Its been more than 7 years since I am a part of software industry. It has been an exciting experience. Though there is one puzzle, why my tummy is getting bigger.
It was June, 2006 when I joined a start-up. We shared a dream to build a very sophisticated product which would help businesses in India. We achieved it also.
Everyday was challenging. Being new to software world, solving smallest of problems was a thrill. Used to have no idea from where to start. Eventually, all the problems were solved by hook or crook. Interesting thing is when I look even a single line of code of those days, my spontaneous reaction is, almost all the time, "Why did I write it that way".
It was Bangalore where we started. Nice thing about bang'lore is its climate. It is wonderful. Bit of chill throughout the year. My office used to start at evening 5 and would close around morning 6. Working at night is quite different then day. It is worth experiencing. It offers such a quite time that you can create almost anything in such condition. Morning one hour was for visiting nearby park. It was refreshing and hopeful (I had a crush on someone who used to visit the park).
Later, we shifted to Noida. Weather changed, working condition changed. We started working in office. Then my team mate proposed that we should modify our line of business. So we started out for a smaller product and hoped to make it international. It was Oogwave - a simplified collaboration platform for enterprises. Now, everything became pretty. Coding was not a difficult thing anymore. For almost every feature I knew from where to start and could visualize the end result and the method to achieve the results.
These days, it was not just about writing the code but more about how to write it in a better way. Focused more on using libraries rather than writing every bit by myself and struggling with various browsers and their specific issues. Life became simple. Well, there were bigger things about to come. It was stillness before the storm. We identified an issue and asked ourselves that whether what we created make any sense. Whether people need it and will accept it in its current form.
We called a meeting. I would name the meeting as "the brain storming". We dropped all our beliefs and started thinking from scratch. What is collaboration. Why people need to collaborate at all. And questions similar to these. Well, we were fortunate to discover that our product was doing what it was supposed to do. But something was missing. Somehow, it appeared that it needed a twist. After 5 days of discussion we were happy. We found it. In next week, we did the changes. When we saw our product after this flip, our response was "These changes are so obvious, why didn't we do it before". Doesn't this response feel similar to the previous one. So, more or less, no matter what we have already done in life, this response keeps on coming. There is always a room for improvement on what we did before. There was something big about to happen now. A fortune was standing on our door steps, we were not aware of. We were about to become a part of TLABS - one of India's leading accelerator program developed by Times Internet.
TLABS is a place where few start-up companies are chosen and mentored to accelerate their progress. What a new world we have entered into. So many people. So many activities. So many varieties of food on various dinner events. People come and share experience of their own start-ups. Mentors come and pump us with inspiration. Society suddenly became a good word. I came to know that there are really many people on earth. There are really many people with problems that are so small for me to solve. And there is this unique sense of feeling when you are able to help some one coming out of a problem. There was something sipping in silently. A feeling of corporate was starting to grow. Ahh! we are becoming big now!
The journey still continues.. let see what comes next..
It was June, 2006 when I joined a start-up. We shared a dream to build a very sophisticated product which would help businesses in India. We achieved it also.
Everyday was challenging. Being new to software world, solving smallest of problems was a thrill. Used to have no idea from where to start. Eventually, all the problems were solved by hook or crook. Interesting thing is when I look even a single line of code of those days, my spontaneous reaction is, almost all the time, "Why did I write it that way".
It was Bangalore where we started. Nice thing about bang'lore is its climate. It is wonderful. Bit of chill throughout the year. My office used to start at evening 5 and would close around morning 6. Working at night is quite different then day. It is worth experiencing. It offers such a quite time that you can create almost anything in such condition. Morning one hour was for visiting nearby park. It was refreshing and hopeful (I had a crush on someone who used to visit the park).
Later, we shifted to Noida. Weather changed, working condition changed. We started working in office. Then my team mate proposed that we should modify our line of business. So we started out for a smaller product and hoped to make it international. It was Oogwave - a simplified collaboration platform for enterprises. Now, everything became pretty. Coding was not a difficult thing anymore. For almost every feature I knew from where to start and could visualize the end result and the method to achieve the results.
These days, it was not just about writing the code but more about how to write it in a better way. Focused more on using libraries rather than writing every bit by myself and struggling with various browsers and their specific issues. Life became simple. Well, there were bigger things about to come. It was stillness before the storm. We identified an issue and asked ourselves that whether what we created make any sense. Whether people need it and will accept it in its current form.
We called a meeting. I would name the meeting as "the brain storming". We dropped all our beliefs and started thinking from scratch. What is collaboration. Why people need to collaborate at all. And questions similar to these. Well, we were fortunate to discover that our product was doing what it was supposed to do. But something was missing. Somehow, it appeared that it needed a twist. After 5 days of discussion we were happy. We found it. In next week, we did the changes. When we saw our product after this flip, our response was "These changes are so obvious, why didn't we do it before". Doesn't this response feel similar to the previous one. So, more or less, no matter what we have already done in life, this response keeps on coming. There is always a room for improvement on what we did before. There was something big about to happen now. A fortune was standing on our door steps, we were not aware of. We were about to become a part of TLABS - one of India's leading accelerator program developed by Times Internet.
TLABS is a place where few start-up companies are chosen and mentored to accelerate their progress. What a new world we have entered into. So many people. So many activities. So many varieties of food on various dinner events. People come and share experience of their own start-ups. Mentors come and pump us with inspiration. Society suddenly became a good word. I came to know that there are really many people on earth. There are really many people with problems that are so small for me to solve. And there is this unique sense of feeling when you are able to help some one coming out of a problem. There was something sipping in silently. A feeling of corporate was starting to grow. Ahh! we are becoming big now!
The journey still continues.. let see what comes next..
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