In order to pay my debts, I had to sell my car.

Life is a journey filled of joy, surprises, and challenges that teaches us valuable lessons and inspires us to achieve our goals and realise our ambitions. We have no idea how complicated life is. It’s easy to compare it to sea waves. The ups and downs of the waves represent the ups and downs of human life. Both happiness and sadness are two sides of the same coin.

Let me start by telling you about my first business, a listing website called Find My Solutions, which I founded in 2009. I was a 20-year-old youngster with a lot of energy but no experience in business.

My idea came from a friend who worked for a software development company and asked me to build a directory website for all sorts of businesses. Anyone may create a product and sell it as a free or premium listing on the website. The first barrier was to start the firm, and I had very little cash to do so, so I borrowed money from my landlord and from one of my friends whose father was in the army, and he gave it his pocket money that he had saved over the previous year, totaling around 1.20 Lax rupees. Finally, I was able to launch the website in a small store with four seats and one large table.

I didn’t know what to do as a first step, and I only wanted to make money, so I hired 10 low-income teenagers as part-timers and asked them to get website memberships. That’s truly amusing, and it makes me chuckle every time I think about it. I had no traffic on my website and we were visiting shops asking for money to advertise their business on our website. Out of 100 visits, we were able to obtain 5–8 subscriptions of $12 each per day.

In 2009, store owners were unaware of the need of verifying a website’s traffic before signing up with us; as a listing website, I was unaware of how to generate traffic and was unconcerned haha. On our website, we were able to obtain 3000 free listings and 500 premium listings, allowing me to pay their wages and save some money for myself. I had no idea if it would work or not, and I was unconcerned about how to attract traffic so my clients could start seeing benefits.

We covered a 30–40-mile radius in Noida, Delhi, and Gurgaon and were able to generate a decent amount of business for the next seven months, with me earning $1000 a month. Despite my concerns about my customers, I proceeded to gain new ones. As the renewal deadline neared, I was hopeful that we would be able to swiftly assess our subscribers, but I was wrong.

As a result, when my resources sought a raise in January 2010, I offered them a 40–50 percent rise to motivate them. They were pumped as February approached, a critical month since renewal begins this month, and I was confident it would be a breeze. When we went to see our former subscribers, they were furious and demanded their money back, which as a creative was both surprising and eye-opening. That was concerning; we only had 150 renewals out of 2200 visits in February, and new client retention was exceedingly low.

I didn’t have enough money to pay salaries even in February, so I paid them out of my own pocket, believing we’d be OK the following month. But I was scared, so I began yelling and screaming at everyone, which was my fault, and three individuals quit as a result of my actions. We received six renewals and three new clients in March, and I had to pay salaries out of my own pocket once again. I was worried since I only had two months’ worth of payment capacity left, and I wanted to know why I couldn’t get a renewal!!

I was irritated and tense from zero returning customers and no revenue, I decided to visit one of our paid listing customer shops myself, accompanied by two of my marketing champions, and asked him why he wasn’t renewing with us, to which he replied, “Sir, please return my last year subscription money which I paid.” I was taken aback and inquired why, to which he said, “Sir, I have not received a single rupee business as a result of listing on your website.” It taught me a lesson, and I felt awful about it, so I paid back his yearly subscription.

It continued on like this for the next three months, until I ran out of money to pay the workers. They tried really hard to generate business, but owing to a lack of traffic on my website, they were unable to sell memberships. Finally, in July, I had to tell them that the company was closing, and they were furious. I was shattered, but I didn’t have an option. On July 25th, I had to pay their prior month’s wages; they were aware of the situation and did not question.

I sought emotional support from all of my friends, knowing that asking for debt wouldn’t work because it hadn’t in the preceding three months.

My friends tried to help me, but I turned them down.

I didn’t have an option except to sell my car.

I was emotionally attached to it because it was my first car, but I sold it and paid their salary.

My office was also closed, and the furniture, computers, and printers were auctioned off.

The day we had to close it, we sobbed.

So it was the failure of my first firm, and it was a tremendous setback. In 2012, better days awaited me as a result of my first startup and learning, as I will describe in my next storey about my second startup, which made me seven figures.

My name is Saurabh Mani, and I’m the CEO of Serverlt.com.