With illiterate I never mean education. Being illiterate is lack of humbleness , lack of courtesy and lack of judging the person next to you. The year 2013-14 was initiation of my business and it was a 10 million sales year for me - By God's grace the first year itself. I was in full swing and my level of confidence was on cloud nine.
I could see my organisation growing and growing well month on month as the sales reached to 2.5 million per month at the end of year 2014. I messed up at transition phase from growing business to scaling up , By now I have again streamlined and regained the momentum well. Messed up transition was due to wrong and not carefully worked out associations and the big mistake was it were local associations and to my bad times it was not one association but 3 associations at a time.
I am sharing my experience with one of the association. Mr. X is an investor as per his profile locally  and has been introduced to me by a mediator. He was keen to invest after hearing about my business that I am a start up and I am growing month on month. He was claiming that he is a bigger investor at one of the top TV shopping channel (I am not mentioning the name) and have done investments in crores. As a start up just in the age of 20s , when we are at peak of confidence and everything is new its always like we have found some treasure. It was all Yes Yes.Â
We finalized a business model to invest in stocks only  to keep investor's investment at a safer side and hence the process started. The doubt started from first day itself as I may not be paying money on time and I have already received from courier companies.The poor point of doubting from first day comes itself when you work with a local investor who doesn't know the insights. Every time I asked for more stocks as he was investing particularly in stock , he asked for release in payments on priority. All those who worked in eCommerce a year back can well imagine how were courier companies reimbursing  till the time companies like Delhivery / Ecom came up. It was big achievement if we realise our full money in our accounts even in 45 days with proper reconciliation. Still I managed to work it out by sharing details of all data.
I rarely get chance to meet my husband in a year as he stays in US. I had my plan just for 20 days to meet him and to my bad luck things got messed up badly at my back. There was some transactions pending from both end , the Mr.X and Simbacart and for those 20 days he just kept on arguing that you do the transactions first and then I. There was no chance of facilitating me as a startup. I told Sir , You need to pay us 1.5 lac and the next transaction is of 1 lac , kindly pay me first I will pay out of your transaction and there were many similar transactions which has to happen from both sides. But he was stubborn , My major transactions were with him and during that month the cash cycle broke like anything as there was no giving and taking of money.
I was all sad and angry on his behavior though he always remain soft in his words. When I returned India , I had one to one with him and I showed him how the cash cycle at my firm broke due to non transaction of money to each other's account i.e  around 13 lac of amount. He asked me "Madam you promised to sell atleast 1500 quantity per month , where is the figure??? I had my data ready , I showed him You have just 300 pieces in warehouse now , if you can sell even 400 pieces out of this 300 in stock , I will be always be saluting you infact. You didn't maintain the stock and asking me to sell in thousands? Due to low stock , My operational cost , my salaries , my advertisement cost everything got waste and many other losses which a startup cannot afford to bear when it is all bootstrapped and when it is carrying very limited money.
I immediately on that day asked him  This will not work out and we have to split. Just on good notes I agreed to buy  all stock at Cost price he bought and the racks even. I gave him dates of his payments , total was around 4.5lac. Things were so messy in first quarter of the year that I cannot pay as per my commitments , I apologized too but I kept on paying him in small amounts and gave him post dated cheques too for him to be safe always.Â
By this month it was 2 lac which was left to pay back ,Last day, out of my cheques he deposited cheque of 50,000 without even intimating me. I called him up that why he did so as I have committed him to pay at the earliest and I am already doing small payments. He said " You are a fake company , You are a fraud , You are doing all drama madam and You are fooling me " You are this and you are that , I will take all to social media and then you see- Till my 27 years of my age , nobody spoke to me in this manner and it was all hurting. Great way to talk to women!!. Before this I was treating him a good person and I was planning in my mind to rework things with him in future as my company becomes a bit stronger , But God showed me his right face at very early stage itself. I delayed payment over a period as to his profile he is an investor who invests in crores moreover in my mind I had a better picture of him that I delayed his money for few months as he always keeps on talking about doing business with Simbacart in future. Â People mess you and your work , we do courtesy that we still support as I was all ready to buy his stock and other material to avoid any loss to him. I feel pity as there was no understanding of Mr.X that due to his stubborn behavior and low stocking , we have also faced huge losses in a quarter and its absolutely fine if payment has been in parts now , at least he is not loosing even a single penny!
I would like to say Congratulations to Mr.X for immediate payments now!
I keep all my pure and honest intentions , Business do not run with emotions , I am very clear about it. I am sure of thousands of entrepreneurs like me. This article has been written for those who invests without studying the business , which is very important. You need to be humble , courteous , honest , visionary before you start with a passionate entrepreneur. There is a huge difference between An Ordinary and An Entrepreneur. This article is also for my fellow entrepreneurs , " Choose to do less than to associate with wrong investors who lack vision and who are just local investors without any patience - You better need a facilitator and an investor both in one person , who believes his growth is hand in hand with the company.
A startup's tough times may not have any end , But their good times are also endless!!
With my sincere efforts!
Mandeep