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Today’s story is the story of acceptance — the acceptance that it is okay to fail sometimes. It’s the story of the dilemma of persisting vs. quitting. Read on to find out what Dinesh did when he faced this dilemma👇
📖 ⌚Reading time ~ 5 minutes
Persist, but for how long?
“Look, Dinesh, you’ve been saying for the last six months that you’ll be profitable soon. We’ve trusted you so far with executing on your strategy,” an investor said at the company board meeting.
Dinesh was facing six investors sitting around a roundtable. A screen in front of them showed a steady dip in the company’s performance. Five years into running the business, Dinesh had burnt a lot of capital but was not yet profitable.
The investor pressure was intense.
“We’re ready to give you another year and infuse some additional cash. But you need to come back with a business that is giving us sufficient returns. Fix your business!” The investor continued speaking.
Dinesh had started his company in 2015 – when India was experiencing digital movies and web shows for the first time. Local Indian content was in high demand, and supply was not adequate. Dinesh, with his excellent production team, put together a few web shows that were massive hits in the market, though none of them earned much money.
Riding on the promise that one day, people would pay to watch digital shows, and brands would advertise themselves through these shows, Dinesh had an easy time convincing venture capitalists to fund his business.
But over the next few years, most of the traditional entertainment companies booted up their own digital arms, investing heavily in creating digital content. They were able to create more movies and shows than Dinesh’s cash-strapped start-up. Dinesh, along with his 20-member staff, was left behind.
The result – what started as a creative endeavour was now a series of meetings with investors, providing them reports of performance and listening to their inputs on profitability and scale.
He had heeded their demands, creating content that research showed would be a hit in the market. But for Dinesh’s team, which had always relied on their own experiences to create stories, telling stories suggested by third-party research seemed costly. Since the ideas didn’t originate within the team, they were not as passionate as their other shows.
They failed in writing good stories, despite the big budgets they could afford with the investor cash.
With a significant portion of capital also going into growing their social media presence, the company had a bitter existence. Whatever little profits their shows made were washed away in marketing costs.
“So, what do you suggest I do to get there?” Dinesh asked the investors with a cold face.
“Well, that is your job to figure out. But find a way to make this a profitable and scalable business in one year. That is, by March 2020, you should be profitable,” one of the investors commented sharply.
“Pesky investors,” Dinesh thought. Who would explain to them that it was harder to execute, but easier to say such lofty things?
He had tried many things to grow the business and keep it profitable, but nothing had worked. There was too much competition to sustain. He had even tried selling the business, but people rejected his proposition. No one was ready to buy the company at a high enough valuation to guarantee good returns for the investors.
All the buyers stated that the company didn’t have enough high-value digital properties that could make it profitable in the future.
This had started affecting the employees too. From a peak of a 20-membered team, the company was now at 11 members, with the other 9 leaving for their competitors. Dinesh had sleepless nights these days. He often woke up with dark circles and baggy eyes. Once a top swimmer in school and college, he now had a bulging belly.
Doctors had advised him against worrying so much, but, of course, this business was his dream. How could he not worry about his business like his child? When he started, he didn’t know anything else. “Creating good content that connects with the youth,” was how he defined his company’s vision.
“Thank you, everyone,” Dinesh said, ending the board meeting. Not a single investor thought about staying back to hear his frustration out. All six of them left, as Dinesh sat behind taking notes for analysis later at night.
He slapped his laptop screen onto the keyboard and walked out of the room a minute later. It was 9:30 pm, and the windows of the building were letting some cold air slip in. Two writers were brainstorming a new web series in the adjacent room. Dinesh walked past them, hiding his emotions from them.
He came across a wall that read “Content that connects.” It seemed like the most ominous phrase in the world now. What was once a delight to read now felt rancorous. He had formulated this as his company’s canvision when he started.
He walked to his desk, picked up his backpack and left, leaving the writers behind.
“How should I grow the business?” kept ringing in his brain, like it had done for so many nights now. With the one-year ultimatum from investors, the pressure was very high.
As he was riding his bike, he had a phone call. He stopped his motorcycle by the side of the street. The phone turned out to be a telemarketing call from an insurance company. As he put his phone back into his pocket, his eyes fell on some kids happily playing Football under a yellow street light that was surrounded by bees and flies. He smiled as one of the kids accidentally hit a ball into his own goal post, leading to a lot of angst from his teammates.
Dinesh could empathize with the feelings this kid was going through.
A few moments later, the kid scored a goal for his team. His team members hugged him and danced with him. This part, Dinesh didn’t empathize with. Unlike the kid who had the courage to go and score a goal, Dinesh didn’t know where the goalpost was. He had fired many shots over the last five years, but with each goal he made, his opponents would come at him even more fiercely.
“I don’t know if this goal post even exists.” He thought.
Once the kids wrapped their game, Dinesh too sat on his bike and rode back home. Despite having three scripts for review and notes from the investor meeting to analyze and follow up on, he went to sleep. He had had enough for the day.
The next morning, he went to the office and called everyone into a room. Unlike his team, he looked fresh today. The dark circles had greyed, and his eyes were no longer baggy. Unlike his usual meetings, he didn’t have any presentation to share with the team.
“Team, we had a board meeting yesterday. Again, the same thing came up…” he started explaining the details of the meeting.
Looking into the eyes of his teammates, he said, “At this point, we have tried all we could. We have poured our hearts into building this company. All of these walls have seen the pressure we’ve dealt with, our celebrations and our sufferings. Today marks the end of this beautiful journey we started five years ago. I have failed in building a long-lasting company. The failure is unequivocally on me. I urge all of you to start looking for new jobs. I am shutting down the company.”
He paused for a few seconds. Everyone was stunned.
“I don’t think there’s any point in affecting our health as we have been for the company. I have seen all of you struggle for the company so much and work so hard in building this dream. I wholeheartedly apologize to all of you. I will be paying everyone two months’ salaries, and returning the leftover money back to our investors.”
“But we are so close to making the next story work…” said a writer.
“Sorry, Sara. No need to continue. You are free to work on the story and sell it to someone else if you want to. Go for it.”
No one said anything.
“And, this is not sad news. We should celebrate this as the end of a fulfilling journey. If I look back to the company, I would want to do everything all over again. It has been fun working with you. Like I always say, don’t forget to smile.”
Dinesh shut down the company. He decided that it was okay to fail. The real pleasure was in the journey he took, the vision he laid, and the memories made while working on his dream.
He didn’t know what he was going to do next, but that was a question for another day.
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Thanks for reading!
Hemant