After getting rejected from 17 companies, I finally managed to secure a job at CTS as a Programmer Analyst. I had great hopes of doing something big out of that opportunity, but destiny had planned something else for me. In a brief period, the work culture became disappointing and demotivating for me as I did not appreciate my efforts and dedication to the job role. The feeling of job dissatisfaction made me rethink my inner capabilities and skills to do something out of the experience I had gained in my technological job role. I started thinking of developing software applications but was confused about what to do and how to provide me with an alternative career opportunity and a sigh of relief from the mundane job life.
In the meantime, I being a gym freak, was actively associated with an intense workout session. One day while I went to renew my gym package, I had to wait for an hour or so as the concerned person could not fetch handwritten records of my last membership renewal. This gave me an idea to maintain these records with the help of gym software. But to my dismay, although I succeeded in developing a suitable software application, I had no one to sell it to or give to check its usage effectiveness. Here begins the greatest struggle of my life, procuring suitable leads to sell my software. I made random calls to gyms operating in Kolkata, hoping to get at least one positive response. After trying hard for a month or so, I successfully managed to give a demo of my software application to one of the prestigious gyms and even succeeded in selling. This boosted my morale. I kept on trying to sell it to as many gyms as possible. However, the pathway was not an easy one as I was still associated with my job. I had to manage my daily job tasks and at the same time visit gyms to provide demo of my software application.
There was one point when I had to choose between my job and my budding desire to become an entrepreneur with gym management software. I left my job in March 2018 and started focusing on selling the software I had named Digifit Software. The pathway was full of ups and down wherein I was subjected to severe negativity and criticism from several gym owners. Slowly but gradually, I succeeded in selling the software to quite a few gyms, and eventually, the number rose to 250+.
This was not the end of accomplishing my entrepreneurial dream. Instead, it provided me with an opportunity to diversify my focus on doing something else out of the money gained in this process. I came up with the idea of opening a gym in partnership with one of my friends in August 2018, The Calcutta Fitness Studio Behala.
I was simultaneously running both my software selling firm and the gym centre. Once I was able to generate a considerable amount of profit from the gym, I decided to invest it into another branch and hence came up with the second one, The Calcutta Fitness Studio Baghajatin. I followed the business model of investing the profit gained from one operational entity into another. This helped me come up with subsequent branches of my gym brand named TCF. This business policy enabled me to come up with one of the luxurious gym centres of Kolkata, sprawling over an area of 7000 sq feet amidst the pandemic situation in the year 2021. The race is still on, and my teammates and I are doing our best to deliver more gym centres across the city and software applications.