Posted Under: Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Our Heroes

Next guest under the “Our Heroes” series is Naveen Thattil who after having several jobs at a range of companies and agencies, decided to leverage all he had learned, earned, and saved to start and run his own business. Let’s talk to Naveen to find out his employee to entrepreneur story…

DD: Who are you and what kind of corporate job were you at?

NT: My name is Naveen Thattil and for the last decade I’ve held several internet-related careers. I started off designing & developing web applications for a number of different clients ranging from major pharmaceutical and insurance companies to the US Department of Defense. Later on, I got into marketing and in my most recent position I was the Director of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for a NYC based digital ad agency. I was tasked with creating the SEO department from scratch about 4 years ago. It was eventually ranked the #2 large agency SEO practice in the industry by Forrester Research.

DD: What made you leave the job? When did you realize that you wanted to be an entrepreneur & why?

NT: I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I don’t feel comfortable depending on someone else for a paycheck. The only question for me was when I would acquire enough knowledge and experience to embark on my own. My entire career I pursued internet-related jobs based on what I could learn – not the paycheck. I’ve sat in dark, basement offices poring over thousands of lines of computer code, in the boardroom making sales presentations to Fortune 500 executives and everything in between.

I left my last job because I simply couldn’t think of a reason to stay. I had accomplished what I was hired to do – start a successful SEO practice. Financially, I had some money saved up. Everyday I was giving major corporations and internet start-ups with millions in funding ideas to improve their internet strategies – which I could simply implement myself. In the end, it didn’t seem logical to stay.

DD: What did you do to break the corporate jail? How did you prepare for the employee to entrepreneur transition?

NT: To break the corporate jail I simply resigned. After a decade of internet experience, starting a successful line of business within another company and having seen the inside of other funded start ups I felt I could compete.  It took me about 4 months and $500 to create www.TripTwit.com. TripTwit is a real-time travel guide – simply select your city and see what’s going in terms of restaurant specials, hotel deals, events etc.

DD: What is one resource that helped the most/best?

NT: Honestly, it was the New York Public library. Free Wi-Fi and I could sit there all day and write code. Good to get out of the house, too.

DD: What do you know now that you wish if only you knew when you made the transition?

NT: I knew this before I made the transition, but I needed to do it even more – keep things simple. The worst thing you can do with a website is delay launch to add features. You need to get it out there as fast as possible, test the response and recalibrate accordingly.

DD: What are your suggestions for aspiring entrepreneurs?

NT: Whatever business you’re thinking of doing you really need to know how it works from end to end. One of the biggest mistakes I saw when consulting with funded startups (and major corporations) was the belief that gaps in knowledge could be outsourced. “Idea” people thought they could simply hire personnel from different disciplines (design, development, and marketing) to do the heavy lifting and they would simply “manage” the different constituents. In theory, that works, but if you have no experience it falls apart quickly in practice. You need at least general knowledge of everything involved in your business. That being said, definitely take the plunge; corporate life is one big, nondescript blur – you’re never going to forget the time you tried to accomplish your dreams (even if you fail).

DD: How are you doing and how do you feel now?

NT: I just finished the site and only recently starting promoting it so we’ll see how it goes. No matter what happens I feel good. Getting it out there was the hard part.

DD: That was Naveen Thattil everyone! Founder and owner of TripTwit! I second both his suggestions – “Keep things simple” and “Know your game inside out”. Keep things simple, start small, test, make improvements, leverage the learning, scale, test, make improvements, keep learning the game, and keep the cycle going… Don’t let the hope for “perfection” paralyze you.

Success to all!