We had such hopes for this year. That we would go from strength to strength. That the challenges would be easy. But it was not so. The year from the very beginning to the end was more of a series of highs and lows. Here I look back to the year gone by and try to get a coherent picture of what happened. The recent events are fresh in the mind, the earlier events quite dim. But let us see what we can distill out of whatever happened to us over the year.
The beginning was easy enough. We had plans on launching a new venture this year and were quite giddy in anticipation. The idea was to gather up some like minded people and provide them a platform where they could showcase their skills. The problem was, our company was dead for 2 years and reviving it was going to take some time. We flailed without a plan for all of January and February, coasting mostly on momentum.
Then came the shot in the arm. Someone we knew gave us an advice: just take the plunge and don’t wait for the perfect plan to show itself. And we did. We started off with the formalities for reviving our old company in March and it continued into April and May. He was right though, the first step was the hardest. Once we started working, all hesitation vanished and we started bulldozing through obstacles.
Cyclone Fani put a stop to the progress for a while. When it came, I was the only person in the office building at the time. The winds were all around the building, rattling windows and door, pushing around cars and toppling trees. It blew over and I took a peek out. There was glass everywhere and poles were bent and uprooted. Trees had fallen all over roads and branches were sticking everywhere the eye could see. That meant a delay of a whole month.
Then came June and we had money in the company coffers. It was time to really start up the business and gather all necessities. We got all the supplies in place and started stocking the inventory. It took till September to start off the selling and it was slow. Nothing we could do except advertise and hope people came.
October passed and then November and sales were slow. The outlook of the economy itself looked grim and it still does. There is a slowdown, everyone says and we can see it everywhere. The year is at an end and we do not have much to show for it. But we have learnt a few lessons from this. The economy does not matter that much, we had just lost momentum. We should not have slowed down, changed strategy when the earlier plan didn’t work out. So here we are, at the end of a year and at the beginning of another.
We have a better plan now, a new focused business strategy. The mistakes of the past year have taught us new ideas. And now we are ready once more to face a new year, with a better idea of what is to come. May the coming year give us success, and you as well.
We have an art marketplace at www.art2india.com and are getting ready to launch another site pretty soon. Keep watching this space.
