The success stories of renowned women entrepreneurs like Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Falguni Nayar, Sheryl Sandberg and Oprah Winfrey have always been a great inspiration for me. After doing things that matter in life for 6 years, I got charmed by the entrepreneurial dream in 2015. As a co-founder of RING, I had the opportunity to build a fintech start-up from scratch. However, being an entrepreneur has been an arduous and challenging journey.

I want to share some things that I learned during my entrepreneurial journey that helped me traverse different situations:

It is okay to start small

When I started my career, I had never imagined becoming an entrepreneur down the line. In a way, I was lucky to cross paths with like-minded people (other RING founders). Although I was a bit sceptical initially, I knew that taking small strides at a time would be the best strategy in my entrepreneurship journey, rather than taking a headlong plunge. Eventually, my gut feeling proved right as I grew as an entrepreneur.

Work-life balance matters a lot

Being an entrepreneur is a great experience, but like any occupation, it comes with some challenges. Developing the skills to manage those challenges, including establishing a proper work-life balance, is the key to managing and growing a successful business. No matter how busy my schedule is, I take time off daily to go for long walks with my father.

I remember re-joining work just seven days post the delivery of my twins, life was hard here too! Even though my family members and other founders were very supportive, I somehow felt that I was missing action in life, so I could not refrain from joining back immediately. I consider myself an entrepreneur rather than a female entrepreneur and firmly believe that passion matters more than gender in entrepreneurship.

It is not necessary to know everything when you start off

Coming from an analytics background, when I joined RING, there were many things I didn’t know about how products are built or how technology works. However, my eagerness to learn different aspects of the business helped me a lot in donning multiple hats as I picked up the requisite skills with time.

Don’t doubt yourself

While starting something new, at times, we tend to doubt ourselves. Especially when you are joining a league of experienced entrepreneurs. However, there is absolutely no reason to do so. It is essential to understand that everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. When you are confident about your skillsets, you can easily match up with the experience of others.

Mistakes are a part of the learning process

I am sure you might have heard of the golden adage, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”. Well, that is 100% true when it comes to entrepreneurship. During my entrepreneurial journey, some mistakes were inevitable. However, I took them positively as a learning experience and used them as a stepping stone to derive better results.

Invest in human capital

I firmly believe that human capital is an organization’s greatest asset. In my personal experience, I have seen that when you give better opportunities to your employees to develop their skills or spend quality time interacting with them, the benefit for your business in terms of employee commitment and morale is immense. As they say, “Life is in an echo. What you send out, always comes back in multiples”.

To conclude, entrepreneurship sounds like a dream, but there are many ups and downs. There is no standard recipe for success, and every entrepreneur’s journey is different. I sincerely hope my above experiences may be helpful to aspiring entrepreneurs planning to take the big leap.