It’s 2:00 AM and the night is far from over. Shit loads of stuff to do, get some sleep and be awesome in that important meeting I have in the morning!

Damn! It’s 2:00 AM, I’m a bit sleepy, missing out on the fun crazy party and sitting in an office with someone equally passionate and equally worked-up as I am, goggling at my laptop screen.

But! Wait, amigos, wait! It certainly isn’t as bad as you think it is. In fact, it’s crazier and so much cooler than that party I missed.

Let me take you a year back, black and white types!
Madrid, awesome me in an elite B-school, meeting great people and learning amazing stuff every day, partying like crazy and going on backpacking trips every now and then.

But then something happened. A wire sparked somewhere! I had always wanted to startup, but this time around it was strong, stronger than ever before. So, I packed my bags and came back, all excited and motivated to start something and make it big.

So that’s how Wishpicker.com or WiPi (as we like to call it here) started.  It’s been incredible until now and it keeps getting better. The things that I had thought were good are turning out to be better, the bad things worse and the ugly things, well, you never really think about them.

Well, if you think that starting up is all shiny and glamorous, you certainly are wrong, sir! Let me tell you about some dilemmas, always gaping and gnawing at a young entrepreneur-

The ‘This-is-the-age’ dilemma

The thing about being a young entrepreneur is that you have a lot of energy and passion, minimal family responsibilities and you are full of dreams. You’ll be unfair to yourself if you don’t work your ass off with so many liberties. You have the liberty to blur the line between home and work and sometimes, to even completely erase that line. This is the best time to go for something BIG!

But wait, wouldn’t you be unfair if you spend all your time working and ignoring everything else in life? All the friends and all the fun, at this age? I mean, this is THE time, right?

Balance! Balance is the word! Running a startup makes you balance your life; you just have to! The harder you work during the week, the crazier those Saturday nights can be. You learn how to de-stress, how to let the steam off your head.

You experience how at times, sitting in a coffee shop, just chilling and thinking can hit that refresh button. You cut off the junk. You understand what’s important and what needs your attention.

You learn the art and skill of balance, perhaps one of the most important skills to have. And if you have been good at it already in life, this just amplifies it to greater levels. Go extreme, be balanced, be a Balanced Extreme!

The ugly part – There are possibilities that you turn extremely balanced, or distort the balance completely. Either way, you can be screwed.

The ‘So-much-to-learn’ dilemma

You are in for a treat if you are the think-and-conceptualize types. You are in for a bigger treat if you are the think-and-do types as well. You are in for a grand treat if you belong to the I-want-to-learn lot.

Running a startup makes you learn a lot of stuff, sometimes, at an exponential pace. Fixing that bug in the code? Talking to customers/partners/investors? Brainstorming about the next viral campaign? Micro! Macro! Min! Max! Be prepared to fight on all fronts.

In this Google powered world, learning is highly underrated. Just Google it and Bam! You have the solution, right? Nope, you have to learn how to use Google well too!

 Ok, that was the good part, or so I think. It turns bad if you don’t figure out what to learn and what to let go off. It turns ugly if you keep learning (and doing) the latter, and are stuck in the loop. Imagine using an outdated technology for your product, and keep supporting it with layers of add-ons. Doomed!

The ‘Where-is-this-Going’ dilemma

This one is the heaviest! It’s like a sum of many mini-dilemmas.

One day you may feel wonderful, all charged-up and excited on seeing a spike in the number of visitors, and the next day might not be that nice to you. You become the popular kid among your friends after a successful marketing campaign, and the one without a stable job at other times.

Your friends who are looking for jobs think that it’s cool to be the one looking to give jobs. But you know it’s not. Those banker and consultant friends of yours think it’s great to have a fat salary every month. But you know it’s not.

Building something that can be used by so many people, and that solves their problems – Amazing! Building a company – Awesome! Answering your parents about their ‘Where-exactly-is-this-going’ dilemma– wait, What? 

 The best thing about young entrepreneurs – they don’t really care about the good, bad or ugly part of any dilemma. They don’t care about any dilemma whatsoever. They believe in themselves and are willing to give up on some things in life and take their chances, to ‘love’ what they do and ‘do’ what they love. Because in the end, they just want to-

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Her face turns scarlet upon receiving the gift. First you think it’s because you have made her day. But then her scowling expressions reveal the fact that it has turned scarlet with rage as you unintentionally ended up giving her the same flowers and chocolates you had given on her last birthday. What happens next is…. hmm…history!

An inappropriate gift can sometimes ruin the entire celebration mood. We often come across situations in life where a big, disappointing question mark appears in our minds whenever we try to think of a great gift! That’s where WishPicker comes in.

WishPicker helps people to decide WHAT to gift when a special occasion is around the corner – a social gift recommendation engine that provides the best gift ideas/products from across the web. Users can search for gifts based on their relationship with the recipient, age and occasion at hand. The company was founded in Jan’13 by Prateek Rathore and Apurv Bansal both IIT Delhi alumni. The private beta version of Wishpicker.com was launched in May, followed by a public launch in mid-June.

Prateek Rathore

 Be it a ‘romantic’ Birthday gift for a ‘geeky’ boyfriend, under Rs 1000, or a ‘creative’  anniversary gift for middle aged parents, all gifts are delivered within 3 days. Gift ideas are completely customized depending on the personality of the gift recipient and the  type of gift that the user wishes to give.

 The idea of creating a gift recommendation engine ignited when Apurv was in Mumbai  and wanted to send a gift to his girlfriend in Delhi but was facing a hard time deciding what to  gift. Prateek told him that he faced the same problem when looking to send an anniversary gift to his parents from Spain and they realized that figuring out what to  gift was a problem that everybody faced on a very frequent basis. They quit their high  paying corporate jobs and got together to start WishPicker.com. The passion to create an impact using technology is what brought them together to start this venture.

As of now, WishPicker has no direct competition and their indirect competitors are  online gifting and flower websites.

Apurv Bansal

However, given the fact that these websites are primarily e-retailers for gift products and do not focus on gift recommendations, WishPicker has tied up with a lot of these websites to source gift products.

It basically targets the following types of people:

• People looking for recommendations for gifting their dear ones on a special occasion – these people are unsure about what to gift and are looking for customized recommendations for the occasion at hand.

•People living outside their hometowns, looking to send gifts back home – these are young Indians from small towns who have jobs in Tier 1 cities and NRIs who wish to gift relatives back home.

The primary target market lies in the age group of 16-35 years. WishPicker is currently targeting the Indian market but they are planning to expand globally very soon.

Only about a couple of months old, the site is witnessing tremendous traction. Customers are going gaga over the fact that a site can tell them what their loved ones would like as a gift, based on Facebook as well. Currently, they have sufficient funds to run their operations. However they are planning to raise funds for two main reasons – expand their team and expand their operations to different geographies.

WishPicker follows an affiliate model. It provides gift recommendations and redirects users to their partner websites, where users can buy the gifts. All sales made on their partner websites through their site are tracked and they charge a commission per transaction.

Apurv and Prateek want Wishpicker to be the ideal destination for anyone looking for a gift, anywhere in the world. “We want it to be the Kayak of the gifting industry. We aim to be present in multiple geographies within some years from now. The suggestions/feedbacks have been very helpful. We believe we can do so much more to solve the problem of finding the right gift. We are very excited about the new features we’ll soon be rolling out.” added Prateek.

Are you looking for a gift and are still confused? Make sure you don’t disappoint your loved ones as nobody deserves a bad gift on their special day. Give WishPicker a try!

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