“The heart of a small-town dreamer, a simmering fire in the belly with a doer attitude. That is me. Many transitions have melded into one beautiful journey, and no, I wouldn’t change a thing!
Growing up in Allahabad, I was a good science student. A BTech in Computer Science was an easy choice. Back then, all I wanted was an opportunity to step out into the world and be in AC rooms with a machine!
Campus recruitment fulfilled my wishes and brought me to Oracle in Pune as a Java developer. But 6 months was sufficient to disillusion me about AC rooms and machines. However, exposure to new experiences paved the way to a new interest – client interactions.
Unfortunately, my requests for an interdepartmental shift were not met kindly. Undettered by opposition, I made a bold move and sent a cold email to the VP of Sales in the US! A meeting with him a few months later over a zoom call changed the course of my career.
Despite me being a nervous wreck in the meeting, he noticed a spark in me and helped me make the shift. A few months later, I was given an opportunity to move to Bangalore with a sales profile. Initially, over the moon, I discovered eventually that backend lead generation for an on-field sales team wasn’t exciting enough. Not having the ‘right degrees’, I needed to be in the thick of things to learn.
An opportunity in a just launched data analytics product startup gave me that push. The first sales hire in a small start up, I was part of an exciting journey that taught me everything I needed to know about B2B sales, on ground. The company was eventually acquired, and I got my exit.
With sufficient experience and knowledge in the bag, I went on to design a blockchain product and even ran a services business in the social impact space. While the experience of building a product from scratch was unmatched, we had to wind down eventually, for the lack of a market.
While that adventure ended there, an investor who believed in my vision invited me to build the startup portfolio of his family office. This opportunity offered deep insights that led to my calling at Favcy. Today, empowering founders and co-building businesses gives me endless joy.
I was never one to plan a meticulous career journey. Always a go-getter, I identified a goal, and experimented till I achieved it. And while some experiments worked, a lot of them failed. But I managed to learn from them all.
So, if there’s anything to learn from my journey, it is to grab every opportunity and experiment. If nothing else, the experience will leave you richer.”
Yamika Mehra is #11 of our #100careertransitionstories