365 Days of Stories – Day 12: The Coding Marathon & The Harsh Reality of Entrepreneurship

365 Days of Stories – Day 12: The Coding Marathon & The Harsh Reality of Entrepreneurship

With design and core algorithms in place, I started coding on 30th Oct 2015.

For the next 3 months, I worked day and night, and by 31st Jan 2016, I had: ✅ Complete backend code ✅ All carpooling use cases implemented ✅ System divided into three core domains:

Ride – Managing rides and requests User – Handling registration, preferences, and connections Billing – Generating ride invoices 🚀 By this point, the backend was fully functional. I tested APIs using Postman and built a basic web frontend to validate everything.

I was thrilled! But reality hit hard.

The Financial Strain & The Road Ahead By now, I had burned through 7 months of savings with no salary.

I sat down to evaluate: 💡 If backend took 5 months (learning + coding), how long for mobile app? 💡 Then 6-12 months to acquire customers? 💡 Can I sustain without income for another 1-2 years?

I had zero experience in mobile app development, and though I was confident in learning, I felt drained, alone, and mentally exhausted.

From Feb 2016, I started borrowing money from my mother to manage daily expenses. That’s when reality struck—I couldn’t afford to stay afloat for another year.

💡 I had to make a tough call.

The Decision to Go Back to a Job By March 2016, after 1 year since resigning from IBM, I made a tough decision:

✔ Return to the corporate world

💡 With this, my first entrepreneurial journey was put on hold, and I stepped back into corporate life.

Have You Ever Faced a Moment Where Passion Clashed With Reality? Would love to hear your thoughts! 👇

🚀 Follow my 365-day journey—one story every day.

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