Chapter 1: Walking on the untravelled road
Samy belonged to a middle-class Indian family, where responsibilities come first before doing anything else in life. He was born in Dharampura, small town in Tamil Nadu.
He did his bachelors from a very normal university in India, just because he did not have good grades in 12th standard. At the age of 22, after graduating he wanted to pursue his MBA from a top-ranking Indian institution. As India is a country full of competition, it wasn’t so easy for him. He failed to get admission in any of his desired University in India. Samy was aware that getting into any top-ranking institutions in India is not going to be that easy. While he was in Bangalore hopelessly waiting for the admission, a miracle happened. He did come across a promotional fair of DAAD. Without even knowing that just a piece of paper that he is holding in his hands will change his life forever. He went back home and started to apply in some of the Germany universities. When nothing was going right in his life, he remembered a shloka from Bhagavat Geeta “कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन्। मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते संगोस्त्वकर्मणि” which clearly signifies that a human is not entitled to worry about the fruits of his/ her hard work what he/she is entitled to perform his/her karma. He applied into 12 best universities of Germany and to his utter shock, he received admission from 11 universities.
Now the stars were favouring him and he just started believing that his all dreams would come true. He was getting ready with the visa process. It was the rainy season in India where a tragic irony happened. While he was going for embassy Interview, some drops of water appeared as a disaster. The water droplets fell on his degree certificates! The droplets did not only fall on the degree but fell on his dream making it fuzzy and gloomy at the same time. Somehow with heavy footed steps and a lot of questions in mind, he managed to submit his application. The process was delayed and when he realised what might have gone wrong, it was too late for him. Those droplets were the reason why it took so much time for the embassy to authenticate his documents. It wasn’t the end of agony but there was a lot more to happen in his life. The University refused to get him enrolled in the same intake he had applied into. He was having no job as he thought he would leave for Germany; he had no choice apart form moving back to his hometown.
The pain was still in his heart, he was broken and was gathering some strength to cope up with his emotions when a bigger disaster was supposed to shatter him in pieces. His father who was a great mentor as well as his role model passed away and nothing worse than this could have happened to him. He was in the middle of starting his new journey and amongst the few precious hands of blessing, two were missing from his life. A shadow, a vision and inspiration vanished in complete darkness. He was knowing that his father might be looking at him from some other world, he managed to have the same courage and start again but his mother would be all alone. He was also offered to work in BSNL in place of his father as his father was a government employee. His mother was determined for his success and she wanted him to reach his goals and do something big and with a heavy heart she told him to go to Germany.
Chapter 2: The journey
With the parting pain and the blessing of the mother, he landed in Germany. The hopes and the happiness were short lived with very less research as internet was not very popular back then and not easily available in India. He could hardly find friends around as going abroad wasn’t a popular dream in early 2000s. He was in Hamburg and not knowing German language was the biggest disadvantage which resulted him labour intensive jobs. He started cleaning dishes in Football stadium and later he found the job not so interesting as he was an engineer, he tried for another job and started working in McDonalds kitchen. His mother was all alone and he had no choice apart from working hard and send money back to his mother in India.
Every penny mattered to him unbiased of how he had earned it. Later, he got a job of shovelling the snow from the street. He loved it as he belonged to south India and had never witnessed snow in his life. He loved the job which used to start at around 2 am. The chilling winter nights, shovel in hand and pleasant music in the ears was somehow healing the deep scars of pain that he has suffered till now.
Now it was the best time for him to make another transition in his career. He got his first technical job in Philips. It the corporate job that he always wanted to do. Although his work required English but to get along well with people it was quintessential to know German. This made him feel lonely as there were very less Indian habitants in Germany at that period of time. He could not communicate with his mother as there were no mobile phones and he had to buy an expensive calling card to communicate with his mother.
Chapter 3: The beloved detachment
He had worked hard and now was free to be anywhere as his German degree was finally finished. He was quite happy being an engineer but now he wanted to do something in Management. It happens in every one’s life at one point of time when you start feeling bored with what you have. “The change is the only permanent thing”. He felt lacking behind as his friends were making fortune by being in USA. He thought that he can make more money there, so he applied for H1B visa and miraculously he won the lottery to receive the H1B visa. While he was making his mind to move, he was offered with a job in Germany that did not require him to have German language skills. He chose to be in Germany only as he had struggled a lot to reach here and was not interested in doing it all over again by moving to USA. He started working as an outsourcing coordinator and reached to position of project manager where he managed the largest digital conversion project, converting 2 million pages of books for the British Digital Library. It was hard not having too much of a social life as there was very less Indian diaspora in Germany at the time and the ones, he studied with had moved to other parts of Germany for work.
He switched jobs and got hired by a bigger European company with better pay and worked there for 9 years. The corporate life he was living wasn’t much appealing to him. He could not find any growth in it and he started searching for something better again and this is when the seeds of being an entrepreneur started sprouting up. During this period, he also learnt German language which made him more socially acceptable. He also managed to join with a 100 years old German Marksmen club where he had a great time by exploring the cultural diversity.
Chapter 4: Exploring the Unseen
It was the time when Indian students began being familiar about Germany. Samy started to meet new students coming from India. He was making his family here in Germany and the people he cares for the same integral identity that we all carry as an Indian. While having a conversation with lot of people, he realized that a lot of students had lost their money in buying Insurances which were not that transparent at that time. Samy desperately wanted to help them as he felt that it is his moral duty to protect them. He brought this issue to his German friend Matthias and both started to work on it. They wanted to bring more transparency in the insurance process which the students are signing up for while purchasing a policy.
In the year 2015 his company Coracle was formed and he was extremely happy that he did something for the community by solving a bigger problem. His true entrepreneurial spirit was on its peak. It was the time for expectations to meet the reality as the product was finally in the market but a product is not sold just because you made it but it is sold for why you made it. It was a hard time for him to convince people that they can purchase an insurance from Germany while being in India. He wanted to solve the issue and he vigorously tried to convince the students but often failed. His hardships were growing day by day as he wasn’t having any job since he left his everything in order to help people making himself helpless. While he used to convince people for hours to buy his product , he got blessed with a baby . Now the struggling entrepreneur was a father too. His responsibilities doubled, but he did not ever loose hope. A fighter spirit was again in his veins with new hopes to solve the issue and he brought up a combination of travel and health insurance which was a remarkable solution for a lot of people and even while being so sceptical about it, chose it. When they landed in Germany, they realized it worked for them.
Chapter 5: A friend in need is a Friend indeed.
As a foreigner, it is never easy to form a company Abroad. Being so unaware about the system and complexities, Samy decided to register the company in Germany. It is always hard to walk alone when the journey is difficult and tiresome. He was lucky enough to have a friend like Matthias who was a blessing is disguise. Samy had no job and also didn’t have much money, but he was married to supportive wife who believed in him. Samy and Mathias both were pretty clear not to have much debt and liabilities on them so they did not buy any property for themselves and all the hard-earned money was invested in Coracle. The step was too difficult as it was full of uncertainties but both were determined to make their way through. Ultimately, they succeeded to bring up a solution to a complexed problem in the German market. They did bring up complete transparency for their customers along with a hassle-free start in Germany.
In this competitive world, it’s difficult to stick to the moral values and ethics that were inculcated in you from the day you were born. Coracle is amongst those companies, which have remained morally and ethically unchanged from the time it started. The company was formed with the vision to help students and people coming to Germany from all over the world and the vision remains unchanged and un- shattered irrespective of any disaster or market competition.
Links to learn more about Coracle and the Founder Samy :
https://instagram.com/coracle.germany?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
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