Challenges & Lessons
The struggles that shaped our character and the wisdom we gained along the way.
Financial Uncertainty
Due to economic slowdown, Demonetization, GST, Pandemic the expenses were more than the profit to meet the expenses. I often went months without a income and reinvesting everything back in business Lesson Learned: Being excellent at your craft is only half the equation; understanding finance, marketing, and people management is equally important. Always have a secured second source of income, take calculated Risk and reduce Liability, Persistence effort and financial discipline are crucial. Get to know the different Government scheme to get the Collateral Free and subsidy loan through Banker before investing and diversify to generate income streams to weather unpredictable periods.
Scaling & Diversification Challenges
As we expanded into new domains, we found that Technical expert in one domain is not ready to learn new product and services, leading to a performance gap.
Lesson Learned: We turned this challenge into an opportunity by creating new team for different services and not be dependent on single Technician for work and generated alternate options by giving training. We also started sharing incentive for the project. completion before time. This approach gave every individual a direct stake in the company's success, motivating them to embrace new challenges and excel in their roles.
Delayed Payment Practices
Delayed client payments strained cash flow due to Verbal Work Order and weak accounting process, no regular written mail follow ups which resulted in cash flow issues threatening our financial stability. Lesson Learned: We learned to formalize every step. Now, we mandate written work orders and inform clients about MSME and GST regulations and penalty for delaying the payment, ensuring prompt payment and leveraging legal frameworks when necessary.