Today, I am going to share my journey, my lessons, the decisions I made, and how I felt, in the hope that it will add up and give you guidance, on life, business, relationships, and partnership because building this company has not just been an emotional journey for me but also a spiritual one.

This would most resonate with anyone who plans on doing something unique and innovative without much of a safety net. And that’s what my petition would be today — to urge you to take the path less taken, to do something “risky”, to learn what it is like not to truly conquer fear but make it your friend. So, let's begin!

(1) The road less traveled completely transforms you as a person

Not just running a business, but when you are doing anything which is unique or different, the loneliness cloud is almost always going to hang on top of you. Just like the highs hit so high, the failures hit so low. If you are the founder or CEO, you feel an even more amplified version of it. I felt no one around me really related to what I experiencing and that feeling used to cripple me. The bad news? I felt alone. The good news? I slowly started to feel free!

As I got comfortable in my company with my thoughts, I became one of the most interesting art projects to study. At my lowest, I got an opportunity to learn about myself. I was pushed to wonder about life’s most fundamental questions: Why am I here? Why am I doing this? What do I want? What moves me? When do I feel the most alive? What are my wildest dreams?

In my experience, most people in this world have never quizzed themselves this way. Answers to these questions can pump in some serious intrinsic motivation inside you and can channel all of this life force to get to where you want.

For instance, when we kickstarted Locale, all I was obsessed about was succeeding. For me, that didn’t directly translate to becoming rich or winning awards and accolades. Sure, I wanted all of that but at the heart of it, I really wanted to build something worthwhile. I wanted to build something our customers and team loved and appreciated. Another big motivator for me was “expression”— I wanted my work to deeply reflect the things I stood for and what meant deeply to me. I wore my story on my sleeve and used it everywhere like my superpower.

But in the midst of all the madness, I realized that getting customers’ love and admiration was just the consolation prize. The real deal was that process, that grind, for it changes you. It made me a better person and that’s the single biggest win I have ever had—the person I’ve become!

(2) Life rewards you abundantly for perseverance

It took us 3 years to land on the idea that actually worked. Don’t even get me started on how horrible the bad days would get. We survived through Covid wave 1, wave 2, and wave 3 and then another recession. For months, we had a very tight budget, wherein we couldn’t even afford a McD burger. We had to survive lockdowns alone in a 1bhk apartment. I still remember this one time when our investor was so kind to our request to cover our rent when he saw our situation.

All of this stress led to huge cofounder fights. We were on the verge of shutting shop at least 10 times. I doubted myself so much. I got massive anxiety and panic attacks when we didn’t know how we would make payroll that month. I developed some serious health conditions. Most of our team left us because we didn't have money, but no matter what we just never gave up.

Everyone tells us don’t give up but what does that look like in practice? How do you show up every day in a world of chaos, uncertainty, and ambiguity? These are the things that worked for me:

• Play the game: The startup game is all about high highs and low lows. We all know about the highs. Let's talk about the low points: the lows were the constant fury of rejection, people not believing in your idea, customers churning, and employees leaving. But there was only 1 rule: You don’t die; no matter what. As a person with massive anxiety, learning how to maintain your peace throughout the game was so tricky for me. Looking back, the waves averaged out and both the highs and the lows always passed, and over time I just became better at playing the game.

• Self-care: In times of crazy tornadoes, you are forced to learn how to take care of yourself (mentally and physically) if you intend to survive. I have experienced the entire spectrum of negative emotions. I felt frustrated when a customer didn’t convert after we did the free pilot with them. I felt jealous when I saw someone younger doing so much better. I felt insecure about my age and inexperience all the time. Often, the fear of failing or shutting this company down used to cripple me. So, as you can decipher, mental health was pretty important for my sanity. Hence, I started practicing meditation, expressed and introspected on my feelings through journaling, engaged in art, and cut off toxic people. But it was only three years in, when aches and illnesses became an everyday phenomenon, I realized I can’t put off my physical fitness anymore. So, started taking walks, soaking myself in sunlight, sleeping for 8 hours minimum, eating healthy, and exercising. The message is not what activities you take up, it’s about developing habits around these and sticking to them. No bullshit. No excuses. Period. The thing is that there is no one size fits all. Any creative journey is long and it will wipe you up if you don’t indulge in self-care. You only learn via trial and error. But figure out what works for you- calendars, being impromptu, using a habit tracker, to-do list, etc. On your bad days, you will thank yourself for it. I fell in love with learning how to take care of myself and I became responsible for my happiness and joy.

