2020: The Year that was ... and the updates I promised!

I started writing this as we just wrapped up 2020 with the usual celebrations around my birthday, my daughter's birthday, the new year and other celebrations that happens every December for us. Well, it was some year, both on the work front and the personal front. The first couple of months looked great, we were growing, we were hiring and ramping up the team and were well-set to continue the growth we'd achieved over the last couple of years as an organization and a team. When Covid-19 struck, we initially felt like it will be gone in a few weeks, then we thought, maybe a few months, but it has definitely made a lasting impact on all of us. While the Whatsapp Forward on the Resume of the COVID-19 Virus driving Digital Transformation, Raising awareness of Hygiene and so much more is true in some ways, it has definitely hurt the economy and millions of people directly and indirectly in terms of lost jobs, closed businesses, broken families and so much more. :-(

On the personal front, I had several team members, friends and family who were directly impacted by COVID-19 including some close relatives who lost out on the battle with the virus. In addition, just anecdotally, the number of people who lost their lives (even if not directly due to COVID-19) was clearly significantly higher than ever before possibly due to the stress on the healthcare system.

As for Convergytics and especially my unit within Convergytics, Q1 (Apr-June) and Q2 to a lesser degree (Jul-Sep) were almost lost quarters. Deals that kept dragging, Opportunities that were getting created with not much headway beyond the initial scoping call and in general slow progress. In the meantime, my small team of Blik.ai worked hard on building a product and were working hard on taking it to market. When finally things started looking up in Q3 and we started making progress as we closed a few opportunities and also built a healthy pipeline for Blik and our Solutions/Services, disaster struck in the form of a major aggressive action by my Co-Promoters doing something that came to me, my team and my family as a huge shock.

As I said in my previous post thanking you all for my birthday wishes, please do not believe any rumors and do check in with me if you do hear anything at all. I would like to reiterate that I am very much an Executive Director of Convergytics (even if you are told anything else) and the aggressive actions have been stayed by the High Court of Karnataka as of now. I cannot reveal more because the matter is sub-judice in multiple judicial fora and the details of everything that has been done are too painful for me to share given this brand is something I have worked hard to build over the past 7-8 years.

Needless to say, the latest set of actions and the confusion created by these actions will definitely not help the brand. The very fact that I waited 5 weeks since the trigger and since Employees and most of my Clients and Partners were told the lie that I have moved out of the Company and the efforts to defame me with lies and falsehoods started, to reveal my side of the story (and that too partially) should reveal how I am trying to limit the damage. Also, I am aware that many people have been told that I have moved out of Convergytics and I don't know who all have been told. But, my actions or lack of it are possibly being taken as my weakness it appears. There will am sure be an effort to further defame me on seeing this post. I told my team that Convergytics is like my first child because yes, it was conceptualized (even if not officially started) a few months before even my elder daughter was born. While I know this post may hurt the brand, I feel not telling my side of the story or walking away and letting the lies continue can actually hurt more because I owe it to clients and partners that have worked with me and whom I have made commitments to and I will speak to each one of you in the coming days with my plans as they become more clear.

For me and my family, it’s safe to say that 2020 will be a chapter in our lives that we shall never forget. Having said that, the year has included a lot of learnings - patience, resilience, sticking to processes when the results are not coming through, empathy and trust along wtih the nuances of building a product (compared to my entire 20+ years experience being mostly in services) are a few things I have realized the importance of and gained this year. In addition, the last couple of months have taught me so many things (legal and regulatory matters, mistakes and assumptions I made in trusting people) that I have to say that this is a year that in hindsight I will definitely be grateful for (when this is all behind me).

Let me close by thanking each one of you for the support, collaboration and encouragement throughout the year and the open and heartfelt support by many of you (you know I am speaking about you :-)) in the last few weeks and of course the dozens of unsolicited but tempting/lucrative roles (which of course I have politely declined because one, I am very much with Convergytics and I intend to fight this to the logical end and two, depending on how the courts rule, my entrepreneurial journey will only move ahead faster). I would also like to sincerely thank my team within Convergytics and apologize to them for the turmoil they have to go through including the threats and intimidation from the other promoters as well as the uncertainty over the past couple of months. We will get out of this soon and stronger at that, I promise.

I wish you and your loved ones a very Happy New Year 2021! Here's to a wonderful year for all of us!