Because Shit Happened

by Harsh Snehanshu

  On the 16th, SproutLabs offered us a seven page legal document for our perusal and asked us to decide as soon as possible. When we read through the legal document, we couldn’t understand it fully. I forwarded the document to my lawyer uncle. He was not at all happy. He told us that once again the agreement was chopping our wings just before the flight. One of its condition mentioned that SproutLabs would never sell its 10 percent equity thus having a firm hold on the company for the next ten years, with its board members exercising veto power in decisions.

  ‘Amol, they are spending just 10 lakh rupees and gaining the entire control on your company. Don’t go ahead with them. If you want only 10–15 lakh rupees, I can find you an investor within just seven days. Most of my clients are multi-millionaires and they would lend you this much money in no time, just on equity, no loans. They have a lot of trust in me,’ my uncle told me.

  Dazzled by his offer, I mentioned it to Rishabh. He seemed a bit cautious about involving my family member in the venture, but after five minutes of conversation with my uncle, he seemed convinced. We decided to go ahead with it, but before that we had one more thing to wait for. Free money.

  January 28

  Yes, free money. It was the b-plan competition of IIT Kanpur called Ideas. It promised a big prize money of around 5 lakhs to the top three winners. We had already made it to top 8 of the contest. Being absolutely confident of nailing the biggie, we kept both SproutLabs and my lawyer uncle on hold for some time.

  Having been entrepreneurs for two years, we were veterans when compared to the other participants. We had ended up in the top eight teams of the business category thanks to the submission I had sent after hearing from Mishra that he, with his own start-up, TalentMarket, was also participating.

  I was seated along with other participants at the Conference Hall at IIT Kanpur. Rishabh had gone to have a smoke. Half an hour later, our presentation was slotted. I skimmed through the slides and got stuck at a point. The slide 10 the contained the team structure.

  Rishabh Dev, Co-founder and CEO, ELP fellow

  Amol Sabharwal, Co-founder and Creative Director

  His designation looked down at me every time I looked at it, as though telling me that I was his subordinate. Being the CEO of a start-up wasn’t my ambition at all, but I definitely didn’t want to be considered second to Rishabh. I remembered how earlier, when both of us held the same designation, we always mentioned the team structure, in alphabetical order:

  Amol Sabharwal, Co-founder and Director

  Rishabh Dev, Co-founder and Director

  Why did I succumb to his yelling? Why could I not rebel? Why couldn’t I make him realize that it was my venture, that he was a part of it rather than the other way round?

  Just then, Rishabh came running towards me and informed me with sadistic delight, ‘Mishra’s b-plan got smashed by the panel. He projected TalentMarket as a social venture, with the aim of uplifting artisans, which the judges completely disagreed with. Mishra is really disappointed.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said without emotion. I was indifferent to Mishra.

  ‘What were you doing? You should have come and interacted with the few people who are already done giving their presentations,’ he advised, excitedly.

  ‘I was just revising the PPTs,’ I said.

  ‘Oh you don’t need to worry,’ he said casually. ‘I will present all the slides.’

  ‘Why? Why should you speak at every given opportunity? We will speak on alternate slides, like we used to do earlier.’

  ‘Amol, it’s not about you or me. It’s about the company. Let the CEO speak. If a question is asked in your domain of technology, you can take it heads-on,’ he asserted glibly.

  ‘Let the CEO speak’ echoed my ears throughout the presentation and I didn’t utter a word. Not a single word. I just fixated a plastic smile as my able CEO cruised through the process. During the organization structure slide, he spoke volumes about me being a creative wizard, a bestselling author, while I stood in a corner like a dumb idiot.

  When we came out, I saw Mishra smoking outside in the gallery and rushed to him.

  ‘Hi Amol, how was your presentation?’ He asked.

  ‘Good. Do you have a cigarette?’ I inquired.

  ‘You, and smoking?’

