09/09/09

today, Nick (one of our fantastic architects - more on him and Kevin in another post), Mathew and I were sitting in Cafe Macondo in Angel and after our now usual ramblings on furniture, we started to talk about builders and costs so I took my MUJI notebook out. i was writing the date when Nick said, today is 09/09/09. there was a real sense of Déjà vu.

my mind was really all over the place. Mathew and i had just sampled 3 single origin coffees and the monmouth espresso blend at the monmouth roastery (our experience deserves a whole new post which i think mathew should write - he was like a kid in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory looking at the dark roasted beans being cooled in this huge mechanised pot). so the moment passed until I saw emails from Badri and Sachin in my inbox later this evening. and then it all came flooding back.

Law School Tutorials (LST) was conceived exactly 10 years ago to the day in Bangalore in an auto. there were four of us in that auto (Badri, Sachin, Dev and I) and by the time we had finished dinner at Casa Picola, we just knew that as a business idea, this was as good as it gets. how could it not work? the next 3 years were exciting. mamta joined us, dev left (but we saw him enough in the hostel :)) we worked hard, worked with very little (and around college) and somehow created a business. there are so many memories (carrying truck loads of printed materials, Badri watching Sachin and me fix a flat on the old 800 - in fact taking pictures of us, waiting for our website to be hit after our TIMES OF INDIA ad). i foolishly sold my stake too early but it was one hell of a ride. sachin took the business to another level after 2002 and now LST is in 60 cities across India (as i told Sachin a few years ago when he generously gave me an ipod, where the fuck is my car??)

a year trekking and traveling, 2+ years of mucking around in Oxford, 2 years at BCG, a year of poker/getting things ready for Mooli's and now finally, it's happening again.

mathew and i are working hard but there is a real buzz. i think we are both nervous but excited and confident at the same time. and sometimes, i think to myself just as i did in 09/09/09 how could it not work?

we've got a vision and we can't wait to get there but know each step is going to be tricky. if for some reason, it doesn't work we'll probably put up our hands and tell you that we didn't execute well enough. that's the name of the game now.

ps- the food at Cafe Macondo was outstanding. Mathew, especially was in love with his Chipotle Chicken.