co-founder of an online wedding planning
portal called weds me good now at this
one of time I feel compelled to clarify
something it’s not what it’s usually
mistaken for it’s not bedmi good that’s
the whole difference data it’s called a
know we has come slightly after that but
I wasn’t always in this paper four years
ago I was doing econometric data
modeling at a financial services company
so how then did I make this jump between
being a statistician which is kind of
the job to come to expect after a
master’s in economics to being a founder
of a wet tech startup I wish I could
tell you guys that it was part of this
whole game plan that I had charted out
in my head but that would be completely
untrue
here’s the abridged version so I’m
working at American Express and I was
getting married at the time and I was
getting married in a new city and I just
couldn’t believe how hard it was to find
Indian wedding content online even to
just find a venue or a makeup artist or
photographer it was just really
difficult and I started documenting my
wedding planning journey on my personal
long and that blog suddenly took off and
it’s really increased interaction and I
was kind of discussing this with my
husband one day and we both did a bit of
research and found that while on
internationally there were a ton of
online portals in India we didn’t have
anything like this and so we did
something a little bit crazy both of us
with the minimal bank balance quit our
jobs simultaneously
my mom had a mini heart attack she’s in
the crowd right now I don’t think she
still understand what it is that I do no
more I’m not a wedding planner but along
the way this change gave us a few
learning and these learnings are what I
want to share with you today my first
learning is actually contrary to
anything that everyone ever told me
about career planning and that is
that passion is overrated you know how
every time somebody gives you career
advice they always say find your one
passion and then follow your passion and
then suddenly work doesn’t seem like
work anymore
well here’s the problem I have had that
first of all passion is the feelings and
feelings change feelings evolve this
fizzle out so in school I was passionate
about design I wanted to be a graphic
designer
and then I was passionate about
economics and then I was passionate
about content so what do I really choose
even if you are really passionate and I
have found that one passion there’s no
guarantee that when once you do it as a
career you will enjoy doing it
so while passion is the great guiding
force I think there are other things you
need to look at as well so when I was
starting out I asked myself two
questions first will I get good at this
can I bring some skills to the table and
really add value in the speech and – is
this a problem that I cared is all about
and simple answers to both of these
questions who are confident yes we kind
of took that leap of faith I have
discovered new passions along the way I
didn’t know at that time that I would be
passionate about digital marketing or
about just brainstorming or tech product
but I know now so my first learning is
that when you are looking at a career
switch or even choosing a career passion
is the guiding principle but don’t base
a sustainable career on passion and
passion alone now before I go on to my
second learning I have to tell you we
kind of learned this the hard way so we
have started off right and like most
startups we entered a VC fund who had
asked to meet us and we went in and we
were super confident because we’d had a
good start and we were like we’re going
to kill this meeting and we went in
without any pitched presentation because
we want from the tech space we didn’t
even know you needed a pitch
presentation in the first meeting and
one of the VC partners asked us at that
time you know which one of you handles
product and we just kind of look at each
other and say
I don’t know what is forest product even
mean because we have an online portal
what do you mean product needless to say
we didn’t get funded by bail but it kind
of made us realize that we should have
done something early on which is my
second learning that when you do change
the courier find a mentor in that career
so after that meeting we Network
shamelessly we get up all our LinkedIn
contacts we spoke to all our friends and
family to find people who are in this
new career and who could kind of give us
more light into this black box of the
tech industry and slowly but surely we
kind of understood what is architecture
what is tech stack all of these things
that was just so alien to us right and
not just when you’re starting up but
even when you’re looking at a new job
let’s say you’re looking at changing
your job to a new career it’s really
important that you just meet people
because at that point of time your
resume kind of becomes a little bit
irrelevant but what doesn’t become a
relevance is the skills you have and
only when you go and meet a person in
that new industry will they be able to
see you and the skills you can drink to
that field so my second learning before
you start onto a career change
find a mentor now before I go on to my
