Million Ideas : Which one(s) to chase?

The year was 2010 and I had completed 15 years by then in the IT industry after graduating from IIT Bombay, leading technology teams across various domains and continents. I had launched Zapak.com - the first online casual gaming platform in India - a couple of years back and had moved to Web18 (now Network18) where I was reaping the benefits after launching Firstpost.com, in.com mail and plethora of mobile-based applications. It was all great going with a good pay cheque and a satisfaction of leading technology for one of the biggest media houses in the country. But there was this constant thought going on in my mind all the time - "I have so many ideas popping in every now and then. There are friends who have ideas and want help from me. And I am not doing anything about them.". And so I formed my own company - pH Solutions Private Limited - as the first step to give shape to these ideas. Not much happened till I finally decided to call it a day and quit Network18 in the summer of 2012. Some of my colleagues joined me to help me with these ideas.

Since we wanted to nurture our own ideas and help friends launch their ideas, we called ourselves a product and services company. But we were actually an incubator company which would take an idea to beta launch and get revenue or stake in return. We did some great job there for our friends with pokkt.com's initial product offering, gomediajobs.com - a job site for media companies, Overdrive.in - news, reviews and comparison platform for cars and bikes, trademaya.com - a comprehensive B2B platform for the chemical industry and marketsmojo.com - a platform for financial market analysis and managing portfolios. Some of these products are already funded multiple times. 

While we were helping our friends for revenue and stakes, we also nurtured some of our own ideas and launched them. One of them worth mentioning is CoolPhysio.com. This is our first attempt to solve some of the problems related to the medical domain through the use of technology. In doing so, we picked up the domain of physiotherapy and general health first as it was the most neglected and most needed one. The platform offers multiple modules for physiotherapists, patients, professors, students and vendors of physical health products. In the current form, CoolPhysio.com offers News, Blogs, Events, Physiotherapists Search and comprehensive Practice Management for physiotherapists which include Patient Management (Pain&ADL, Observation, Examination, Modalities/Exercises, Documents, etc), Exercise Management (pictures, videos, instructions, etc), Appointment Management, Referral Management and various other modules. We will soon be launching e-Commerce for Personal Health. We are very proud of this product as we are helping many physiotherapists who were looking for such a solution. We are still bootstrapped and looking for funds to scale and realise our ultimate product.

We also launched MarkMyThoughts.com - a platform for writers and readers of all ages. This platform provides a way to share their stories, poems, essays and novels with fellow readers along with enhancing their vocabulary and general knowledge through various modules. We would like to introduce workshops, quizzes, crosswords and competitions on this platform to help the young literary community of all ages. We have got a great response from school students and parents. While we also launched MarkMyDeal.com - a platform for best prices and later to become local e-Commerce platform, MarkMyPage.com - platform for bookmarks and MeraPost.com - a platform to share classifieds, news and promotions, we could not launch our cool ideas on Digital Market, Wallet, Films, Education, Farmers and Jobs due to financial constraints.

I have reached a stage where I have helped friends launch their ideas and get funded, launched my own ideas to beta products and there are a million new ideas still waiting to be launched. While I may keep on doing this, the question now keeps popping - "Which one of these ideas I should really chase?". It is like you are a parent to many children or a teacher to many students and you cannot get biased with one over other. Each one of them is equally good and important to you. But how long I can keep doing this? Is it the right thing to do? People tell me to focus on just one idea but which one? Isn't being an incubator also an idea? What is wrong in nurturing multiple ideas at the same time? There are many incubator companies who are helping ideas by funding them. I may be complimenting them. It is just a matter of time when I may find some like-minded people who can believe in me and invest in these ideas. Or should I join hands with these accelerators or incubators and produce great products together. Who knows what is there in store?

I think I will stop here for now. I have shared my experiences and my thoughts about chasing million ideas. I have also shared my preferences - right or wrong. But all said and done, one must follow one's heart and never regret. All of you are smart, intelligent and mature enough to take your own decisions under the circumstances. My experience should in no way influence yours. You are the best judge of the situation at hand. So, all the best to all you guys out there. If anybody is interested in knowing more about me or wants any help with their ideas or wants to fund my ideas, please connect with me at [email protected] or through my LinkedIn account. Thanks for reading this article.