About

Pardeep Goyal (Failure to Survival Journey)

Phase 1 – Employment

I started my career as a software engineer in 2006 and then I got transferred to the USA for client site work – a dream of a software engineer came true.

I started earning in US Dollars rather than Indian Rupees – my US salary became approximately 5 times of my Indian salary.

But I was not happy. I was earning well but the work was juiceless. Boring to death.

I was not doing anything meaningful to the world. I was spending most of my time in the excel sheets and status reports rather than actually making softwares.

I wanted to start a business but I had no courage to leave the job.

I wanted to work on my own terms but I was addicted to my monthly salary.

It’s hard to leave the job once you are addicted to waiting for the SMS “Your salary is credited in your bank account” every month.

I knew that I would never become rich from my salary. My job was paying me well but not enough to make me rich.

See.. I am from a Baniya family and business is in our culture. I was waiting for the right time to quit and start my own business.

Phase 2 – Quitting Job

I lived a frugal life and saved dollars from every possible expense in the USA. I figured out ways to save money using credit cards.

I came back to India with a decent saving of around Rs. 18,00,000.

All my friends advised me to buy an apartment in Gurgaon because real estate was at it’s peak. Even my manager was making more money from his real estate investments than from his salary.

I was very clear what to do with my hard earned money.

I divided my saving into 3 parts

  1. Emergency Fund (Equivalent to 10 months of expenses)
  2. Financial Runway ( = 24 months of expenses)
  3. Business Investment (Rest of the money)

I paid off all my debts – invested my money into a business (Cloud based ERP for schools) and eventually left my job.

And you should not be surprised to know.. Running a business is not easy.

I worked hard to sell the product that I built in 8 months. I realised the truth that building software is easy but selling is hard. We sold our cloud-based solution to a few clients but barely earned enough to pay the salaries of the team (forget about the profits).

There was a limit how much money I could pump into my business. I was disciplined not to touch our emergency fund for business investment.

We ran out of business funds and had to took the hard decision of shutting down the company before even first anniversary. I shared the detailed story on YourStory.

I was in dilemma, confused, clueless, jobless, moneyless.

One thing was clear that I did not want to go back to the same job.

And I did not left with my money to start my second business.

I was not worried about the monthly expenses for next couple of months (because of my Financial Runway, check #2 if you forgot how I divided my money).

so I had some time to think..

to experiment..

to learn and try out things.

Yes, I failed at my startup attempt but that was not the end of the story

Phase 3 – Birth of CashOverflow

I received this advice from my mentor

  • Spend 30% time to earn money using your present skills
  • Invest 70% time to learn new skills that would re-define your future

I prepared a list of my skills and what I wanted to learn in the future.

Present Skills

  • Content Writing
  • Software Programming
  • Project Management
  • Software Testing & Optimisation
  • HTML & Basic Web Design

Future Skills 

  • Blogging & Marketing
  • Storytelling & Presentation
  • Email Marketing
  • Social Media Management

You will get more clarity in the thoughts easy when you write on a paper. Do the practice of writing a journal.

I started my personal finance blog when I wanted to learn digital marketing skills. Making money from this blog was never a goal, all I wanted to learn new skills.

I was earning little money from my freelance writing work but that reduced the stress on my remaining financial runway (saved money).

I woke up at 4:00 AM every single morning to write content till 8:00 AM. Spending 2-3 hours daily was sufficient to earn Rs. 20,000 from content writing work.

Rest of the time I spent on reading books and blogs to learn marketing and personal finance.

Honestly, I never thought that my blog would become so popular that in 2017 CashOverflow won the Best Blogging Award from Indiblogger in the personal finance category.

My blog enabled me to live my dream life without worrying about money or getting fired from the job. I enjoy month-long vacations twice a year and take mini-retirements.

4 million people have visited my blog from 2016 to 2019 and read 6,800,000 pages to increase their financial knowledge.

Despite the traffic fluctuations, I was able to earn my living from my blog.