third learning I want to tell you guys a
little bit of a story so we had started
and we found this tech talent right but
there was still a question of getting
users onto our site and at the time
there were other portals out there and
what they were doing is using paid ads
to get users and it actually worked
really great for them there was a one
problem with that though and the problem
was we knew nothing about it what we did
know that what our strength was was
social media so here’s what we did we
reached out to friends and family and we
told them that we want to feature their
weddings on our side like a story so
this is what happened once we feature
someone’s wedding they were going to
share it on that BH will you know they
like to brag that they’ve been featured
by a portal on Facebook and then the
makeup artist or photographer who’s been
featured in that wedding would then
share it on his page
and so on and very soon we had like a
large corpus of visitors who are
visiting us simply because they have
seen it somewhere on social media which
brings me to my third point which is
when you are new in your industry then
play to your strengths and it seems like
a very simple of this thing right play
to your strengths but it’s amazing that
when you’re in this new field that
you’re not quite comfortable in you end
up focusing on what you don’t have was
versus what you have you might not be
the most experienced or the most skilled
or the most knowledgeable but you will
have some other strengths that can add
value to the table so when you are in a
new industry play to your strengths
right now my spot learning starts with a
question when we are looking at choosing
of fulfilling career what is it that we
look for and I think most of us look for
these three things we look at work we
love doing so quality of work we look at
how well it pays us remuneration and we
look at work-life balance pretty much I
think sums it up right well if you’re
changing a career I’m assuming you’re
doing this because of that first point
over there because you think you’re
going to enjoy the work in this new
field you’re in then in the short term
be prepared to give up one of the other
two for us we gave a both we went from
20 lakh PTC’s down to 2 lakh CDC’s and
we still don’t have a work-life balance
but there are so many people I need who
are just trapped and they just feel so
you know they’re unhappy in their jobs
and their careers and they want to do
something different but when a new
opportunity comes their way
they always rejected because they
expected to also give them a higher fee
and also have to give them a better
work-life balance you’re not going to
get all three guys let’s be realistic
especially in the short term when you’re
doing a career change don’t expect all
of these three things the only person I
think who can switch a career and get
all of these three things is this guy
and there can only be one
right so it’s right to make sacrifices
when you’re changing your career finally
my final learning is about knowing when
you’re doing well in this new field that
you’re in and it’s really important that
he said clear yardsticks and timelines
for success for us the yardstick was
reaching 50,000 users in the first six
months and it was raising a round of
funding in the first year we actually
met our user target we reached 100,000
but we didn’t get funded and it was
looking kind of really low and the
seventh in rest of America ejected us
and you know we were kind of down in the
dumps a little bit and I remember going
into this shop it was this tiny store in
Shawnee talk and drive was sitting next
to me she was shopping for her lehenga
and she was asking the shopkeeper to
show her all these different things and
she just she wasn’t liking anything and
the guy couldn’t understand what she
wanted and after just being frustrated
she took out her cell phone and she
showed him some reference images and I
realized at that time that those
reference images were from our app and
it was at that moment that I realized
that hey we’re making a difference to
people’s lives here but these small
difference but a difference nonetheless
and we knew that this was it for us but
Mac the point I make is that when you do
that clear yardsticks and timelines you
kind of know whether you’re doing well
or you’re not and then you can adjust in
case you know you don’t meet that target
and your yardstick would be anything if
you’re in a new job your yardstick could
be for example leading a project
independently or it could be giving a
really really valuable suggestion that
then implemented so have any small
yardstick but if a yardstick so that you
can evaluate yourself finally I just
want to say to everybody who might be
starting our careers if you’re anything
like how I was when I was taking my
first job I was apprehensive and I was
confused and the kind of time to think
that this job is going to define what
our career is going to be but your job
does not define what your career is
gonna be at least your first job does
not
it’s simply a stepping stone to identify
what your career may or may not be at
the end of the day finding a fulfilling
career is a marathon it’s not a sprint thank you