180 flips with lady luck!

Call me old school, but I’d like to believe that every single choice you make/is made for you, right from picking your name all the way to picking the theme for this article (which isn’t a cake walk btw) impacts and corrects the course of things/people around you.

This is the tale of how I dodged a loveless marriage with the monotonous world of circuits and stumbled into the arms of my true love: startups! (Nope, no cheesy name reveal here, sorry!) Picture it: 2018, yours truly in the prime of bachelorhood, grappling with regret over a questionable specialisation and barely scraping through academics, just like any other 18-year-old.

When IC2 Institute at UT Austin and the US Dept. of State decided to launch the Aspiring Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) program to promote and support Indian entrepreneurs, they unknowingly saved my entrepreneurial bacon (thank goodness!). They scoured through thousands of Indian women for the 18 brightest ideas with the best commercialisation strategies, offering them a ticket to an assisted acceleration program with UT Austin’s IC2 Institute. Sounds fancy, doesn’t it? Well, to this clueless 18-year-old back then, it sounded downright terrifying!

Why tackle something that scares the socks off of you, am I right? Maturity and confidence weren’t exactly my go to accessories back then. So, while my pals were busy fine-tuning their AWE applications—some with genius ideas, mind you—I didn’t even dare to dip my toe in the water. Cue the deadline looming in just 2 hours, and there I was, no plan in sight. But lo and behold, Lady Luck and my then-BFF (let’s just call her Mandy) was there with my wake-up call. While some besties dole out treats, mine preferred to dish out threats! 😄 I managed to slap together an application and hit submit just in the nick of time.

Zoom ahead two weeks to result day. While my buddies were on the edge of their seats, refreshing their screens and chewing through their nails, I was chill as a cucumber. I mean, come on, I had about as much chance of getting in as a snowball in Siberia, right? So there I was, indulging in biryani (my go-to comfort food) and drifting off into dreamland.

Then, at the ungodly hour of 2 am IST (which, to be fair, is prime time in EST), my phone starts buzzing like it’s got a vendetta. I tried to silence the darn thing, but it was relentless. After a futile game of cat and mouse, I finally picked up, schooled the caller on proper late-night etiquette and drifted back to my slumber, satisfied with myself.

Imagine waking up to a selection email from UT Austin with a P.S. note that said “We tried delivering the good news to you on a call, but seemed like we hit a bit of a network snag and couldn’t hear your reaction. Apologies, congratulations again!”

The rest is all history (painted in embarrassment followed by accomplishment), but AWE was how I was introduced to and pivoted towards my current career and this 180 flip wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for my lady luck, Mandy.

Hope this reminded you of yours!