Aseem Shakuntal is an entrepreneur with his own business and an independent consultant who has found a home in Finland. Taloussanomat wrote an article about Aseem’s family and their story in Finland. We asked Aseem about his thoughts related to entrepreneurship, that you can read from our blog.
Enabling Smart Cities with Codemenders Oy
Aseem Shakuntal moved to Finland 11 years ago for work. The thought of becoming an entrepreneur came in 2012, when Aseem and his friend were standing in a queue for so long that they got parking tickets. They wanted to create an application which will give you a queueing number to your mobile, so that you can spend the time you would otherwise spend waiting to do something more productive. As we begin to build smart cities, the application is a smart city enabler. Now Codemenders have customers in UK, where their application has helped their client to serve 30% more customers and provide data on what kind of issues they have solved.
He and 3 others co-founded Codemenders Oy in the fall of 2012. By 2016 the technical part was done and in one shareholder meeting there came a suggestion that some of them would also do consulting in order to ensure stable cash flows. One of Aseem’s old colleague recommended Ework as a consultant intermediary and now Aseem shares his time between his assignment through Ework and his own business. The current arrangement provides the needed flexibility for the business, and the cooperation with Ework is easy, Aseem says.
Sharing your time between consulting and running your own business is sometimes challenging, especially if you have a kid, Aseem thinks. As an entrepreneur you are very focused to your work, but when you have a kid you need to have a balance. It is important to have good colleagues at the client and good partners as an entrepreneur. Fortunately, Aseem has found them both. As an entrepreneur with an international client base he has to travel occasionally, which can happen because of the flexibility of the client. Ework is a good partner to keep things moving in a smooth way, Aseem says.
Becoming an Entrepreneur
To get something done, the fastest way is to become an entrepreneur, Aseem says. As an entrepreneur you have a small team which enables you to work fast and without the bureaucracy of large corporations. You don’t have to go through the potentially long processes in big corporations to make decisions, as an entrepreneur you can have more decision-making power to yourself.
Aseem encourages all who are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur to go for it. During the first 4 years with his Codemenders Aseem says that he has learned almost as much as he did during his career so far. It really broadens your technical perspective to work as an entrepreneur, as you must work with the bigger picture instead of specializing to one particular issue, Aseem thinks. “The experience you get is going to count as value or asset and it will add value to your resume”, Aseem says.
For students who are interested in working in consulting or as an entrepreneur Aseem recommends service design courses, that a lot of universities offer. It will give you an understanding of the big picture. As an entrepreneur you will learn a variety of technical things but also other skills such as marketing and sales, and you will learn each and every side of the game.
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