Phase 4 – Work Break for Organic Farming

49 thoughts on “About”

  5. Your journey from employee to entrepreneur is very inspiring for the people who want to start their own business . I know many persons including me who have followed you and have already taken step for their journey . You are real inspiration for all of us.

    Thanks for sharing your vast experience.

    Reply

    • ZEBPAY is totally fraud company , not return or allow withdrawal of money after selling crypto and again compel customer to purchase other crypto, totally fraud

      Reply

  8. Hello sir I found your blog yesterday when I was searching for charts for intraday trading… I like the way you have explained everything in so much detail that even a beginner like me could learn something.. today I search for your blog and cane across this.. my husband also wants to quit his IT job but as you have mentioned about salary addiction he is not able to decide.. we both are baniyas I am Agrawal and he is Jain so doing a IT job till retirement seems impossible to me… I am happy with my job but need some help and guidance Thanks a lot sir

    Reply

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    Reply

  12. Sir आप की नौकरी से सेल्फ -employee.
    History बहुत ही प्रेरणा दायक है…
    Thanks
    मेरी भी कुछ ऐसा ही हाल है लेकिन कुछ समझ में नहीं आ रहा है क्या करे..

    Reply

  14. Sir my self shobhit mittal from delhi my credit card spending is 3 to 4 cr yearly for my goods purchase please suggest me on paid basis no free suggestions as I am serious with my work I need best result so I make money by getting best advice then there is no issue in paying for the same please suggest me the best cards for cash back as my overall purchases on credit card is 3 to 4 cr yearly

    Reply

  15. Hi sir. Kind of intrigued and inspired by what you wrote. Even I am quite unhappy with my daily grind at the office. I am planning to do something on my own. Need to discuss with you certain things if you can guide me in that. Even I am working for a cloud ERP solution.

    Reply

  18. Very inspirational story!! I really like your story. It gave guidance to start my blog.
    I want to start a blog for cancer patients. Please give some advice to earn money from this blog .

    Reply

  19. Hello Pradeep,

    Really inspiring story….

    I need some advise from you. As I have decent knowledge about stock market, mutual fund, small saving schemes, personal finance. I want to start my own blog to share this knowledge with people with goal to earn small revenue from this online presents.

    Please give light on different source of money for a financial blogger.

    Reply

  20. Hi ,

    Have a question on how to earn money from Google ads, is the google id needs to be India based ?

    Well i did spend some time in usa like you as a consultant and now back to India. Thinking of leaving the job and Interested in freelancing wondering where to start on that .

    Advance thanks for sharing your thoughts.

    Reply

  22. Inspirational story! I really liked the 30:70 advice. In the current scenario I feel it’s hard for me to find the new skills that would re-define the future as every digital skill seems important. How did you analyzed what’s necessary at that point of time? Thanks in advance!

    Reply

  24. Hello sir ,

    I’m not good in English . But your articles is very easy and understanding . And your business story is inspiration for me.
    Thank you…

    Reply

  26. Dear Pardeep Goyal.

    I am a senior citizen. Due to covid I am unable to go out and finding difficult to pass time inside house. During my service days i have seen my friends doing stock market business. I think things would have changed a lot now. I would like to invest not more than 10000/- in stock market as it is risky and more over i am brand new.

    I would like to pass time and at the same time would like to earn little money. I may go up to I lakh in future once i am confident. Is it possible to start stock trading with Rs. 10000/- Need your advice pl.

    Not the least I liked your free and frank history of yours.

    regs

    krishnamurthy

    Reply

  30. I am an Ayurvedic doctor and want to start blogging. I am very much conservative when it comes to marketing and social platforms. But deep down I just want to reach out the world about ayurveda and modern science together which will help common people as well as doctors all across the world. I think this is my start of blogging. Thanks for the article you posted. It gave me a confidence in direction to start my blog. Will work hard for the same.
    Thank you once again and Take care.

    Reply

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