This story is part of our 1,000 stories campaign. What’s your story?
Name: Purva Grover
Business: The Indian Trumpet, a digital magazine for the Indian Diaspora
Industry: Arts & Entertainment
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Reason for starting: When I landed in Dubai I felt I couldn’t leave behind my passion for journalism and my love for my home country, India. At the same time, I couldn’t help but play with fonts, colors and words to create something for the fellow NRIs (Non-Resident-Indian). Little did I know that hearts and minds from all communities would greet my dream with the same passion and love! I left home in November 2012 and felt a strong urge to strengthen my bond with India and also a strong my desire to explore my new home, Dubai. Very soon, this aspiration (first expressed via a blog) became a talking point amongst the huge Indian diaspora not just in Dubai but all across the globe and the magazine was born in July 2013. The story of The Indian Trumpet magazine has been that of knowing Indians all over the world and falling in love with all things Indian all over again. Running the magazine has been an exciting, fascinating and challenging journey. I have lived through moments that made me smile and scream at the same time. There were times when the laptop misbehaved, fonts got mixed up and writers and photographers missed deadlines, but then these were complemented with times when my inbox got flooded with encouraging words, download speeds improved and colors and words just fell into place. I even accepted that while I couldn’t do it all in one issue, each day would bring me one step closer than I was the day before to achieving my dream of doing something for the Indian expats.
Related: Why India’s Women Entrepreneurs Need to Change Their Self-Perception
I began to smile at the thought that as an NRI, I was getting a chance to love, miss and appreciate home! And honestly, even if someone had told me how tough the journey would be, I still would have done exactly the same thing and with the same enthusiasm. The Indian Trumpet is for all the people I knew, got to know and will know through this magazine.
How do you define success? It’s always easy to give something up, but the real challenge is to hold on and move forward; success, according to me, is all about making a start and a slow one at that. For, there is something about slow starts – the magic, the frustration, the anxiety, the imperfections, the discouragements, the temptation to give in et al. It’s a beginning towards a dream, a change… It’s not about who wins the race, the tortoise or the rabbit! If we had a chance, we would all make a brisk march to our goals but our race is different from each person out there. Find your own track and start walking; strolling, hopping, skipping… there is nothing better than being on the start line!
Biggest Success: Quite a few, actually! We’re just two issues old and a professors and academician picked up The Indian Trumpet to study as a part of her course on online journalism at the London School of Journalism. I also received a letter from an editor of NRI magazine for Indian-Americans, which has been running for more than two decades. It was full of praises for our work! It was followed by letters of several other editors of several other magazines. A senior citizen reader wrote to me thanking me for keeping India alive for generations to come.
Related: The Fastest Ways to Make a Company More Successful Is…
What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? There are three bruises I am proud of facing and overcoming and am still fighting every day! 1. Share the load: I was afraid of delegating and took it upon myself to answer all 1,000 mails that landed in my inbox, to edit each piece to perfection, to design every pixel of the website, etc. I played the founder-editor-designer-writer-peon-coffee boy-advertising rep… for The Indian Trumpet, which was pretty exhausting. My advice: Share thy load and hire smart. 2. Bring the money: While in a year, The Indian Trumpet made everyone fall in love with the colour, culture and chaos of India, it did have a tough time walking on the financial ground. My advice: Put equal energies towards keeping the passion alive and bringing in the money. 3. Spread the noise: Never shy away from talking about what you are doing and how far you have come. We gave it a miss for a long time. My advice: Invest time and money in PR.
Who is your most important role model? My readers inspire me with each letter, note, comment, suggestion and criticism. They are the ones who push me to work harder, dream bigger and grow taller, each day. I follow their commands.
[box_light]Website www.theindiantrumpet.com Twitter @happytooting Facebook www.facebook.com/TheIndianTrumpet[/box_light]
Tell us your story! Read about another Arts & Entertainment entrepreneur here.
Edited by The Story Exchange