• Gratitude: I started my gratitude journey by noting down 10 things I am grateful for every day. But, slowly, I started perceiving the smallest things and started feeling genuine gratitude for all of them. Even on my lowest days I had more than most people in this world craved. I was already way too fortunate. For example, a couple of years in I could afford a fancy dessert from my favorite restaurant which was only a dream when we started. If you don’t take anything else from the speech, just take this—If you want ever-lasting success and abundance, you have to learn how gratitude works.

• Don't run away from pain: We all have different mechanisms through which we
  suppress pain, no? I have had my share of hopping from one relationship to another, numbing myself in movies, using substances etc. I have tried it all but the best way to deal with pain is to stop being afraid of it. But how? By processing it and feeling it fully. Feel fear? Feel numbness? Insecure? Self-doubt? Write down or feel your emotions thoroughly. Interact with it and in less than 5 mins, you will observe yourself feel better breath by breath.

(3) The guide for relationships to bring out the best in you

Life loses all its meaning and purpose without relationships. I read this somewhere that relationships for humans are like tools that help us understand ourselves better in terms of what we like and what we want and if done well, relationships can also heal well. There were so many points in my journey where had to choose between changing myself and quitting my relationships.

• Fill your cup: What I am about to tell you is very deep. Do you remember when we spoke about self-care and gratitude? A gigantic benefit of self-care is that it fills you with true, genuine, deep love that comes from within you. That’s what the great spiritual leaders tell us: We all are capable of producing and relishing in this inner love. The crazy part? When this happens, you stop relying on others for love. Do you realize how big this is? Then, the only purpose of relationships is to share and express that with the people you love. This means that you can’t give up on a relationship if your own cup is not full. This is a concept most people, especially women don’t understand. You can’t give out if you don’t have anything inside. Yet all of us keep eroding our self-worth, esteem, and power by giving and giving and not receiving. If you give this way, it anyways doesn’t count because borrowed love can’t make us fulfilled.

• React less. Listen more: When you’re arguing, it feels like you’re on autopilot with no control over your reactions. Most of our arguments were about reacting to what the person was saying. I was so quick to snap. I had to train myself to control my impulsive behavior and observe my thoughts. This awareness to take a step back and control yourself—that gift only comes from meditation. As someone with lots of anger issues, this helped me identify and work on my triggers, and all my relationships- including with mom, dad, brother, and cofounder, changed for the better. I had to learn the art of picking my battles, letting go, and practicing honest forgiveness.

• Put in the effort: This is a big cliche but ****relationships ****are like plants, hence the term nurture. You need to appreciate your people often for all the things they do. It doesn’t have to be grand. It’s just a WhatsApp text, a small note, and a hug. You need to show up in shitty times and apologize sincerely. Even if they were the ones who started it. Even if their contribution was 80%. Apologize without any justification bullshit. Own your mistakes and explain to them how you will prevent them from happening in the future. If you have self-love and genuine appreciation and gratitude for the person, doing this is not difficult. And finally the greatest virtue of all timers: learn how to forgive. It is said when we forgive easily, we truly have healed.

• Don’t expect anything in return: Showing your love or acts of kindness should only stem from your need for expressing your emotions and not because you expect anything in return. Because if you’re in the right relationship, whether it’s your mom, dad, boyfriend, or friend, you’re gonna be on the other end of it too. They will do things for you and you might not reciprocate it at that moment. Don’t keep count. In the long run, it will balance out. I wish someone had told me this sooner, I wouldn’t feel down every time I did a nice gesture for my loved one.