  I was so annoyed that I didn’t want to utter a word. I just nodded. He lighted my cigarette. I puffed and walked away.

  The bright winter noon was now hidden behind some clouds and I watched the wind rustling through the leaves, caressing the green grass like a mother sways her hand on her child’s head. My cigarette burned in ecstasy, nearing its end much faster than I had anticipated. Much like my relationship.

  I called Priya. My call was on waiting. She cut the phone and called me back in two minutes.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’

  ‘How is that your concern?’ she yelled back.

  ‘So, what did you do yesterday?’ I asked.

  ‘Anirudh took me for dinner,’ she said. I had stubbed out my cigarette by then.

  ‘Did he take you to his home as well?’ I probed, hesitantly.

  ‘No, what kind of a question is that?’ She rebuked.

  ‘No, just…I’m sorry,’ I faltered. ‘So how’s he?’

  ‘He’s not well; has a severe cold,’ she said sneezing.

  ‘You guys got intimate, didn’t you? Tell me the truth. That’s how you got a cold, isn’t it? Did you guys do it?’ I erupted.

  ‘Amol, mind your words. I told you that I’m not committed to him. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Very good, bitch. So you and Anirudh are fuck buddies. Can’t you understand that he’s not a nice guy?.’

  ‘At least he doesn’t abuse me every time he talks to me.’

  ‘Wow, now take his side. Why don’t you please all his friends as well—Shendu, and a dozen others?’ I hollered and continued, ‘You are…’

  She had cut the call before I could call her names.

  I received a SMS from Priya. ‘I don’t ever want to talk to you. Good riddance.’

  I typed an elaborate hurtful reply to her but deleted the damn thing and chose to remain silent.

  The prize ceremony was supposed to take place in fifty minutes and while Rishabh went with the troop of participants to have something to eat, I got immersed in work. Work acted like a drug for me. It helped me take my mind off every hideous thing in my life. Despite the last three months being an emotional rollercoaster for me, I never neglected work. I remembered one of my lines that I posted on YourQuote, which said: Friends can wait, dreams can’t.

  I walked out, joined Rishabh and the group, and befriended a couple of participants from Lucknow.

  Later, we went for the prize ceremony in the lecture hall. Rishabh got seated in the last row, much like failed backbenchers in classrooms. He was chewing gum as well, his tie was left loose, and his hand held his newly bought smartphone. I went and sat next to him.

  ‘All the remaining ideas are bullshit,’ Rishabh said. ‘I talked to each one of them. First of all they don’t know how to talk and those who do know, have just begun their venture. We are the only ones who have some users, the only ones to have any revenue, and the only ones to have a live product ready.’

  I nodded in agreement. We had no competition. Our bank account was going to be flooded with 5 lakh rupees.

  We waited patiently as one of the panelists grabbed the mic to announce the results. He appreciated all the ideas, talked at length about the organization he was from—a newly formed start-up incubator by the name of SproutLabs to our shock, and then began unravelling the names of the winners.

  First. Second. Third. We waited, we waited, we waited. Until wait betrayed us.

  We didn’t figure in top 3. We couldn’t understand that SproutLabs, the same company which had placed so much faith in us earlier, had ditched us in this contest, perhaps fearing that upon getting the money, we wouldn’t join them. While I wanted to run away from the IIT-K c
ampus as soon as possible, Rishabh was intent on taking feedbacks from the mentors as to why we didn’t figure in top 3. As he was the CEO, his choice prevailed.

  The SproutLab guy carefully avoided us and ran off giving a lame excuse that he had a flight in an hour, when we all knew that Kanpur didn’t have an airport. Some of the judges said that we didn’t throw much light on the revenue model, while some asserted that they had already discussed about us when Rishabh had spammed every venture capital firm on the planet around a month ago. So our CEO had committed a grave crime, and when I geared up to interrogate him once again, our CEO decided to vent out his frustration by cussing at the panel. I behaved like an employee of my own venture and hmmm-ed all throughout.

