Abhishek Reddy had his life planned out. Assuming that he would live till 70, he divided his years into two parts -- he would hustle and gather as much money as possible by the time he was 35 and then enjoy an early retirement. While things were initially going as per plan, the creative and branding designer from Andhra Pradesh realised that in the quest to hustle and make the best of his early years in the profession, he was burning out working 15 hours a day. That's when he decided to quit his job and "retire" at 22.
Now, two years after he quit the Rs 1.5 crore per annum job, Reddy bought a farm in Obulapuram village near Pamidi town and is running it with his mother and sister, having the best time of his life. "Live is bindaas," he said. Reddy, or "Silly Sensei", as he is better known on Instagram, also shares his agricultural journey with his 1.2 lakh followers, engaging them with his short, entertaining, and educative videos.
"First, I had started my own web designing company in Hyderabad where I would also offer creative branding ideas to companies. One of my clients liked my work so much, that they offered me a Rs 1.5 crore per annum job and since it was an exciting prospect, I took it up only to end up working about 15 hours a day in the office," Reddy told Moneycontrol. "I used to work on weekends as well. I could even take off on holidays and festivals including Sankranti."
His success at running his own company and the job were a testament to Reddy's talent and hard work, especially since he started working right after school. "When I was in Class 10, I started learning designing, and by the time I was in Class 12, I had a steady stream of freelance projects. So, instead of going to college, I decided to freelance my way through the years that would have been my college years, and in four years, I had set up my own company and later took up the job as a creative director at one of my client's companies," he said.
But when things took a turn for the worse, Reddy began to consider taking up agriculture seriously. When he discussed the idea with his mother and sister, they approved of the plan.
"Living on a farm had always been the plan," Reddy told Moneycontrol. "I had this funny little idea that I would live until I was 70 years old so I'll take the first half of my life to collect the resources to live the rest of my life in peace. So I was always hustling, trying to make enough money to retire early, move to a farm and live life bindaas. But I had an absolute burnout at the last job and I decided to retire early especially because I had saved up a bit and had learned quite a lot of tricks on how to build businesses so I thought of building the farm as a business."
His mother Neela Reddy also retired early from her government job to help set up the farm. Being from an agricultural family, she was fond of growing her own food and recently, she harvested her first batch of greens from the farm.
But was the transition worth it, financially? Reddy believes it will be eventually.
"Currently, we are working on monetising the farm and it still needs some work but in a couple of years we are looking forward to making about Rs 2 crore a year," he said. His sister, Aishwarya, an IIT Kharagpur graduate is also looking forward to moving to the farm with the family. "She has a thriving career in the city, but she too is very enthusiastic about working with the farm, monetising it, and making this business a success," Reddy said.
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