The journey of becoming an Entrepreneur

I have done several jobs in different trades & gathered so many experiences about the trade, people & cooperate culture.

FRUSTRATION ON JOBS

In some jobs I felt undervalued, not satisfied with the compensation & found a rare opportunity for carrier development.

This realized that if need to survive I should earn a unique demand. Therefore I worked hard & achieved professional qualification & developed skills for some extend.

This was driven me for a professional carrier path where my frame of mind got changed & I was looking for opportunities where I could perform best without limitations & end the day with satisfaction.

BEDTIME STORIES

Before going to bed at night I & my husband used to discuss how our day was spent & the plans for the next day. Continually many nights I was expressing him the frustrating feelings about my employment how I was blocked by my seniors, how they earned credits for the works I have done, how my personality not fitting with the company culture so on..

Carefully listening to all my wordings finally one day he said

“Why don’t you work for yourself only??” “Do not trap yourself for 8-5 jobs, instead try work hard continually for long & take two-three week rest & do something you love. Hard-working for yourself will earn you happiness as well as money”

I really don’t understand what he meant & thought

“now also am working for myself, what the hell he was talking about”.

No! No!!  You are just a worker hardly working with all the pressure, limitations & rules for some one’s dream. Why don’t you dream for yourself & use the knowledge & experience for your own business?? He said.

Now got the point.

PLANNING FOR A STARTUP

Starting up a business,

• Need a business idea
• Market demand
• How to reach to the target audience
• Startup cost
• The Place
• Employees
• Capital
• Backup plan

Above is the checklist I have noted & we both discussed on same so many hours, so many nights & days.

We imagined,

How the interior of the office should be,

What the working process should be,

How to recruit the employees,

What is the brand name & how it should be build-up,

How to find the clients,

How to get jobs etc.

It felt like pennilessly we both are living in the same dream. We had belief in the “LAW OF ATTRACTION” & still have.

ACTION PLAN

After thinking many sleepless nights finally we came to the final decision.

My husband is a web developer & a digital marketer so we have decided to launch a digital marketing agency where he could invest his expertize knowledge & I could invest my management & industrial experience to grow up the business.

Also in this period he was working as a freelancer on some online market platforms & he has decided to dedicate full time for that.

I thought about the backup plan,

the market is changing from time to time. There are seasons that people on vacation & in festive mode or suffering from a global disaster like COVID 19. During these periods no works we might have are limited or sometimes maybe nothing.

No work means no payments.

Unfortunately if we lose we should have a stable income so I determined while continuing with the current employment & devote to build up the business.

With the “CAN DO” attitude we checked out for a suitable place according to our budget & we found it.

We paid a little sum as an advance to reserve the place for us & went to several furniture shops & computer shops & got quotations.

I arranged a rough budget plan for the startup cost. Then we checked in our savings & credit cards.

However after our hard work for two weeks time managed to pay the balance payment for the place & to purchase the furniture & a computer. Now the interior was all done.

RECRUITMENT PROCESS

At the same time we had recruited two apprentices who were looking for training opportunities.

But the problem is we have no capital to pay for them until we earn some profit. So I have suggested joining on a commission basis for a project. It means if there is no project no payment for them.

In this scenario they also lookout for new project opportunities in the local market as well as online markets where they trained for marketing skills also. If they managed to get confirmed with a project & earn a new client apart from their project commission we offered them a bonus payment as an appreciation. (I think because of this appreciation & the new learning opportunities & due to the full freedom is given for their creativity still these two persons are working with us now not as apprentices but as experts in the field.)

DREAM COME TRUE

Ultimately we managed to represent our visualized dream the Company “DEFTFINO”

Currently I’m overlooking as the Director of operations. At the beginning we have no choices on the work we get, we did all the works even for small amounts until we build up our brand name & client base.

Now we are one of Sri Lanka’s “Top-Rated” digital marketing agency. We work with worldwide clients and always aim in building long-term fruitful business relationships with them – always offering guarantee services.