We will never go through life getting everything we want. Rejection is a part and parcel of our journey. Whether it is the competitive race to get into a good school or college, or then in the search for a job, or as an entrepreneur seeking to raise capital – rejection is part of the terrain. And with rejection also comes disappointment. “How could they reject me? They rejected ME? What do I do now?” And so on.
In this essay, I want to discuss the 50+ rejections I have faced as an entrepreneur raising capital over 30+ years. I have not succeeded at all. (Which has perhaps been a good thing across IndiaWorld and Netcore – lack of external capital forced us down the path of profitability and our proficorn journey.) But there is always a hurt to hear a “No” – almost making me feel that something was lacking in me, especially when every competitor gets capital coming their way.
I was recently meeting a potential investor and decided to take a different approach. I started by saying that I have failed 50 times in my life to raise capital and I don’t expect this to end differently. I said that I will first explain why I will get rejected so as to make their thinking job easier! I will then explain why they should look at investing in Netcore. And after that, I will also mention the valuation at which a deal could be possible. After having gone through plenty of such meetings, I know the drill and thus wanted to make sure none of us wasted time in the early decision process.
The investor smiled and asked me to go ahead. He probably had not seen such candour in all his previous meetings! When I was done, he asked me, “Why do you think you have got rejected 50 times?” My reply, “I do not compromise on my valuation expectation. I did not do that when I was a very small company during my IndiaWorld days, and I will not do it now when we are much larger. I am profitable so there is no desperation for capital. I know what we are worth, I think it is a fair ask, and I know we can create value greater than your IRR expectations.”
Of course, I tallied up one more reject. I wear these rejections now as a badge of honour. And yet, I will never decline a meeting with a potential investor. I have thus changed my attitude towards getting rejected. Instead of self-blame and depression, I use the meetings to learn from some of the smartest people in the world of investing – the questions they ask, the flaws they point, the things they like, the words they use – all help me in making my next pitch better.
My advice: flip the attitude towards being rejected, and never stop trying. Think of it as going for a meeting with the objective of getting at least one new idea, and you will never be disappointed. As Alexander Graham Bell said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” This applies to meetings with prospective employers, potential investors, or even future customers. Not every answer will be a Yes, and not every No is an indictment. In my life, it is rejections which have pushed me onward to become better.
