[00:02] I am earning easily more than 2 lakhs per month A lot of people hit 10k likes with in the first few months of working my business makes about 12 lakhs a month following
[00:23] living my dream life While all of this is true it is just 10 per cent of the whole picture no one shows you the other 90 per cent which is very dark and that is why majority of people who start a business fail and have to go back to their 925 jobs
[00:38] So in this video I will tell you every dark truth about starting a business in India not to scare you but to prepare you so that we all can win together I will share all my lessons in three stages going from 0 to 10 lakhs per
[00:52] year 10 lakhs to 20 lakhs per year and then making 20 lakhs per year each of these phases Feels like climbing a mountain View is better but oxygen keeps getting depleted Let's start from the start I wish someone told me this before When you have to
[01:08] start a business ask yourself a question why do I want to do this Now the obvious reason is money but that is not enough Go one level deeper and ask yourself why this business Why not some other business Why not a higher paying job When I
[01:22] started my agency it was pure because of money I was in a low paying job I had student loans and I was not able to provide for my family And in this cycle when I started my agency we took up any and every
[01:35] project that came, even though we had no interest and knowledge about that Now what happened was that in the short term I got money, I paid off my student loan and I also provided for my family But as soon as a few months passed I did
[01:48] not feel like working on such random projects  We could like agency business was the worst business model of all. We were about to quit. But then we asked ourselves, what is the deeper way that will keep this agency running
[02:04] deeper way that will keep this agency running and we to purely focus on creating content for businesses and brands. And that is where we did our best work. Made the most money and had the most fun. So figure out
[02:20] what is your deeper way than money. Once you do this and you move on to starting a and you move on to starting a business, you will face the skill issue. Every business needs a core skill and a product. But if you rely only on that, your business will
[02:34] fail. You need your core skill plus 10 other skills to make a successful business. One of our core skills is creating viral content. My
[02:50] We will achieve a profit of Rs 10 lakh per month in 6 months. But when we started,  Reality hit me like a truck. In the start, we had signed two big clients. After that, through a reference, the founder of a big company
[03:03] came to us for personal branding. We had that skill and he needed that skill and because he was a reference, it should have been very easy for us to close that client, but still we could not present our skills in a manner that he liked. We did not position for us to close that client, but still we could not present our skills in a manner that he liked. We did not position
[03:18] skills in a way that he found value and we did not make him an offer that he could not refuse. We have lost a lot of such potential grandees in our early days. We had to learn sales offer creation, positioning, marketing, everything. If our core skill was good, it was enough
[03:33] for people to buy and even in your business, your core skill will be good, no matter how good it is. Before closing the client, you need good communication skills and after closing the client, you need good operational skills and management skills.  It
[03:47] also happened that we were delivering very good results to a client, a fairly big YouTuber, but because our process and way of working was a little different, he used to complain every week and get angry. That is why he didn't continue with our
[04:03] over. So no matter how good your skills are, you need all of these complementary skills in order to run a business. Otherwise, clients will come to you, but as soon as they realize that you don't have these skills, they will leave. Many people
[04:17] work only on their core skills and they forget to do all of these other things and then they think why is business so tough? It is not hard. You just have to learn the right things once you get started with the business. After solving these pre-existing issues,
[04:30] you will face the next one. Whenever you are starting a new business, there will be a different level of drive within you, like going to the gym on New Year's Day, you will approach clients with passion.  You will talk and seeing this passion, the clients will trust you and
[04:44] give you money. Your friends and colleagues will also help you because you are doing something courageous. You might even find a few also help you because you are doing something courageous. You might even find a few business is very easy, why do people fail at business, but things start getting tough.
[04:57] Once this initial honeymoon phase is over, in our honeymoon phase, we got a few big clients like Finance V Sharan Ayush Shukla and Jay Desai. We were on top of the world, but then we had to deliver the results that we promise. It takes a lot of
[05:10] time and effort for the next six months. We had to put our heads down, pull all- nighters and grind through the boring day-to- day work to deliver the results that we promise. And in those six months, we did not have time to bring in new business. Even if we had
[05:24] time, the new clients would ask us to so we had no choice but to hustle for six months straight in any line of business. Whether it's a product or a service you're selling, you'll have the six to
[05:39] nine months of hustle period where you'll have to keep your head down and work to prove to the market that you're worth it. Once you get results and prove it to the market, it'll be all sunshine and rainbows. You'll get to find more businesses, increase your
[05:54] revenue, and increase your profits. At this stage, you'll probably cross the 10 lakh per year mark. You'll be earning ₹80,000 to ₹1 lakh a month. You'll start finding agencies. Life will be easy. You'll be buying nice things for your parents.
