Time to bid adieu to 2016

2 more days and 2016 will be over. While 2015 was a turning point for my professional life, 2016 was even more challenging on both professional and personal fronts. I met my soulmate, started working as colleagues, and got married. After what felt like ages, I spent a couple of weeks on vacation and realized that it is better to disconnect, stop and start with a revitalized mind than to struggle with repeated nuisances constantly. On the professional side, we pivoted our earlier product, Courses.Ninja into RoadToNaukri.com- a huge step as getting married.

Though the pivoting product was quite natural and organic for us (well, one can say it was like choosing painkillers over vitamins); when your savings are declining, and people around you doubt new plans, it's obvious to feel a little nervous. Some of them even asked me questions like - why do I want to do startup anymore; why not go back to the USA and earn more money immediately? What drives our team to build a product from scratch with a significant chance of failure? I believe sometimes you must stop being logical for a moment and listen to your inner voice. You have to trust your own capabilities as well as the strengths of your team. Every question can not be answered initially, and you can never be 100% prepared to avoid every failure. As expected, we committed many mistakes and faced many failures. But we changed our mistakes into our lessons. During everyday stand-up, we tried to answer one simple question — Are we better than yesterday? For many days, the answers were either a clear “NO” or a clueless “maybe.” However, as the seasons changed, the light at the end of the tunnel became brighter. All the questions asked earlier finally received their answers through our work and success.

We look forward to an even more exciting 2017. Just like last year, there are so many new things to learn and improve. A couple of metrics we have already identified, and the rest will evolve as the new year proceeds. Creating value for customers, increasing platform interactions, and moving towards a product-market fit are enlisted as our top priorities. It is possible that things may go south from here but seeking and focusing on sustainable growth might be the answer to all such worries.

Cheers to New Possibilities! Happy New Year!!

(Originally posted here - https://medium.com/@ankitwww/adieu-2016-c602b2811be5)