Learnings I picked up from my Two-year journey at In-Conversation

It’s been two years since I have started this platform In-Conversation and it has been a wonderful ride so far. Starting a platform to disseminate knowledge and skills to students wasn’t something which I ever had thought. After MBA completion, my mind was preoccupied with the thought of moving to Mumbai and taking up a new job at the Bank. But, as we say nothing goes as planned, the pandemic happened and delayed my joining by six months. I was spending my time happily by reading books until one day, I stumbled over a LinkedIn post of a guy who was helping out MBA students with their Summer Internships. That post marked the beginning of In-Conversation and has never seen a downturn since then.

Started with discussing the latest industry trends by inviting industry leaders as guest speakers to creating some wholesome content for MBA students to conducting workshops, a lot has changed since Day 1. And this journey has been an eye-opener for me, breaking my assumptions and leaving me with some great learnings apart from the time, work, and people management skills.

• If you don’t ask, the answer is always NO

A famous line often quoted by Ankur Warikoo, but I have firsthand experienced the real meaning of it. While starting, I used to use my network, LinkedIn as my search engine to find speakers. There have been times when I have emailed someone out of my league and have not received a response and vice versa too. Can anyone imagine calling an unknown interviewer for a webinar? Yes, I have done that with just one power of asking the right things at the right time.

Response or no response is not in our hands, but trying and doing our bit is. Why restrict yourself to the thought of being turned down?

• Move beyond your comfort zone

As a finance enthusiast, Marketing & Social media were nowhere on my radar. I barely have used my social media handles and never even went beyond a basic understanding of marketing and its concepts. But today, I conduct sessions on Digital marketing, Content development, customer segmentation, and targeting and help a couple of small businesses to spur their visibility online. This platform pushed me to read and learn about this and my learning involved understanding concepts from peers, reading books, looking at what and how others use these platforms.

Expansion of horizon needs some extra efforts but if you have a purpose aligned, it becomes easy and more meaningful

• Be prepared for everything

Imagine you are pitching a guest speaker for your college event or your fest, and the individual indeed starts asking you a series of unexpected questions. What would be your first thought? Why is he asking me all these questions and if I don’t answer correctly, he would turn down the offer?

But as a solopreneur, you have to be prepared for everything. No matter what you expect or not, your spontaneity, clarity of thoughts, and confidence can turn the tables in your favor. You have to be humble and just go with the flow without fearing the outcomes.

• ?Make Mistakes and Put yourself forward

"We all make them, the difference is what we do after we make the mistake, how we see the mistake - a learning experience or a failure."?Catherine Pulsif er. The fear of not committing a mistake is because we link it to the possible failures and how others will conceive it. But this process of taking risks and making mistakes provide us with the courage to face the consequences and the satisfaction of trying new things, putting yourself first compensates for every negative emotion and put us on the path of future success.

• Automation at the rescue: Be the runner

Things are incredibly simple to understand, easy to use right under a click, thanks to automation. As a sole runner, I have tried many applications and third-party tools to assess what works best for my needs. Dividing your time and cutting down on daily tasks like social media posts, auto- emailers to the community can be just scheduled in advance. I could have never imagined that I can build my website and mobile application without quick creation options like Wix and Glide.

Using technology can be boring and time-consuming, but once you figure out the right places for your requirements, it can be well managed without your attention!

• Don’t lose out on yourself in the process

Running a side venture along with a full-time job can be tiring and we may feel disconnected from the outside world. I love what I do but still experience fatigue and burned out, and this feeling made me realize the importance of breaks. We all need a breather and time off from our daily routines, just like some mind-clearing/ introspection sessions where we don’t think about work.

These detours help in two ways- one rejuvenates your minds, revitalizes the energy and the second helps us absorb new ideas and thoughts.

• Find your Who’s

I have hired many interns during two years who can help me out in giving my ideas a shape with a quick turnout. As put by Dan Sullivan & Dr. Benjamin Hardy in their book ‘Who not How’; the real gamechanger is the people who associate with your ideas, align their skills and capabilities and join you to achieve more independently. My notion is not to find the right person but to find a person who is ready to upskill and grow with me.

This experience of delegation and trusting people with work has impelled me to get some patience and wait for people to come up with their wits.

• Achieve small everyday

No one has made it huge in a day. To make your ideas big, we all have invested time, persistent efforts, and our energy into achieving small goals every day that eventually compounds into bigger achievements. Our initial notion of making it big, coming out as a seamless product at once doesn’t work in today’s world but our abilities to go up step by step does. We can’t be perfect in one shot but we can keep evolving and improving on what we offer.

Instead of piling up the ideas and dreams, focusing on executing by taking baby steps conspires to a great impact.

Hope these insights into my two-year journey would help you kickstart your work on that idea that has been lurking in your head for quite some time. Tell me your thoughts and takeaways from your ventures in the comments section.