[06:07] You'll be going to nice places. You'll be a hero in front of your friends. Life will be very good, but that's where the next set of difficulties come. In hard times, create strong men. Strong men create good times.
[06:22] Times create weak men and weak men create hard times this is true for business as well when life gets so good we forget where we came from this leads to complacency and everything goes down hill i will share my real life example we had some very
[06:36] good clients we were making great content for them and they were seeing great results and we were also having fun at this point we started being complaining we felt we are the gods of content creation we do
[06:48] n't need to do anything else slowly clients started complaining that we are losing that personal touch they feel we are not paying attention to them and some of the videos that we made were performing very badly we did not pay attention to this and
[07:01] with time these slip ups increased the biggest shock was when one of our top performing clients gave us a notice that they are leaving after 30 days that  In this moment, we realize together that no matter how
[07:18] your head down and don't take anything for granted. The drive you had before getting clients for granted. The drive you had before getting clients faced another
[07:31] problem. A very weird stage will come in your business where you are getting money, but that money can also go away so easily. Like in the second half of 2023, we were making around Rs 1 lakh per month. At that time, we had clients and we were
[07:45] delivering results, but we did not know whether the clients would renew the contract or not for various reasons. Maybe their goal was achieved, maybe they want to go in a different direction where we are not needed. What ever the case, but it was very uncertain.
[07:59] Whatever business you do, when you reach a good income stage, and it is very new, it feels like that money is gone.  It will end very soon and because of this you are forced to do everything by yourself and you can't hire anyone you will have to
[08:14] literally do everything outreach sales client on boarding client servicing post service things and a lot of reviews and in a similar phase in 2023 I used to work day to day in my agency with a few team members to help me and at night I used to
[08:28] sit till 11 pm and make pitch desks to pitch to new clients and next day I used to start agency work at 8:00 pm and make pitch desks till 2 am every business owner will face this it is called the entrepreneur employee trap you will become the
[08:42] employee of your own business of your own clients where earlier you had one boss in your job now you will have 10 bosses as clients your days will become torture as and you will feel like quitting you will think is this the right business model for you the answer is yes but
[08:58] You just need to get through this hell to a place of stability. As soon as you get there, you hire someone and you can reduce your load. another problem will arise where you will lose your core skill. Like, my
[09:14] skill is content creation, but while building this agency, I had to do a lot of other things. Clients don't want just content strategy. They wanted everything. And then I had to do writing. I had to guide them through the shoots. I had to review all the photos and videos.
[09:29] I had to be the person of contact for that client. And these are such things that minor things, but it will suck so much of your mental energy that you will not be able to practice your core skill. Gradually, as the
[09:43] requirements for these other skills also increase.  Then you will be able to outsource, but at one point you will have to do all of these things and you will lose your core skills. When you solve this second set of problems, you will be earning around Rs 20 lakh per year. That is around Rs
[09:57] 1.5 to 1.6 lakh per month. At this point, you might think that everything is going to be easy now. I have solved all the problems of my business. I am now going to become the next Mukesh Ambani. But beyond this mark, there is a whole new game
[10:12] to be played. When you work on a small scale, you work anyhow, from your bedroom, without a nap, staying up all night, and without any structure and proper timelines. But as you scale, more clients come to you. Once you cross that Rs 20 lakh
[10:27] plus mark, then you cannot continue to make money. After that point, you will need systems. You can't wing it. When I was at the Rs 1.5 lakh per month mark, I was living in a PG.  With seven other boys, this work would only happen at night because there was never any peace during the day. This
[10:43] also meant that I couldn't even take meetings during the day without being interrupted and looking unprofessional. Work would get done but there were a lot of delays. Sometimes I have messaged clients at 3:00 in the night for some
[10:55] things and sometimes even in day to day tasks there were so many mess ups because we did n't have a proper system. We were just winging it as things came to be. I made a real mistake and immediately within a month I moved to a new place and I made a lot of processes
[11:10] and systems in every aspect of work and for the first time I felt like I was just winging it. I was building something. From actual content ideation to posting on social media, there was a process for everything. We used to do it in the first 3 hours. We were doing it in one go because
[11:23] of These systems: As soon as you set up a system in your business, you will be able to take on more work without burning out. Things will again become smoother, but even after this, after some time, you will be working at maximum capacity.
