Surviving Multiple Startup Failures: How This Entrepreneur Got His Mojo Back With This Startup! "I always felt I was one step behind success and if I give it another try I should succeed"
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Once you are at the end of the road, you might have the courage to take another route to success; but this entrepreneur saw his startup ideas fail one after the other and yet in his sixth attempt he managed to get it right. Thirukumaran Nagarajan, a CEG and IIM K alumnus, has six years of work experience and has worked with choicest of companies apart from working with startups like TaxiForSure and Common Floor.
Shrugging failures, to hugging success in his final attempt
Apart from working with these companies, Thiru has also tried his luck with entrepreneurship several times – from opening a biryani centre, coaching centre, ed-tech companies and a location based social network, which saw more than 10000 downloads within 3 months! But Chennai-based Thiru has no regrets! According to him, every startup came with its own learning.
"I always felt that I could add much more value to the country and to myself by doing something on my own rather than working for another company at one corner of their office. That's what kept me motivated despite multiple failures. I always felt I was one step behind success and if I give it another try I should succeed," he said.
Thiru today runs Ninjacart with five other cofounders, which is a fast growing early-stage start-up and is building the next generation online B2B marketplace that connects farmers and brands to retailers. The company aims to remove the middlemen, commission agents and auction agents in mandis and provide an efficient price discovery platform for the producers.
The company raised around $3 million in its Series A round of funding led by Accel Partners with the participation of Qualcomm Ventures, M&S Partners (Singapore) and Zop Smart in March this year.
Thiru said, "I always felt I was not solving the right problem and if I solve the right problem I would achieve success. I knew I could solve a problem/ situation when given. The moment you figure out the right problem to solve, you will become successful!"
Working at Taxiforsure was a kickass experience!!
Raghunandan G, the co-founder of Taxiforsure is an advisor and mentor to the Ninjacart team. He sold his startup Taxiforsure to OLA in March 2015 for $200 million.
When asked about his professional experience at the company, Thiru said, " Working for Taxiforsure is the best thing that has ever happened to my life," He believes that no other company could have exposed him to fast and accurate execution like Taxifoursure did. Three of Ninjacart's co-founders were from Taxiforsure.
Thiru said that Raghu has always advised the startup not to shy away from experimenting.
Thiru recalled that he was introduced to Accel via Raghu, who introduced them to the venture firm saying that these are a set of people who could "make a difference."
According to Thiru, Accel is a company which focuses on the entrepreneur and the industry that they want to work in. "They always believe that an idea can go through a lot of changes before it gets refined but what matters is whether the entrepreneurs will be dedicated to convert this idea to make it work," Thiru said.
Thiru and his team have bigger plans with Ninjacart – apart from expanding to three new cities, the company also plans to introduce credit facilities for the farmers which would enable them to take loans to procure pesticides, new seeds and fertilizers. He wants to ensure that farmers are more aware of rights and don't hold back their dream due to financial constraints.
