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The journey of life will always come with its temptations; it is the ability to stick to your goal that will eventually lead you to success.
A fascinating excerpt from Manish Vij's must-read book, Brick by Brick.
It was during my early days at Rediff, that I had first heard that there was this large technology company called Google that was making its presence felt in the US.
This company, I learnt, was focusing on online advertising and had started giving out advertising contracts to publishers.
I had decided at the time to take an audacious leap of faith and send a ten-slide presentation to them, telling them exactly why they needed to set up operations in India.
The presentation was sent as a cold email to an address I had found on the Internet, that of David Lee, a member of Google's New Business Development Team.
While I sent the email and forgot about it, in a couple of days, I received a reply from Lee. It stated that his colleague, Vikram Grover, was visiting India and that I should meet him.
Subsequent to that preliminary meeting, there were other sporadic meetings and phone calls with Google every few months.
Nothing concrete, however, had taken shape. While my interest in these meetings was to build advertising revenue for Rediff, Google was interested in evaluating my ability to build a market for them in India.
This time, however, two years after I had dropped that first email to Google and while I was a few months into setting up Quasar, came yet another email.
This one was from Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, General Manager at Google and a big name in Silicon Valley.
It said that they were keen to start operations in India and that they had decided to roll out an offer to me for which I needed to visit Mumbai.
A bit in a trance and not too sure what would come out of the meeting, I decided to go along and make a trip to Mumbai anyway.
What followed was an actual offer letter, one that offered me the post of Sales Manager for India -- one of the two positions they were finalizing for the India business.
I was offered a huge salary along with Restricted Stock Units. 'Google is the fastest growing company in the world. Iss salary mein toh hum Ford Endeavour bhi le sakte hain (We can buy a Ford Endeavour with this salary),' I remember telling Tina, my desire for a fancy car raising its head. My enthusiasm was met with a calm 'Think it through' from her.
After my initial euphoria subsided came the realisation that having begun Quasar, I now carried the responsibility of my team members.
Other than Deven and Sandeep, by this time, we had also inducted a gentleman named Hitesh Dhingra, who was Sandeep's college mate and had come from Singapore on glowing recommendation from Sandeep.
Clearly, I couldn't leave my team in the lurch. On raising the issue with Google, they assured me that while the recruitments would have to follow the formal recruitment process at Google, they were open to the idea.
It was only five months since Quasar had begun operations and while business was coming in, there was still a bit of nervousness about the future.
That further tilted the scale in Google's favour and I found myself dreaming of working for one of the words best companies in the digital sector as a part of their leadership team with a very fat salary, stock options and, of course, a fancy car.
Harish was visiting Australia at the time and the only task I was left with was to break the news to him and convince him that it was too good an offer for me to let go. I had, however, underestimated the task of convincing him.
On breaking the news to him, he asked me if I had sought my dad's opinion on it.
I had shared the news with my father, of course, and while my father had agreed that the offer was great, he, much like Tina, had asked me to calmly think of all the pros and cons before coming to any decision.
Before I knew it, Harish had cut short his Australia trip and landed up at my father's office. 'Ladke ka dimaag kharab ho gaya hai (the boy has lost his mind),' Harish told my dad, asking him to convince me not to take up the offer.
Subsequent to meeting Harish, my dad called me, asking me to come and see him at his office.
What he had to say now wasn't very different from what he had said last time, except that he wanted me to think through the fact that not everyone sets an opportunity to start up.
'Getting a prestigious job such as this is hard but starting a business that's showing signs of success is harder,' he said, perhaps referring to his own experience especially since he had harboured the desire to set up a spinning yarn business.
'If tomorrow your business does not do well, you will still have an opportunity to find another job.
'To be able to build the same momentum for a start-up one more time, however, may not be that easy. Age is also on your side.'
'Think about it,' he said, leaving the final decision, as always, to me. Something about the way my dad spoke shifted something within me.
The conversation made me realise that the journey of life would always come with its temptations; it is the ability to stick to your goal that will eventually lead you to success.
Armed with this new-found understanding, I reached out to Google to tell them that, grateful as I was for their offer, I couldn't accept it.
While they were willing to relook at the offer, I politely turned the offer down, confessing to them that I had already found the salary very attractive and the only reason I was saying no was to focus on my company. This was a decision that turned out well for me, in hindsight.
Excerpted from Brick by Brick: From Middle-Class Roots to Entrepreneurial Success -- A Roadmap to Dream, Build, and Succeed, by Manish Vij, with the kind permission of the publishers, Penguin.
Manish Vij rejected a job offer from Google to become an entrepreneur.
His journey began in 1999 when he launched Kabadibazaar.com from his college hostel. Manish later co-founded Quasar, India's leading digital media agency; SVG Media/Tyroo, a pioneering adtech company; and Letsbuy.com, a prominent e-commerce platform. His ventures have attracted investments from top venture capital firms and global business collaborations.
Feature Presentation: Rajesh Alva/Rediff.com