Day 19: Dealing with Doubt
Everyone around me thought ViberNet wouldn't work. Some still do.
When I started, the resistance came from everywhere.
Competitors playing dirty. Friends going quiet. Relatives smiling to my face and doubting everything behind my back.
And then the softer version, the people who aren't malicious, just limited by what they've seen before.
“You can't compete with Airtel.”
“You can't compete with Jio.”
“What are you even doing with all those wires?”
My days don't look like a founder's Instagram reel either.
Wake up. Office. Work. College. Back to office. Work. Home. Work until I fall asleep. Repeat.
No dramatic morning routine. No journaling at sunrise. Just the work. Every single day. In a city where most people my age are focused on getting a government job and calling it a life.
Here's what two years taught me about doubt:
- It never goes away. You just get better at not needing it to.
- I'm not trying to be Jio. I'm building something Jio will never build, because Jio doesn't know which neighborhood needs fiber next. Jio doesn't waive a customer's bill when the line goes down because it's simply the right thing to do.
- Presence can't be manufactured. It's built one customer, one decision, one honest conversation at a time.
Some of the people who doubted us most are customers now.
If you're a young founder being told you're thinking too big by people who've never tried, Keep going.
Not because it's easy. Because the alternative is spending your whole life wondering what would have happened if you hadn't listened to them.
Day 19 of my 30-day build-in-public series.