I Want Life on My Own Terms – A relatable, meaningful, and inspiring book about entrepreneurship.
Vajun was an ordinary young man: an ordinary student who graduated and became unemployed, went to bars with close friends in the evening, stayed up late, and woke up late. In general, completely ordinary. Yet in India in 2009, that was unusual.
At that time, all new university graduates in India followed paths their parents had mapped out: half would help with their fathers’ businesses, wait to marry and have children, then take over the family business at age 35. The other half would become doctors or engineers, trying to climb the ranks of the multinational corporations then springing up across India.
The few students with average academic performance, like Vajun, try taking GMAT exams to win MBA scholarships in the United States or the United Kingdom. If they pass and receive scholarships, they quickly leave their homeland to pursue their dream of the promised land. Sounds rather like a certain country that everyone knows, does it not?
In such a social environment, a young person who wants to do something different, like Vajun, will be considered eccentric. Not only parents but even friends, machines with preprogrammed futures, will view Vajun that way. Yet despite social prejudice and family pressure, Vajun decided to start a business at 22 with a seemingly simple but difficult dream: I want my life to be the way I want it.
An unglamorous startup story. An idea that was not particularly new, familiar ups and downs, a few strokes of luck, and success in the form of a million-dollar startup, Alma Mater, almamaterstore.in.
A familiar format in American startup success stories. But in India, Alma Mater is one of the driving forces behind the explosion of Internet entrepreneurship, helping make India today's most vibrant startup nation.
What is admirable about this story is that the life Vajun wants includes not only personal aspirations but also a dream of bringing happiness to those around us: a society where everyone is free to pursue and take pride in their own passions.
// Many of us start businesses for selfish reasons: wanting to be our own boss, stop working for others, or become rich. That is all right. If selfishness initially motivates you to change, it is good selfishness.
However, when you enter life and its currents buffet you, even when you win battered and bruised or relax in glory, try to find an aspiration, passion, or dream to change the world. Be less selfish. Otherwise, people with greater hunger will soon come and defeat you; believe it.
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