Naman turned to the old man and asked, “You guys sleep like this only in Open? Are you not scared of these animals? I mean, how can he sleep like this here?” Even I wanted to ask the same question. The old man replied, “Yeah, we all sleep like this only. Winter is coming; that’s why we were inside the house, else in summer we all sleep like this.” Now, this was something encouraging that people can live and sleep in this kind of environment. We came back to the car and again moved for another destination. We almost roamed the whole night long in dark silent night of forest, but due to hard luck, we didn’t find any animal and by morning started coming out of forest area. All we encountered on that trip was one fox crossing the road. By almost afternoon, we reached Amreli to drop Jignesh at his home. His mother insisted us to spend one night at their place and look neighborhood for a while. We accepted the offer and decided to stay over there at their house. Jignesh took us on a small round of city and showed us someplace worth watching. Out of all those, he kept on mentioning his favorite one, which was a girl’s college. It was the nearest destination, and so we visited it last.
We came back home at around 7 in the evening, and dinner was ready. Jignesh’s father was home, too, and he welcomed us. Then we had dinner, which was awesome. We packed our things and placed them in the car as we had to leave in the morning. Again in the morning, we had a heavy breakfast (Yeah, in Gujarat, we always have heavy breakfast. Health consciousness concept is limited to high profile homes. Rest all like to enjoy the food at its best) along with tea. After finishing breakfast, we said goodbye to them and asked to leave. Jignesh said, let me show you the way to the highway from where you can go easily, so he and his brother took the bike and showed us the way. Naman dropped me at my place, and he left for Ahmedabad.
◆◆◆
Finally, we were adults and got our PAN cards, voting ids, and license. The lawyer started the process at his maximum speed, and within the one-month company was registered. We were the Directors of the company, and that feeling was not at all ordinary at that time. We all three felt like we already rule half of the world. However, it was worth exploring like that because the time and money we spent to build this company were not ordinary. Now our next step was to launch a product in the market and make some money for us. So far, it was my job to find a suitable product to launch. So I came up with the idea of starting toothpaste, and according to me, this could be an area where we could get a good startup. So I make up whole formulae to make toothpaste, which seems quite different than a conventionally available product. Naman looked for a manufacturer who can manufacture toothpaste for us, and he contacted the person who helped us find a lawyer. He again gave a reference to him, which can help us find a manufacturer.
The system till now between us three was transparent, and communication was excellent as it should be. By the time we finalized the formulation of toothpaste, we had one manufacturer, so we set a meeting with him. We went to his office and told him that we want to have one trial batch first, and if the quality is good, we will go for a production batch. Here is a list of ingredients, and we want you to manufacture it for us. The meeting went well, and he asked for a time of about one week, and he will come up with a trial batch.
It was one week, and we approached him at the exact time he mentioned us. We asked for the sample, and he told us that sorry, but I was unable to find one of the chemicals of your ingredients and thus batch is not ready, come again after one week. Weeks passed like this, and after almost one month, we got the same answer, and that ground my gears. I called him and said. “If you don’t want to work with us, fine. Say big NO right now on the face, but stop this come after one week. Give us back our advance, and we will find someone else, but this is not done. It feels like we are battling a court case where the judge is giving dates.” To my anger, he answered in his soft voice (He always talk in soft voice only) that come within two days, and I will provide you samples. After two days, he called us and said that come to my place as your samples are ready. We went there, and he showed us samples, but tubes were filled with lots of gas. The tube was highly inflated, and one was wide open from its bottom even.
I asked him, “What is this? What happened? Why these are full of gas?” He replied, “Oh nothing, the formulae you provided are not stable and producing gas inside, which leads to this.” I kept mum on this, and we left his place. While we were returning, I remembered the incident when we were about to finalize the product, which is innovative and unique because that could only be key to penetrate the market. We were putting our views, and Naman came up with the idea of providing toothpaste, which comes out of the tube on its own without pressing the tube. This memory made me smile, so Naman asked me a reason for the smile. I usually smile after my thinking, and when its mild cunning smile, there always is some reason, and he knew that. So I told him the reason mentioned above, and we all three burst in laugh. I said, “I will again have a look at formulation. I don’t think this should happen to this. Provide me one paste to check whether this work fine in function or not?” He handed me one tube and dropped me at my home.
We all three used the paste for weeks, and it was showing promising results in actions. The plaque removal was good, and the shine of teeth were recovered, but the only problem was aeration that was generated inside due to chemical reaction. So I came up with a conclusion that the base of toothpaste in not compatible with one of the ingredients, and this is why the tube is inflating and bursting, we should go for gel toothpaste. We again contacted the manufacturer and notified him of the changes, and he agreed to do those. He again gave us one date to collect the samples, but as usual, samples were not ready. We came back, and the process was again repeated for about 3-4times, but the final output was zero. Thus, we decided to leave his service and concentrate on another product, which was a cream to reduce inflammation.
◆◆◆
I was sleeping on a beautiful Sunday morning, and my mobile disturbed me with loud ringtone noise. I picked up the call, and it was Naman on the other end.
“Hey, you sleeping?”
