40 to 41

Today, I turn 41. Last year, I wrote about my first 40 years. So, to ensure that the story is kept updated and since I did very little blogging during the past year, I am writing about the year that just went by for me.

On the business front, the focus was almost entirely on Netcore and building the MyToday service. It was one of the busiest years for me since 1999. I finally had found something that worked – from the many ideas that we tried in Netcore over the past 7-8 years. The free SMS subscriptions service grew rapidly, and with that came more challenges. Tackling those and laying the foundation for monetisation was what much of the year was about (besides our failed attempt at raising venture capital). This was a year when vision started being converted into execution. We still have a long road to go, but the journey of a thousand miles has begun in full earnest.

On the personal front, Abhishek, our 3+ year-old son, consumes all non-work time. There are days when I wonder if I could swap places with him mom, so I can be with him all the time! The Singapore vacation that we took in mid-June was an absolute delight (until I lost one of our bags in the taxi the night before we were leaving). Nowadays, as a family, we are into jigsaw puzzles — some of them from my childhood days.

It was a year of two new toys: the iPhone that I bought last August and the Amazon Kindle (an ebook reader) that I got from the US in May. That reminds me — there is a toy train set that I had bought a year ago that still lies unused, waiting for Abhishek to grow up a little more, so it can have a long life!

The only regret that I have is that I didn’t blog at all for much of the year. But now, I have decided to re-start. It will be much more personal — unlike the linking to articles that I used to do earlier. I will try and write daily. Life has so much variety so hopefully that should not be too difficult!

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Rajesh Jain

An Entrepreneur based in Mumbai, India.