[11:37] Your day and night will become one. Even if you have all of these systems in place, at this point most people burn out and quit. They think that business is not for them because they will not be able to scale beyond this level.
[11:51] Why does this happen? Most people, including me, when we get new money, we think, why should we give this money to someone else? We will give Rs 20,000 to someone else for doing work that we know how. It would be better if we keep that money and
[12:05] spend it on ourselves. Everyone feels like this, but this is short-term thinking, and that is why people burn out because they want to do everything themselves. But understand one thing: to make money, you need to pay money. The same thing happened to me a few months ago.  I got a
[12:20] client who was earning Rs 1.5 lakh per month. My main role in that was content creation and the video editing part. Obviously, I left the video editing to the editor. But when the time for content creation came, I thought that I will create the content myself. Why should I
[12:34] hire a researcher, a strategist and a writer for all of this? Why should I pay someone else for skills that I know? There was a reason that the person to whom I give this work might not do a good job and I will have to return it anyway. So, I might as well
[12:48] save all the trouble and do it myself. I will save money and time. I was already at my 80 percent capacity when I started the project. And as soon as it started, within 15 days, the client complained that the output was very bad. He told
[13:02] me that if so many issues are coming up at the basic level in the beginning itself, then how will we be able to move forward? At that moment, I realized that I will have to hire someone.  I wo n't be able to do this alone. As soon as I delegated this entire part to a new team
[13:16] member, my life became so much easier. I had so much time on my hands that I was able to handle client relations. I was able to close more clients and I was being more creative in assisting clients. That's why I had to pay extra salary for just 15 days.
[13:28] But after that, because I closed a lot of new clients, I was in a net positive. I was at a profit even after spending more money. When all the systems and hiring are in place, you will have a lot of time left. At this
[13:43] point, you will think that you have to play a bigger game. Fair play, you must play a bigger game. That is what I also did. I started working with Doctor's, ADAC, Bajaj, Niva, Bupa, proper legacy brands. Their billing goes up to ₹100 per month. But
[13:57] the harsh reality is that as soon as you chase these big clients, things will get even more [ __ ]. Up at this level, things move very slowly. Let me tell you a story which is very close to my heart. We wanted to work for one of the wings of Aditya Birla Company.
[14:12] So we started preparing a pitch for them. They were also interested. They saw our past work and they were very excited to give us the work. We had meetings with them for six months, made presentations for them, made revisions, did
[14:24] presentations for them, made revisions, did everything. But after six months, some things got changed internally from there and the entire project got cancelled. That was the first proper legacy brand with which we were going to work and because it didn't happen, it broke
[14:39] my heart. Work slowly started with the rest of the brands that I mentioned as well, but an issue came up, that was payment issue. There is a minimum of 90 days of buffer to get a payment. We had to wait 180 days for one payment to clear out. At one
[14:53] point, I was paying salaries and rent.  And all the other expenses, while I was n't getting any money, I had no money left. To the point that I had to stop giving money to my parents for one or two months so that my agency can sustain,
[15:08] both your time and your money are wasted. To get bigger clients and bigger payments, you have to accept that things will move slow. You will have payments that are delayed. You will have projects that, after months of working, will get cancelled. But
[15:21] months of working, will get cancelled. But once things get aligned, you will start getting paid a lot for doing very easy work. I am at this stage right now, and it was very frustrating for me. It was like starting from zero, but when things
[15:33] start going your way, you win big. So, who is starting a business of any sort? Keep all of these things in mind as big. So, who is starting a business of any sort? Keep all of these things in mind as to these videos to remind yourself of what's coming next.  And to
[15:48] prepare yourself learn from what ever I have gone through so that you don't have to go through that good luck and I will see you at the top