  We had just one resort left now—my lawyer uncle’s millionaire client.

  The End

  February 2012

  February is the month of romance. After burning all the romance from my life, it became the month to romance my start-up, the most crucial month for us. We had to finalize the investor. We had to gain a significant traction to impress the investor. We had to exploit Valentine’s Week to grow our user base.

  ‘Should we find a sponsor for the contests that we will be hosting during Valentine week?’ I asked Rishabh.

  ‘Let’s not find one. Prizes should not be incentive for such non-corporate contests. Our users will start expecting them every time then. Let the number of likes on posts be the incentive,’ he said.

  ‘You are right.’

  I had thought of a seven days long contest on the website during Valentine Week (February 7–14) where we would ask interesting questions and users would have to come up with a witty one-line answer. Also, we started Valentine tips on our fan page from February 1 in pictorial form which got immensely popular and got 1000+ shares in just two days’ time and increased our fan base past 25,000.

  Valentine Day Tips:

  1.

  If you are planning to surprise your girlfriend by sending anonymous flowers, keep this fact in mind: you will be the last guess on her mind!

  2.

  Don’t buy a teddy for your girl. It will make you feel jealous very soon.

  3.

  If you don’t manage to find a Valentine by 13th, you are eligible to join Tiger Sena.

  All of those tips garnered spectacular response and kept the site going for a few more days.

  On February 1, I had called my lawyer uncle to find an investor for us. He connected us to Darsheel, a young dynamic lawyer from Harvard, who was his partner. Darsheel was an expert in corporate affairs and he knew a lot of senior people in big companies. We had a conference call scheduled with him on the evening of February 2.

  But Rishabh was cooking up something else altogether. On February 2, he insisted we go to Noida and check with SproutLabs as well. I went along with him where they completely slammed our idea. Instead of the ready offer initially, they even asked us to return them the offer-sheet. Their argument was that they had been watching our growth in the past five weeks and noticed we were growing at a negligible pace. When we blamed it on having no technical co-founder, they claimed that it lessened our chances. Rishabh tried hard to convince them but to no avail.

  ‘We offer you money to work, we don’t offer you money to find someone to work. You are entrepreneurs, not government employees,’ they argued.

  We had no answer and ultimately returned disappointed. Rishabh yelled on the road, ‘There’s still time for you to improvize. You have taken over the technical department and you are not delivering.’

  I shouted back, ‘Why do you keep blaming me all the time? You know the situation.’

  ‘The situation is bad because you have made it bad.’

  We didn’t speak for a while and returned home. I initiated the conference call with Darsheel.

  He had gone through our PPT, which my lawyer uncle had sent to him, and gladly informed us that he found our idea ingenious and thought that with our profile, it could easily interest investors. He promised us to work on our finances and bargain with the investor on our behalf. He asked for two days to find the right guy and in the meanwhile, asked us to prepare our financials. We had the financial forecasts for the IIN pitch ready with us where we had pitched for 50 lakhs, but here the case was different. We were pitching for 20 lakhs and things needed to be recalculated. We needed time.

  While I was busy in Kanpur, there was something else happening on the home front. Late night on February 2, my father called me to inform that my mother needed to see a doctor in Delhi and she had boarded a train for Delhi. I had to go to receive her the next day.

  ‘I am arranging for a leave in the meanwhile, which is quite difficult right now. We are lucky that you run your own company, for you can take a day off as and when possible,’ my father said. His statement ‘you run your own company’ seemed like a tight slap on my face.

  Max hospital in Saket is one of the best hospitals in Delhi, right across Malviya Nagar. I had scheduled an appointment with the doctor for the next evening. My parents didn’t inform me what the exact problem was and I, completely unaware, thought that it was a minor problem.

