Rm Bujia - managing Jan 2017 - Jun 2017. RM Bujia is a manufacturing unit of Bujia, a prominent Rajasthani snacks brand. This facility is owned by my father and two other partners. Under their guidance, I learned the intricacies of the business and gained hands-on experience in managing operations, developing my skills in the industry.

In mid-2017, he sent me to manage our new venture in Bangalore, Karnataka. There, I started earning a significant income of 1-3 lakhs per month at the young age of 19. But just a few months later, in March 2018, my father passed away. It was devastating, and I couldn't imagine life without him. Suddenly, I was responsible for my family, which included my mother and sister.

After my father's passing, we discovered that 90% of his wealth was gone. Most of his properties and businesses were not in his or our family's name. He had been running five businesses, but now everything was lost. I had to start from scratch, just like my father had started as a truck mechanic. I initially thought rebuilding would be easy, but it wasn't.

In 2018, I decided to start a startup that would solve a significant problem across India and generate substantial income. I considered creating a bus booking app, but after talking to top bus owners in Bikaner, they advised me to explore other options. In December 2018, I decided to work on an idea for home appliance service and repair. I assigned this task to someone who had a high-paying job.

While he was developing the app, I thought of starting a gym in my town. In mid-December 2018, I purchased gym equipment and launched a new gym. But on December 21st, 2018, my grandmother passed away. It had only been nine months since my father's passing, and for two months, I couldn't focus on my startup. Everything felt chaotic.

After some time, my grandfather inspired me to start working again. In March 2019, I decided to move to Jaipur without my mother and sister. I tied up with local vendors in Jaipur, forming a team of 300 people. However, I faced issues with the person developing my app. He was slow and couldn't keep up, so I handed the project over to a Jaipur-based IT company in June 2019.

In July 2019, I moved my mother and sister to Jaipur, which is 320 km away from our town. I also applied for incubation at Rajasthan Bhamashah Technohub and got approval. Towards the end of July, my grandfather called me back to our hometown because they were planning my cousin's wedding. I went back on August 1st.

Tragically, on August 3rd, my grandfather passed away. It was another devastating loss after just nine months. Facing such repeated hardships at the young age of 20 was incredibly tough.

Again and again, it's tough to face such rapid challenges in life when you're just 20. After two months, I asked my mother if we could move to Jaipur, but she declined, saying she didn't want to go anywhere for a while and that I should go alone.

As I was planning my move, our extended family arranged my cousin's marriage. The engagement was in September, and the wedding was in January 2020. I decided to wait until after the wedding and move to Jaipur in March because it's winter then, and there's not much work for AC technicians. The AC season starts in March, so I planned to relocate then.

It was mid-March 2020, and on the 21st, the lockdown started. Unfortunately, I couldn't move to Jaipur. I had to shut down the gym, but I saw an opportunity. My father always said, "Whenever the market crashes, buy as much as you can." So, I bought many shares, even taking a loan at a 24% interest rate for 13 months. After 13 months, the market was doing exceptionally well. I sold my shares, repaid the loan with interest, and built a good portfolio. I continued trading in the share market for a year and a half.

In 2022, I got a shop from my grandfather's property. I started a fast-food shop there but had to shut it down in 2023 because my saif couldn't handle it, and I wanted to focus on my startup.

In December 2023, I started working on my company called Order 8, a QR-based digital menu app. I hired an IT company from Jaipur to develop it, but after some time, I realized the idea wasn't groundbreaking. I started searching for another startup idea and realized this was the third time I was paying an IT company for a startup.

Instead of immediately jumping into another startup, I thought it would be wise to start an IT company until I found a truly groundbreaking idea and a real-life problem to solve. I talked to my cousin, and we decided to start an IT company together. We began completing websites and apps for other companies.

In July 2023, I met Mr. Khatiwal and told him about our IT services. He discussed his problem: he needed an app to manage his business. I gave him a quote for the app, which was around 3.5 lakhs. He declined and suggested we launch the app with a subscription model instead. This sparked an idea, and we started working on it.

At that time, I was still in my hometown and would go to Jaipur for 10-15 days a month to manage the IT company. I couldn't relocate permanently because my mother wanted to wait until after my sister's and my marriage. We were busy searching for a groom for my sister, and I didn't want to juggle two startups simultaneously.

My commitment to this startup is so strong that I've chosen to delay my marriage and am now utilizing my wedding funds to fuel its growth. It's now December 2023, and we're talking to vendors and have completed our first prototype. While shopping for my sister's wedding, she took me to a jewelry rental shop in Bikaner. The shopkeeper asked me what I did, and I told him we create apps and websites. It turned out he had the same problem as Mr. Khatiwal. He had over 400 jewelry items and was using paper books to manage rentals, which was inefficient. He asked if I could create an app to help him track how many products were rented out. I showed him our prototype, and he was impressed and asked us to deliver the app as soon as possible.

My sister's wedding was on February 4th, 2024, and I planned to relocate to Jaipur for the startup after that. However, due to family rituals, I couldn't leave for a month. Finally, on March 13th, 2024, I moved to Jaipur with my mother.

My brother was also a co-founder of our app. He had quit his job a year ago to work on projects and had recently gotten married. He received a good job offer from abroad and wanted to take it. He said he had to focus on his job now.

It's now June 25th, 2024, and we had to recreate the app from scratch because the backend was in GoLang, which my brother was proficient in. We did pilot testing with the beta version and converted three users to premium subscriptions from August 1st to 15th. We hired a new team and decided to change the app's language. We're currently working on the final version with this new team.

On July 17th, we received a call from iStart (Bhamashah Technohub) informing us that our startup has been incubated there, starting from August 1st. That's my story up until today, August 15th, 2024.