[quote style=”boxed”]Don’t say “I can’t do it” until you give it your best effort.[/quote]
Born in an Industrial city of Coimbatore, Anand K Parameswaran grew up among his kith and kins who are small business entrepreneurs. From his childhood he had the dream of starting his own business and was involved in various other businesses. Along with his schooling, he was involved in various business, from handlooms to machineries, from plastic molding to offset printing.
He did his graduation in computer applications. He is also a green activist and participated in various social service programs organized by his college. They celebrated the Fair-well day of college in an orphanage.
After his graduation, Anand K Parameswaran earned a license to be an Insurance advisor and was doing significant business. Later, he joined a Virtual Assistant Company providing service to American customers. Once after joining this company he learned to provide customer service in a more professional way. He was able to give a good customer service experience. In his tenure, he worked as an assistant for big to small business owner and has gained an immense knowledge about people, culture and various business activities they do require.
What are you working on right now?
To deploy various marketing strategies for developing our new business “Rooster,” a chicken shop. We are targeting to reach people directly and make our brand popular throughout the city.
What does your typical day look like?
Presently, I’ll try to sleep-off the whole day and try to be as active as possible throughout the night. My best times of the day will be, when I am playing Table Tennis with my office colleagues, having food/tea with colleagues (I am a food lover) and chatting with people.
3 trends that excite you?
- Bio degradable plastic bags.
- SquareUp.com : An affordable Credit/debit card payment processing system. I am very much missing it in India.
- Google SMS channel: I am using it to reach people directly.
How do you bring ideas to life?
If you want to bring ideas to life:
- Whenever you get a chance, discuss with people with similar interest or experience.
- Research and collect as much information as possible regarding anything that you want to know to bring up the ideas.
- Once you reach a point where it is feasible for you to give life to the idea, just start to work on it, make effective use of your time and work hard.
- Constantly keep up with the time and trends. “Evolve” – to meeting the needs of tomorrow’s world.
What inspires you?
People inspire me.
New entrepreneurs – who turn their innovative ideas into a business.
People who are having the drive to change the conventional.
Kid – I love their interest for learning new things (especially electronic gadgets).
Elders – For their patience and wisdom to get things done in the right way they needed.
Sometimes people who are lazy, inspire me. I would to think that the escalator was invented by a lazy and innovative mind. Rather you going up the stairs, the stairs go up for you.
What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
To start a service like Squareup.com in India. That would be really great! Online business and services are hard to come by here. Websites like vrbo and homeaway may also be welcomed here.
What is your favorite gadget, app or piece of software that helps you every day?
Google products. I am using/trying all the Google products available in India. I love Google personally (buzz and blogger) and professionally – (Google places and sms channel).
What is one mistake you made and what did you learn from it?
I haven’t tired big things yet for a denotable mistake to happen. I am just now starting up a business. Hopefully with the help of IdeaMensch I can avoid many mistakes that new entrepreneurs made. I have done some minor mistakes. While tring new things sometimes I will be facing difficulties where sometimes I may go wrong and learn from it. Recently I learnt about QuickBooks and GoDaddy by making mistakes.
What do I read everyday?
I am not a regular reader. Whenever I find myself to be free while browsing the internet, I read blogs of various interests. Recently I ready few blogs about coffee. I spent 1-2 hours reading it and finally I decided to quit coffee.
I read Ideamensch during most of my free time. I will be very curious to know the latest innovative ideas that new entrepreneurs brought up. It was my inspiration to get started and create my own path as an Entrepreneur.
I also ready BizSugar and the list of Top 10 article that it send through their newsletter. It speaks all about small business because of which I started the blog Rooster-Coimbatore.blogspot.com. I am currently updating my blog with some positive and good news and articles about my city Coimbatore. Soon I will adding more information about our Rooster Business in the blog.
When I was a Virtual Assistant, to keep myself updated about the list of online services available, I used to check the top Alexa ranking websites. I came to know about conduit.com and hootsuite.com, which are good tools to be used for a small business. There are still unexplored websites that are listed in the Top Alexa website, which I would like to know and make effective use of.
What have you learned from being a Virtual Assistant for about 2 years?
The eagerness to learn and curiosity to try out new things.
Don’t work just to complete my duty, but to mark my signature on the work I do.
Don’t say “I can’t do it” until you give it your best effort.
What do you enjoy doing?
I like to cook. I can prepare most of the tradition South Indian food items and few other popular dishes. More than cooking, I enjoy eating. I enjoy it even more when I have food with a group of friends or relatives.
I love swimming, walking alone late night, fast bike rides just after the rain, spending time with my family, playing with kids – especially with my niece.
When is the last time you laughed out loud?
When I laugh out loud, it will be really LOUD. In my office, I am well recognized for my laughter. I can remember couple of instances where I laughed out loud. I laughed out for a childish talk of my colleague. While playing table tennis, a player hit the ball with his left ‘hand’ instead of hitting it with the bat in his right (as ball came to his left side). My friend imitated another friend, how he will be after boozing – in a funny way.
Connect:
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.