Ho jaayega yaar

There are some thoughts that can mean doom for any business venture. 'Ho jaayega yaar' is one such thought which should be kept at bay, whilst engaging in any business activity. That is for one simple fact: Kuchh nahin hota. Sab saala karna padta hai. This post is about our debut event 'The Grand Brand Carnival' which we had conceptualized almost, if not more, atleast a decade back. So the details...

What we thought was a small intimate event, turned out to be a monster that was getting way beyond our imagination. All we wanted to do was rope in a few brands, get a few 'yo' junta to fill out some forms, then do a lucky draw & let the winner be taken to all participating brands, where they could be awarded by the owner of the respective establishment. That simple was the game plan, while we had discussed initially.

Then as we went out in the market, talking to prospective clients, they were interested & we at teamXtreme have always been suckers for 70mm. So we let it grow. The biggest fillip to the event came in the form of our handshake with Opel, who had just launched the 'Opel Corsa Swing' and the deal we had with them was that the winner will be taken around to the participating brands in the newly launched car with the grand finale being a candle-light dinner at a hill-top restaurant in the outskirts of the city. Ovation!!!

We also managed to rope in a few fashion stores, a multi-brand electronic supermart and somehow the list of brand partners touched 10. Man we were elated like hell! The damn event worked like a magik trick. The winner of the first round had multiple orgasms and our event plus our name was there in the newspapers the next morning. We had never before seen our parents as proud as they were that morning. Sigh.

In our enthusiasm, what we forgot was that The Grand Brand Carnival was a month-long saga where winners would be announced on every weekend. So when we went back to the brand partners for the round 2, they backed out. We blacked out. Mundu. Finito. What the hell are we going to do for the coming three weeks? We didn't have a clue. Thank God for the fact that the guys at Opel were kind enough to extend their support for the coming three weeks as well. Actually, it was only them who got the maximum mileage out of this event, but anyways.

So what did we do about the other partner brands that backed out at the last moment? Yes, you guessed it, we paid for the bloody 'prizes' that they gave on their behalf to the winners. It was the biggest WTF moment for us. And the biggest lesson as well. The paper-work. Get the damn paper work right, every single time, irrespective of how big or small the deal is. While we were thinking 'ho jaayega yaar' apni to full on waat lag gayi mamoo!

But yes, it was worth the buck, despite the wtf. The winners were happy, the kind Opel guy was also happy & the other bastard-partners who backed out, hell they were all rolling in gold, laughing their ugly asses off. Anyways, some lessons are better learnt the hard way.