Zuricka Azavedo, Founder, ChillX.com

From a young age I had this desire to build something that would help change lives, but didn't know how, until much later.

Now, so many years later, I feel I have done that, in however small a way - through my enterprise ChillX.com. Or have I?

I come from a middle class family. My mom is the sole parent who has brought up my brother and me.

Finances were predictably tight, but I went on to do my graduation in India, worked for a while, and then went to New Zealand to complete my MBA. I would work two jobs to make ends meet initially.

I climbed the professional ladder in the web development space very quickly, moving from being a business analyst to leading development teams in project management, to being a web strategy consultant. Going by the pace of growth I had set myself, I could have become a top director in a cool company soon enough.

But my heart kept clamouring for something that hadn't quite crystallised yet, something of my own.

Around this time, I decided to visit India to visit my family. I was returning home after four years. While packing my bags and planning my flight, my mind started to race back in time to the friends I had left behind, who I could perhaps meet on this trip.

That's when it struck. I realised most of my close friends had moved to different parts of the country and outside. If only there was a platform where we could all meet and catch up on the times that were!

ChillX.com was born on that flight. The idea was to connect, across geographies and time zones.

Once in India, I discussed the concept with people I met and sought suggestions and advice. My best friend Tikiri and my brother Neil were pretty taken up with the idea of a platform any Indian could get on to seek out old friends or make new ones. All three of us had skills that could be used to take the concept forward.

The next step was to put together a prototype for basic networking. We decided to setup a small initiative that we would all do after work and see how it pans out over a year or so. For one full year thereafter we focused on resources and researching various options.

Thus the actual development and prototyping for ChillX.com started back in 2006, though we launched in 2007.

We took our family and friends as our first users with the objective of making the application user friendly. We looked at the areas of web browsing that we loved or hated, and accordingly put in changes for ease of use.

The night we launched, we had just three profiles - our own. We told ourselves we'd be happy to have four more by the end of the week. It was a pleasant surprise when we got 10 instead. We were rolling on the floor and our messenger was sending smilie faces. It was late night out here in New Zealand, so we thought we should call it a night. By next morning we had a few more members.

There was no looking back. Every time a member sent us an email, we were quick to respond and even took time out to chat with our new friends to get valuable feedback.

Sure, we got the odd guy who would visit us and try and pollute the environment, but our members soon started taking the initiative to alert us about who was trying to abuse the environment.

But turning entrepreneur is easier said than done. The initial challenge we faced was that we had to do the whole thing by ourselves. It was our money on the line. We were funding the project through the web development work we did during the day. We did not have a huge network of contacts in India to get this or that done. Hiring the right person to work with us was something we had not done before, and it took time. And having to work from remote offices New Zealand and India and time differences made life a little unpleasant. When we were in beta stages, all hell would break loose if the website crashed, for we were desperate not to lose members.

Amidst all this, spending time with family was like a luxury. I guess all three of us have been fortunate to have understanding family members, or the enterprise could easily have drowned before it took off.

How often have I felt like going back to the safety of a regular job!

What kept us going was our belief in the worth of what we were doing. It felt wonderful to be doing something we all believed in and found meaningful. And before long, we had taken the plunge full time, for a regular day jobs posed its own hurdles.

To be honest, ChillX.com is no great innovation - we are one of many social networking sites going. However, what sets us apart is our focus on Indians looking to network with other Indians, be it for professional or social reasons, and our sincerity in bringing them together. That's our way of touching lives.

And as our users would readily tell you, ChillX.com is simple and unpretentious, in that one gets a feeling it's his/her own space, own network and own community. It doesn't pack irrelevant features and is deliberately functional.

A few big players had launched in India around the time we hit the web. Every now and then we would hear of some site or the other having millions of users. We did not have the funds to market on television, radio or print, or get media insertions, leave alone appoint ghost writers or pay bloggers to put out a good word about ChillX.com as the big players were doing. So we decided to work smarter - add value for our users rather than chase numbers.

Our members have more than reciprocated, and supported the community. They would write to us if they found anything good; they would alert us if they found anything wayward, so we could fix it. Existing members would often volunteer to walk a new member through questions.

Our community is growing all right.

And so are our operations. Today, we are a team of six members across two locations and the hits are, well, pouring in.

Going forward, we intend to invite select consumer brands to showcase their value proposition to the Indian consumer on ChillX.com. We also plan to partner with a few horizontal and vertical service providers that would increase the overall value proposition to our members.

The longer-term goal is to make sure a ChillX member gets to perform all his/her online activities through My Dashboard.

My tips for budding entrepreneurs:

* If someone laughs at your idea, don't take it to heart; rather take it as an opportunity to figure out how to refine the idea and make it better

* Have a business plan. This does not need to be a thesis as even a one-page plan with a few bullet points is better than none

* Have your bedroom covered with posters of the 5 goals you need to accomplish. The goals need to be short, concise bullet points

* Take time out for yourself to clear your mind so that you can focus better

* When the going gets tough you need to assure yourself you are closer to the one thing that you desire the most

* Don't ever think you can do everything by yourself

* Choose the people you want to do business with, for it is often the best business decision

* Tell yourself you are going to make it and never ever give up on your dream.