Part A: ABG, an integral part of me
UltraTech Cement of Aditya Birla Group has always held a very special space in my heart. From strengthening the foundations of my home to making sure the renovation and tiling 10 years later look just so easy, UltraTech has always been like a stoic older brother for me. Brands like Pantaloons and Peter England have always made sure that I dress like a star at an affordable price, while Freshwrapp made sure that the delicious lunch my mother made me, stayed warm to remind me of my family’s love. I have repeatedly realized this throughout my life, whether I am at a high or low point in my life, that an Idea can always change my life, I just need to take the leap of faith. Idea was the first cellular network I was privileged enough to join, and it introduced me to the joy of being connected to my family no matter how far away. And later in my life, Vodafone introduced me to the joys of high-speed surfing and downloading from the internet. A whole world at my fingertips, from studies to entertainment, ABG has always been an integral part of my life. Aditya Birla Sun Life Tax Relief 96 has even helped me save and make money from mutual funds, something which enabled me to buy my very own car. From childhood till this date, ABG is something which has always been a silent supporter in all our lives and for that, we heartily thank you for it.
Part B: "Good judgment comes from experience, but experience comes from bad judgment. It is up to us to learn from previous mistakes and grow."
It all started with an idea of not being restricted to a mediocre job role after completing my B.Tech. from a private institute in the Pink City, Jaipur. I was in my third year of graduation and as all the ECE graduates from my batch, was wondering in which company to intern. All my friends were going to get their training in the ECE field, but something was stopping me from going the same way. So, in a class of 60, I was the lone ranger to go for an Android development internship from a small startup.
I had an amazing internship and made a very useful network of like-minded people, who shared the dream of being a technopreneur with me. Over the course of next year, I worked on various freelance projects, at outrageously low prices, to build up my portfolio. At an event organized by the Google Student Ambassador at that time, I won the 1st prize for presenting my “Out of the box” app idea. That is when I caught the eye of my future co-founder and one of the best coders, I have ever seen till this date. A couple of months later, I got a call from an unknown number and when I picked it up, I was happily surprised to hear the voice of Ritvik Vyas asking me to collaborate on a project with him if I was available. I gladly took the opportunity to increase my skill set and gain more exposure by working on a much more challenging scale than I was used to. We collaborated on many projects throughout the year and by the end of it, we had a vision of starting our own software development company CodeJocks Technologies with the mindset of providing Website and Application Development services at the right price in an era of varying costs in the segment. But our main mission was to design, develop and deploy a product which would help the people around us.
But before we started, we faced a very pressing concern, we needed money to start operations. We needed a place to work, some basic furniture and amenities, and some capital amount for hiring interns and advertising. There was a burning desire to not ask for any money from our parents as we wanted to be known as self-made men. With that goal in mind, I fired up my scooty and started to visit all my references, asking to be given a chance to make an app or website for them as per their requirements. Thankfully, 3 different businesses liked our pitch and we suddenly had the capital we required to bootstrap our venture from the token amount we received from them. The date was August 1st, 2016 and there was a light drizzle when we inaugurated our office which was stereotypically set up on the 1st floor of my co-founder’s home. There were no chairs but an abundance of beanbags for us and our two new interns to work and lounge on.
It was only 8 months later that we were registering ourselves as a Pvt. Ltd. company. A dream which seemed so far away, was now right before our eyes. With our accumulated savings, we scaled up in terms of infrastructure and went from two average guys to a well-functioning unit of 12 colleagues spread across different domains. We leveraged B2B alliances with various companies functioning on a global level across different sectors. I got to handle client acquisitions and relations and also upscaled various one-time projects to AMC contracts. Somewhere along the line we got so immersed in our work that we lost sight of what we set out to do. Build something, our own product, which actually would make the world just that little bit better. Even though I parted with the company at that point to explore new challenges in a new environment, the learnings during my time at CodeJocks will always stay with me. “Sometimes good things need to fall apart, so that even better things can fall into place.”