“No, dude, I was having breakfast with President of America. Can’t you get it? Its 6 in the morning and Sunday. How can you expect me to do anything else other than sleeping on Sunday morning?”
“Okay, we got a problem. Huge problem.”
“I never expect a piece of good news from your end. Narrate your story please, I still got a lot to sleep.”
“Here is the thing I paid 6000 to a guy who provides a consultation service, and he gave us a reference to that toothpaste manufacturer. I called him to return the money as toothpaste thing didn’t go well, but he is not answering me now.”
“So, what do you expect me to do?”
“I want you to call him and tell him to return our money.”
“Oh, fine! So I have to play a bad guy role now.”
“Yes, you have to. Call the guy right now.” and he hung up without waiting for my reply. In moments I received a message with a mobile number of that guy, so I dialed the number.
“Hello? Is this Rajnibhai on the other end? I am Aditya, a business partner of Naman, and he told me that he paid you 6000 rupees for work, and you didn’t finish it?” I didn’t wait for his confirmation that he is Rajnibhai or not, because this is how the conversation goes on in Gujarat.
“Yes, he paid me the money for consultation.”
“I want my money back, okay. You said Naman gave you for consultation, then what kind of help you did to us? Do you think we are the charity guys?”
“Excuse me, I gave him a reference of the toothpaste manufacturer, and that is why he paid me.”
“Oh wow, so you are the guy who he consults. I want to inform you that our deal with that manufacturer didn’t go well. He is giving us date after date and not giving us the product, then why should we pay you? I want my money back; I don’t want to listen to anything else.”
“See, I don’t know who you are, but the fees he paid to me cannot be refund
ed. It is not at all professional way to deal with people.”
“Oh my god, are you kidding me? Do you call this professionalism? Did you take 6000 to point out the address and name of the manufacturer? Man, I can Google such things in this era. He is a fool that paid you 6000 for this purpose. I don’t require your service at all, you pay him back our money, and we are good, or else I have to do something you might not even have expected.” and this time, my voice got louder on call.
“As I said, money cannot be refunded, but we can have a win-win situation if you allow me to give you a worthy manufacturer now. This time I will come along with you when you go for the meeting so that everything went smooth. Deal with that manufacturer didn’t go well because you visited him without me.”
“So what are you, President or something of Ahmedabad Industrial Area that we have to take you along with us? We are grown-ups, and we know how to handle a person.”
“Well, I can’t give you money back, but in case you want my offer, I am ready to arrange a meeting between you and the manufacturer.”
“Okay fine. I will utilize the perks then. Arrange a meeting at four today in the evening and send me a location after confirming the meeting within an hour. We want some pain reliever gels.”
“Within one hour? Today, you want a meeting? It can’t be done.”
“What am I paying you for then? It is my offer, either fix the meeting within 1 hour else you will get the call next time from my attorney for not fulfilling agreement terms.”
“What kind of agreement? We didn’t do any paperwork. What is there with you as proof?”
“In case you don’t know calls can be recorded and I am recording one. You just said yourself that Naman paid you like a consultation fee. If you don’t provide service, then why the hell should I pay you? So hurry up, time, don’t wait for anybody. I am expecting a message from you in no time.” I hung up the call and went for my morning tea as I showered all my anger on Rajnibhai for screwing my Sunday morning. I got a text from him by the time I finished my tea reading, “Meeting at 4 pm, near Thaltej crossroad. Come there on time.” I called Naman and told him to be at 3 pm on the said location without any delay.
My trick worked, and he came at 3:30 there, and I told him the whole scenario that why I called him there. Rajnibhai was punctual enough to reach by 3:45 and went out of his car. We went out of the vehicle, and Naman greeted him. The first question he asked was, “Where is this Aditya? Who is he?” I came ahead and said I am the one, what’s the matter? The look on his face was just out of this world. He was expecting me as somewhat older and real badass, but when he saw me, I barely had a beard on my face. After about 2-3 minutes, he asked me, “Is this the way how you talk with people? I am more than double the age of yours, and you talk with me like this? Naman, you need to make him understand what to talk and how to talk.” Before Naman could reply, I said, “I paid you with a hell lot of money for some job, and you don’t perform it well in the first place, and then you expect me to invite you over dinner at my place? Sorry sir, if I might have misbehaved, but we are a businessman if you don’t respect the money and your job, I don’t respect you.” He was speechless again for some time and changed the topic to what he did for us. He said he provided Naman contacts of many manufacturers, and he talked with them about this. He is doing this since before my birth, and nobody ever spoke to him like that. At the end of his lecture, I said, “Can we go for the meeting you have arranged for us? You can mail me the rest of your lecture. I will read it peacefully later and reply to you. We have lectures to attend tomorrow at college.” So we went to the office of the manufacturer and had talked for about 20 minutes and decided to give them a purchase order and left the place. But later, things didn’t go well, and we had to cancel the order before placing it, and I called Rajnibhai for the very last time.
“Hello! Rajnibhai there?”
“Yes, Rajnibhai speaking. Who is this?”
“You haven’t saved my number yet? I am Aditya, remember me?”