(4) The power of things we can’t see and explain

Our lives are run by forces that we can’t see and explain. All of us have so many stories like that. That fraction of a second when we were saved while crossing the road or how our moms found the perfect kidney match? Let me narrate one such story today.

Locale would not exist if a certain someone didn’t magically appear in our lives on an early Saturday morning. We literally had no idea how we would be making payroll that month and we had 10 days to figure it out. We were pitching day and night to investors every day. Emotionally, we were on the brink of giving up. All we wanted is one chance.

The very next day, I got a message on my LinkedIn from a certain Steve who read one of my Linkedin posts and wanted to “meet” me for breakfast to understand what we were doing. He ended up investing a small amount after that breakfast, saving our sorry ass for the next 5 months. Now, who can explain this? Entropy? Co-incidence? Karma? Manifestation?

Lots of people also call it manifesting by leveraging the power of the subconscious mind. I won’t go too deep into this as it is. But, in short, you can use your subconscious mind to get anything you want. I repeat: ANYTHING.

Lastly, have faith. I was such a pessimist that faith was a distant dream. But you CAN develop faith. When our first product wasn’t growing as fast as we had hoped it would, we had all the right to lose faith. But I did train my brain to choose to believe. You can choose to believe it’s all working out in your favor even if reality doesn’t depict that. The choice is still yours.

When Locale as an opportunity presented itself before me, I was so confused. I never had even thought of becoming an entrepreneur in my wildest dreams. I had just graduated. But with enough conviction on my back, about 4 months of runway, and no idea how all of it would work out, I listened to my gut and took the leap of faith.

(5) Building a big business

The internet is full of tactical advice on how to start, how to sell, how to build a product and how to manage. So, I won’t go deep into those. Just 3 pointers:

• Value of Emotions: People discount the value of emotions in business but often I saw business decisions taken on the backbone of emotions. Ask yourself: What do you want your audience to feel whether in an investor meeting or a conference or a sales pitch? That’s where good storytelling comes into the picture. If we tell good stories we can make people feel what we want them to feel, change perspectives and get them to do what we want.

• Humility vs arrogance: So many VPs, Heads, Directors, Investment associates, and investors would be so arrogant towards us and deliberately block our deal. Shouldn’t they be supporting small startups? But the people who have been kind to me, our well-wishers, I have never forgotten about them. No matter where you are in life when arrogance hits you, always remember you only had a 20% role to play in your success. The rest 80% was a sheet combination of luck, entropy, and divine guidance. Humility is critical if you want to succeed.

• Partnership: It’s as important to partner with someone who you blindly trust as someone with the opposite skillsets as you. But, if someone has the opposite skillsets, they also have a different mannerism of working. My co-founder was the “pushing things at the last moment” and I was the “taking time to prepare” person. It took some iteration to settle down to a system that worked for both of us. Assuming you’re good at everything is just stupid. Learn what you’re truly the best at and hone those skills and learn your team does what they are experts in.

• Lastly, some advice as a woman in business:

  • In most meetings, you will be the only female. Get used to it. The only way to solve this divide is to uplift other women around you.

  • Men are often much louder in meetings. Don’t let that silence you. Get over the fear of judgment by becoming good at your craft.

  • You might (or might not) get more emotionally affected by people and their issues. Don’t treat it as a weakness. Use that strength to become a good leader.

  • and lastly, if you fear becoming the CEO, just remember that every skill you need as a CEO can be learned. None of this matters if you don’t work your ass off and become very good at what you do.

That’s a wrap. To be honest, I was really scared of putting myself out there like this. But, there’s no other way than to be vulnerable, I have to own my story and these are the things I believe in and this is what makes me, me. So, go out there and find out what makes you, you and once you do, become the best you. Thanks once again, ladies and gentlemen.