Powerless Without Brands

 

Well, for most us who've chucked their careers in the corporate world, after working with some power brands in the past, to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams - there is one thread common to us all. We all share uncannily similar stories about that first moment of truth.

 

After years of working with large brands across the globe, people come to identify you with the brands that you work with and very soon the brands that you work with, go on to become your identity. The brands you represent become a part of your introduction at social dos. The alacrity with which people respond to your emails and phone calls becomes a function of the brands you represent. The ease with which your meeting invites get accepted also depend on the name of the brand in your email id, from which the calendar invite was sent. Your loans get sanctioned basis the brand on your business card that you hand out to the sales rep of the bank.

 

And then comes the day when you, as an entrepreneur, call up one of our oldest clients (and also one of your friends now) from your days in the corporate world and your phone call goes unanswered! The follow up call is answered, but the response you get is, "Hey, that was you! I am so sorry I did not have your number saved. Can I call you back please." Three days later when you still haven't heard from him and you decide to drop in an email, the response you get is that he's travelling over the next 2 weeks. Dejected, but not the one to accept defeat, you persist. Two weeks later, you write back again and you are told to connect with the assistant to schedule a 17 minute meeting, nothing more. That is the moment of truth when you do not know whether to be happy that you've finally landed a meeting or be perplexed about how-on-earth can you possibly describe your entire venture and operations in 17 minutes!

 

Contrast this with a scenario when you could just walk into this clients' office at will - courtesy the brand you represented while in the corporate world!  

 

Believe me you, dealing with rejection is a cultural unlearning that you need to undertake very rapidly else you'll find your self-confidence taking a strong beating. Some of us jump on the entrepreneurial bandwagon to make more money, some do so to cherish the process of building something and some do the same because they cannot work in places where somebody else decides the rules. Very few do it to create a name for themselves and make their names brands, as big as the ones they represented at one point in time. Hence, very few are prepared to deal with this sudden sense of loss of identity and the powerlessness without brands!

 

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I am sure this banner is the work of an inspired mind and at the same time it must have inspired several minds to be disposed positively towards the much-fancied life of entrepreneurship!

But a very personal view here - I believe, the probability of this inspired mind being that of an entrepreneur's is  very limited. I have some strong reasons to believe thus.

First, it is very unlikely that this person is an active entrepreneur. If he really had been one, its is almost impossible that he'd have the time to come up with witty stuff such as this. This holds true unless, of course, our friend in question is in the business of coming up with nuggets like these and makes money out of it.

Having ruled out the possibility of the guy being an active entrepreneur, I move towards quashing the possibility of the person being a successful been-there-done-that kind of an entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur, unless he's moved onto motivational speaking, would in most likelihood be occupied with spending the money he's just made in a successful sell out. If it isn't the successful sell out, then it has to be the new-found ambition to turn VC, Angel, Chief Mentor or Gardener!!! All of this, yet again, leaves little room for witty banners!

The third possibility kind of rules itself out on its own! The possibility of this being the brainchild of an unsuccessful entrepreneur doesn't arise. Unless the guy is one of those who likes to send at least a dozen friends to a movie which he's just come back loathing and wasted his money on. In essence, I do not think a failed entrepreneur would extol the virtues of being on your own when he himself has just come out of a bitter experience.

Now, the question arises, if this hasn't been written by somebody who's ever tasted entrepreneurship - who has written this?

The most probable sketch of the person who just sketched this banner, has to be that of a salaried person.In most likelihood he'd have hit upon this brilliant one-liner while taking a shower in a hurry on a day when he's late for an early morning review as usual. It is equally likely that he had his inspired moment in the crowded bus which he takes for work and emerges out of it as smelly as the bus itself. Perhaps the one-liner came out of some kind of deep angst against having to reach office everyday at the same appointed hour and leaving it with the same humdrum monotony. In fact it'd be interesting to note when this banner was designed since it could very well be some kind of loo-art of a disgruntled employee post his appraisal.

Honestly, my one month of baptism by this fire called entrepreneurship hasn't been easy at all. The few dreams and excitement that I had walked into this is clearly turning out to be illusionary. I am not even thinking of this as those 'few years in my life' and I have no time to even dare dream of 'the rest of my life'. Every waking moment is about how much can I get done today, how much of whatever I planned to achieve this week can i realistically achieve and whether I'd be able to stick to my plan for the month and how'd I justify not being able to do so.

Repeat : too many get lured by the promise of the 'rest of your life' in the banner above, while what matters is  whether you can even survive just 'those few years' that is being spoken of here.

                                                                                            -Yours truly
                                                                                              Angerpreneur

Watch out for the next post on 'Power of Brands v/s Powerless without Brands"