Sooraj Bagdia, 22 Mar 2022

Here's my story for the past two years of Covid-

Everything was well before; everything is well now!

Everyone will have a some-story; I am writing mine. 

We have built a cloud-based SaaS CRM for the travel industry. Although the Janta curfew & other lockdowns were declared in late March in India, the global travel impact was from Jan-20. 

I like working from the office but forcefully moved to work from home. We tried for a couple of months but witnessed no slowdown in cases and no gateways. I had to shrink the team from 8 people to 2 people. It was tough, but everyone understood. 

We held for another couple of months and tried again, but the impact was still on the travel industry, so there were no results, and then we were just the team's founders. 

2 best habits I built during the lockdown- 1st Have a yoga/exercise & meditation for around 90mins & reading Bhagavad Gita everyday. This kept a positive approach for everything coming ahead.

This was the first time I had plenty of time to focus on Inspirito (another firm) and made blueprints of the work I could do. I soon got a few lovely contracts to work on, but sometimes you do not jump. I could not work on a single one correctly. 

November 20, I thought to build this back, got an impressive four people into the sales team, and started pushing CRM back into the market. It was a slow start but worth it; I think those 3-4 months were terrific; it's like building something from scratch. Everything was going well, but the massive second wave hit unexpectedly. We went back to work from home.

We were fortunate in the first wave that no one in the family or team got infected with Covid, but in the second wave, my family,  everyone from the group and their families got caught with the virus. My dad & brother had to be hospitalised because of the saturation & CT score—similar situations in the other teams & many homes in India. 

The CRM sale was tricky due to the massive impact of the travel industry again, and there was some delay from our side. As a team- we all stood together, understood each other, supported each & every time, and said this would pass soon, just a bit of patience. Some people had life losses of their family members which can never be recovered, but most of us passed through it. Trickiest 3-4 months to balance the personal, family issues and client sides. 

In Inspirito, I got a couple of exciting projects during 2nd wave, but my mindset was not strong enough to cater for them & I turned them down. It's a failure or regret; we can call it anything. 

Things got better from July-21, and we thought back to office work. This time we were just 3 of us, two sales & myself. July was the month when we sold just a single CRM. August, Sept & Oct were the months in which we kept on growing. 

On November-21, we thought about expanding the team & we made three more hires. Covid cases started picking up rapidly. Barely in 10 days, 3rd wave cases rose to 2 lakhs daily. Vaccines played a significant role & we got hit just with around 20% this time.

I was waiting for a decline in cases to have a few more hires. We made four more hires as soon as points marked less than 1 lakh daily. And everything seems good. 

Now there are 10+ people in the team, working very hard & smart & making the most of the day which we can. Why is a single hire essential for me? It's everything bootstrapped. We are not funded & financially; I manage on my own. Plenty of times, I thought to shut it down for some time, but it's-entrepreneur DNA keeps me going. 

How could we survive for almost two years when getting big hits three times? It's the team, family & friends. The team understood everything and cooperated very well; family is always there to support me, no matter how hard it gets. Friends, I can't describe them here- despite their challenges, they helped me every time, just a message or phone call, and every help is available, be it financial, motivation or anything. Without this support, I can't stand it.

Many of you would have faced hard times and passed a similar phase over two years. 

Why I wrote this-

I have made myself a more robust version of myself than two years ago. 

I do not fear anything now; whatever it comes, bring it on, let's tackle it. FEARLESS!

My friends and family are there to support me, no matter how hard it gets.

If you have a great team, anything is possible.

Vision keeps you driving, there may be delays, but you will certainly reach. 

It's not a comparison, but sometimes I used to get a question- why does Covid impact us? It would have been booming if we were Edu-tech or Pharma, but I am grateful that the situation could have been worse. Whatever I am doing is my best. God is always there, never-ever leaves, not even for a moment. Have faith; everything is going to be alright. 

I have a powerful mindset to push things forward. We are ten on March-22 & by Dec-22, we will be 100. I will be moving CRM to the next level & again planning for exciting projects in Inspirito. Fall Seven times, stand up Eight!

Cheers to the two years of Covid!

-Sooraj

22/03/22