“Oh yeah! I do remember you. So you now know that if you take me with you at the manufacturer’s office at the time of meeting how much impact it places on them. I helped you in making your first deal. So from next time onwards, talk nicely to me, and you will go far ahead………”
“Sorry to interrupt you, but before you start dictating me your saga, let me tell you that we are no longer going with a deal you helped. Secondly, we are cutting you loose, and we no longer need your so-called service, which Google offers for free. You were telling me to talk nicely with you because your age is more than double of mine, but have you ever thought that you should not be looting kids for anything? You took our money claiming it’s your professional fee, but where is your professionalism? Stop cheating with young startups, and you will go far in life, mister. Thank you for patient listening, and don’t bother to call my friends or me ever again for your kind service. We already had enough of you.” And before I finish my speech, he disconnected.
The days were passing rapidly, and we were busy in college for one or another reason. Almost one and a half months passed away without any lead, and suddenly Naman told us that he had placed an order of parenteral diclofenac vials. We used to ask Naman about the status of diclofenac order, but lately, we found lots of changes in his nature. He started hanging out with Kunal and Dinesh lately and stopped sharing the things with us. Kunal and Dinesh were the guys who wanted to be part of the company but didn’t want to invest a penny in it. I tried to talk with Naman that what is going on with all those three?
“Hey Naman, care to explain what is going on between you and these two? We are your partner and not those two, so you better start sharing things with us than them.”
“Now that you have brought this topic to let me clear things first. If you want to work in a team, you both need to put efforts. I know your contribution is there, but what about Jignesh? He is not in the picture at all this whole time. It is not the way to do business. I am putting my heart out to boost the business, and you guys are wasting time here in college.”
“Now, this is not the case, okay. We are putting our efforts and trying our best to run the company well. You don’t share things with us, then how are we supposed to know what is going on? You started hanging out with those two, and they know much better than us about the company.”
“Okay, so here is the thing. I have placed a purchase order for multivitamin drops for babies, protein powder, and energy drinks. They will be delivered in a week to us. Start selling them.”
“Are you kidding me? You just placed an order without notifying us? Who do you think you are to make decisions for us?”
“You guys were too busy with college life, and so I didn’t care to notify you both. You guys get a good score in the exam because you read while I work for the company, and you want me to notify you?”
“You are heating this argument now………..” Before I finish my sentences, the lunch break is over, and the lecture started. That was the last day at college, and the summer vacation started. After about a week, he called me and told me to come to Ahmedabad to collect the goods. The purchase order he placed is ready, and we had to sell them, the ethical way. I came to Ahmedabad all the way long from my home town and collected a few samples from him and returned.
The next morning, I woke up too early in the morning and got ready for the first encounter with the doctor to sell the drugs. It was my first experience, and it was quite obvious to be nervous. From morning to evening, I practiced what I should be talking there, and how? At about 6 pm, my mother told me to leave before the doctor closes his clinic. I went to the clinic, and I was sweating like anything already, not just because I was nervous, but it was a hell of summer. I went to reception and notified that I am here to meet the doctor. She told me to wait outside, and she will let me know when the doctor is ready for the meeting. Very few patients were there at that time, and so in about 15 minutes, she told me to go in.
“Good
evening sir, I am from Trans Pharmaceuticals.”
“Good evening. Take a seat.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“So tell me, how can I help you?”
“Sir, this is our multivitamin baby drops which are good in quality and quite cost-effective. This is our protein powder, perfect for pregnant women, and this is our calcium supplement sachets. The sachet is easy to use and very beneficial during the pregnancy and for infants too.”
“This is good. Just one question, what is your age?”
“I am 18, sir.”
“And you got the job of a medical representative at this age? Are you having a financial crisis at home or something? Why are you not studying?”
“Sir, I am doing my B.pharm in reputed pharmacy college, and I am suffering from no financial crisis. We, three classmates, started this company, and this is why I am here getting an experience of marketing.”
“Okay, give me your card. I’ll let you know in case I need any of these.”
I wasted almost 5 hours just for a 5-minute meeting, and that too for hearing No as an answer. I was quite depressed and decided not to visit any doctor any time soon. After about a week of the depressive phase, I recollected my strength back and again paid a visit to a few other clinics. I got no satisfactory response from any of those, and thus I went another way around. The products were quite over the counter one, and so I started selling them out in the family and inner circles. The summer vacation ended, and I nearly sold half of the items.
On the very first day of next semester, Naman came to us and started bossing around. He said give me the report of how many sales you have made till now. We both gave him the statement that this was the sale till now, and the product is not accepted by the consumer the way it should be. He started yelling out that you both are doing nothing and telling me that the product is wrong. You don’t want to put effort at all in this. I have visited these many doctors in a day showing us one notebook full of doctor’s names. We didn’t utter a word and just listened to his story. It was about a week, and again he started this thing. He continued irritating us this way for almost 15 days, and I was up to my neck by then. The college was over at four, and we were in parking, and he just started the same again, and this time, I thought of taking it to the final stage. I was in no mood to tolerate this anymore.
May be! I Love You Page 3