So how does a first time entrepreneur find success?

Learnings from the Apalya Story

By Vamshi Reddy, Co-founder, Apalya

Entrepreneurship is like the journey that a caterpillar goes through before becoming a butterfly

It is a long and tough journey, and the only way to succeed is to persist. Along the way, there will be a lot of distractions and opportunities. It is up to the entrepreneur to focus on what he/she started the venture for.

In Apalya's case, it was about sticking to building a product company, even if it meant that they had to forego lucrative services deals.

Persistence

Vamshi shared that he would often stay in places like Gurgaon, in hopes of getting to speak to a potential clients. He says, Acquiring customers is very difficult. Do whatever it takes to get them, even if it means standing at their doorsteps.

Sometimes, investors might not align with your business and might reject you. Don't be bogged down by these rejection. You must go on.

In the process, an entrepreneur must be ready to go without a salary for a long time. While doing so, don't pity yourself for it. Vamshi says, After all, you are working for yourself. Even today, I take a much lesser salary than what some of my senior managers take at the company.

Prudence

Vamshi believes that prudence is another key to success for an entrepreneur.

He says, You need money to grow. For someone to put money into your venture, he/she needs to see value in it.

Even if someone puts 1000 Rs in your business, remember to provide as much value to that person. To provide that, you must be absolutely prudent.

Be as lean as you can be and count every penny that you're spending.

Don't be scared of failures; You will learn

Vamshi shared that they had underestimated the time that it would take for market to be ready for their product. They faced a lot of problems.

However, Vamshi is glad that they had to go through this time.

He says, If you don't hit a low, you will never know how to run a business. That period really stretched us, but we learned a lot about the space that we were in and were better prepared the next time round.

The last man standing, wins.

Right now, we're trying to build a product that is going to be the NetFlix of India. Lots of challenges, but we are going to to do it.

A lot of people are trying to do it, but we will persist.

When asked if he could go back in time, what would he change, Vamshi said, Only thing I would change is start about 15 years earlier, as soon as I came out of college.

#respect.