  February 3

  My mother arrived the next day. Owing to the tense environment in our flat, I didn’t allow my mother to stay with me at the Malviya Nagar house. I instead forced her to stay in Gurgaon at my aunty’s place. In the evening, she consulted a gynaecologist. As I remained seated outside the doctor’s chamber, I posted some quotes on YourQuote’s fan page and Twitter handle, delegating rest of the day’s work to Anjali, whom I’d talked after almost two months’ silence and mailed Rishabh (cc-ing Anjali) that I was going to the hospital with my mother.

  When my mother came out of the hospital chamber, there was a blank, horrified look on her face. I looked at my aunty, even she seemed crestfallen.

  ‘What happened Mom?’

  ‘The reports suggest I have cervical cancer. They have asked me to do a few blood tests. Only after the operation can we determine whether it’s malignant or benign,’ she said. I gaped in shock.

  ‘Come on, the reports must be wrong,’ I said dismissing her statement.

  We went for her blood test. I stood alongside her. The doctor told us to come back the next day for a few more tests. I dropped her at my relative’s place in Gurgaon and left for home.

  I went back home and found Anjali already there. Neither Rishabh nor she asked me about my mother’s health. I called Darsheel for it had been two days since we last spoke. I had turned the speaker on so the other two could hear.

  ‘Amol, congratulations. One of my clients, Mr Mukherjee who works at the executive level position at HUL, is very interested in your venture. He was mightily impressed by your academic background, the IIT degrees, and the idea. He’s a great friend of your uncle as well. I think I will be able to convince him to put in 20 lakhs at 10 percent equity, if you give me three more days. In the meanwhile, send me the finance predictions as soon as possible.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. Just when I disconnected the call, Anjali screamed a loud ‘yay’. Rishabh seemed delighted too. But my mind was elsewhere.

  ‘My mother is not well. I will have to attend to her in the hospital for a few days.’

  ‘Oh yes, I forgot. How is aunty?’ Rishabh asked.

  ‘She’s okay right now. The results of her blood tests are due to come tomorrow and only after that we will get to know,’ I said.

  ‘Okay. Is she in Gurgaon right now? If the hospital is in Saket, you should have brought her here,’ Rishabh said. His generosity touched my heart and I told him that I will bring her the next day.

  February 4

  As I sat outside the doctor’s chamber waiting for the results, three separate feelings of guilt caged me. First, of neglecting my mother when she needed me the most. Second, of pushing Priya away from me especially in times of dire need. And third, of not being able to put my heart and soul into work because I feared that Rishabh would cite my current work later to prove
himself superior.

  Rishabh had sent me a message asking me about the Valentine Week’s contest design. I had delegated the task of designing the special contest webpage to the intern. I called the intern to ask about his progress. He informed me that he hadn’t started to work, as he wanted to resign because we didn’t pay him well. Furious, I fired him instead.

  Just then, my mother came out along with my aunty. There was a serene blankness on her face.

  ‘What happened, Mom? What did the reports say?’ I said, concerned.

  ‘They are admitting me on 6th. I will be operated on 8th.’

  ‘Operated for what?’

  ‘Operated for gall stone by laproscopy; my cervix and ovary will be removed as well.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘The reports hint towards cancer. The doctor fears that the tissue might be malignant, so the earlier the better,’ my aunty explained. I was too scared to respond.

  I brought my mother to our flat in Malviya Nagar. The operation cost was around 2 lakh rupees. It was the first time that I cursed my fate of choosing to be an entrepreneur, for I could not offer any financial help.

  Without a technical intern, I left my mother at home along with my sister Saumya, who had come over, and went to Mishra’s place to get the page designed. Mishra, looking at my hapless face, reluctantly offered me help, making me promise I would invite all my friends on his page for TalentMarket. I hesitantly complied.

  Rishabh was at IIT and he gave me a lift back home. For the first day, Rishabh helped me in taking care of her. But my gratefulness was shortlived. On the second day itself, he started finding excuses to stay away from the house and dropped subtle hints that she was not welcome there and was adding to the burden.