My Friends Made My Day

By Sandy Naidu | August 12, 2008

This morning when I was browsing the internet, I came across a newspaper article which reported that a particular couple who built their company from scratch have today sold it for 45 million US dollars.

Reading about business successes and drawing inspiration from them is a personal hobby of mine and so I have read many stories like this. But there was something different about this story - I went to university with this couple - In fact we were very close friends. After finishing their degree, they moved to a different country and I kind of lost touch with them. I don’t want to name them here because they are not even aware that I am writing this post and so am not sure how they would react if they found out.

Even when they were in university these two were very focused - focused not on studies and getting good grades - but focused on doing something remarkable with their lives. They always wanted to create something - They never wanted to work for some one but always wanted to build their own company.

After leaving university they set up their IT Consultancy company. From what I remember, the initial few years were very hard. But they stuck by it. They worked hard. They went about reaching one small milestone at a time and today they have successfully sold their company for millions.

Reading about them made my day. I am happy for them. There is so much I can learn form their story.

The thing is, I also always wanted to build my own business. I have been working on my own for 6 years now. For the first 5 years as a software programmer and for the last one year as an internet marketer. I achieved reasonable amount of success as a software programmer - I was very happy with what I was earning. But after 5 years the passion died (a topic for another day). And luckily I found my passion in ‘Internet Marketing’. I have been at it for last one year (first six months part time and then after that full time). Though I did well with my software business, it never reached the heights I wanted it to reach.

Over the past 6 months I have had a lot of time to think about it and analyze where I went wrong. I made many mistakes - both in my business and my personal life. I will be writing about these mistakes in the coming posts…I am sure in my new business as well I will make mistakes - But I don’t want to make the same mistakes I made in my old business. I am actually extremely passionate about the work I am doing now (in fact more than the software business). I am looking forward to building this business and taking it to the levels that my software business never reached.

My software business compensated me more than adequately for all the work I did - With this business my approach is a bit different - From day one I have been viewing it more as a business rather than as a means to earn a good income while working from home. I will be sharing about my progress, my work, my mistakes, lessons learned, my dreams and goals and aspirations in the near future.