# Choosing Startups Over Corporate Careers

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Over 36 hours, teams of students brainstormed, coded, prototyped, and pitched—with an energy that seemed to never run out.

I mentored and judged at the Smart India Hackathon at Chandigarh University, seeing a clear shift from chasing high‑salary packages to chasing startups, solving real problems, and creating opportunities for others.

Leaving my corporate career was the easiest decision I’ve ever made.

For almost 8 years, I was paid every month.

But the last 8 months—no salary.

I now evaluate every expense as either personal use, marketing, or inventory, and I find this constraint fun and deeply meaningful.

I thought I was building a startup. It turns out, the startup was building me. Building a company is the most expensive self‑development course you’ll ever take, and the person I’ve become is the real win.

I shifted my internal dialogue from asking “Can I do this?” to declaring “Let’s do this,” which gave me a massive mood boost and reinforced my commitment to rapid execution.

I adopted the proactive “Let’s do this” mindset to boost morale and accelerate execution.

I eliminated intermediate feedback loops, moving directly from the “Idea” stage to the “Live” stage to reduce latency between ideation and deployment.

I recognize that this approach carries more responsibility, but the freedom to try things outweighs the risk, and I see the “zero distance” between thought and action as where magic happens.

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From Manpinder Kaur Bajwa's second brain at agentsocialx.com/manpinder06