Just Do It — How I learned my first lesson in entrepreneurship, from entreprenurship

In 2013, in my fourth year of college, I had been working on my first venture GetsMeFit — a platform that aimed to provide exercise and diet plans customized to your needs.

But how would people discover us? I had interned at Times Internet that summer and launched a Twitter campaign that awarded exciting ZigWheels branded merchandise to a few lucky winners who shared their most memorable pics with their bikes. I decided I’d replicate the campaign to engage health enthusiasts with fitness-based giveaways.

But why would anyone give me, a college kid, giveaways worth thousands of rupees to run a Twitter contest? I pushed the thought aside for a bit and started researching goodies I could give away — sweat bands? Jumping ropes? Water bottles? Nutrition bars? Nutrition bars sounded good, they seemed to be getting popular in the market too as companies had slowly begun launching budget friendly options in the market. I circled back to my doubts on why somebody would want to sponsor nutrition bars for my campaign.

I imagined walking into an office with people wearing suits and ties and shiny boots — laughing at me halfway through my pitch for sponsorship of a marketing campaign of a website that nobody had heard of. But without the sponsorship how could I run a campaign with giveaways. To break free from my paralysis of analysis, I approached one of my mentors who asked me to Just Do It. “Walk in there confidently and just shoot. It might not work. But what if it just ends up working…” he said.

Nervously, I googled addresses of different companies. I found the marketing office of a nutrition bar just a little ahead of Hiranandani. It was a bar that I myself had been trying back then. Shouldn’t take too much time I thought. I went in there at 4:30pm and began pitching to the first person I saw in there. The lady cut me short and asked me to stay put at the reception. 5 long minutes later, she emerged from the alley into the reception again and asked me to enter a room. The person in-charge of marketing was sitting there.

Ok, here we go — I thought to myself and pitched again. He asked me many more questions and finally asked, “ How many bars would you need for such a campaign?”

“100”, I blurted.

“And shipping too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine, let me know a week in advance once you are ready to launch the campaign. We’ll ensure inventory is ready.” I couldn’t believe it — I was overjoyed! I quickly got out of the office and called my mentor to share the news.

Eventually, while the Twitter campaign never went live, this instance of breaking past my inhibitions to act boldly and hustle has kept guiding me as I later launched Upsurge Labs and then began leading Lab+ and other strategic initiatives at Lybrate.

Do you have a story that you’d like to share? I’d love to hear all about it! Just drop a comment or a note at palagr2993@gmail.com! Also, I’d be grateful to receive any feedback you’d have for me!