have cost us 3,000 rupees.

  After attending a couple of soporific sessions, I became really hungry. Unlike other days, I had got up 7 am. It was 11.30 am and my stomach was already making explosive sounds. I walked out of the hall and inquired about refreshments from the guard.

  ‘Sir, the refreshments are only for speakers. If you want to have something, you can go to the restaurant on the ground floor,’ he said politely.

  ‘That’s crazy. When they have an all-day session, shouldn’t they have refreshments served along?’

  The gatekeeper was not in a mood conversation. Perhaps, he also knew that he earned more than most of us penniless entrepreneurs present there. Annoyed, I left the seminar hall where the so-called young entrepreneurs with pathetic communication skills were presenting elevator pitches of their run-off-the-mill ideas to other entrepreneurs (as no investor was in sight).

  Seeing Rishabh engrossed in the pitches, I moved outside without informing him.

  I located a small shop outside the hotel which served Pav Bhaji and asked him to give me one.

  ‘Sir, is that your cellphone ringing?’ the vendor asked.

  ‘What? Oh yes, it’s mine,’ I realized and pulled it out, hoping to see Priya’s name. The call got cut and I was astonished to see three missed calls. It wasn’t Priya, but Rishabh. I grabbed the last piece of paav, gobbled it up, and called him back.