You cannot always specify achievements in terms of your job post or paycheck size. If you brought about a change that led to a positive domino effect in society, that's a meaningful accomplishment too.
As I have mentioned, it didn't take long for me to settle in the US. The country is a melting pot of cultures; be it your neighborhood, workplace, or the shopping aisle, you will always find people who have the same roots as you. Hence, even though I was away from my home, I wasn't isolated from my people.
There was one thing missing, though. People were welcoming, but there wasn’t yet a sense of community that tied them together. I knew I had to change that.
I started the Telugu-Speaking Association at Amazon to bring our people closer together. However, this was just at the micro-level. With a few more similar initiatives, I was able to consolidate the American Telugu communityat large. The connections formed there allowed me to forge thousands of new relationships, share their stories, and build strong support systems. I am today recognized by the Indian community across the USA and am a member at various NRI and Industry Associations.
Being the ‘tax guy,’ many in the community were also able to reach me for informal financial advice or business solutions. This gave me an excellent understanding of how greatly smaller business owners could benefit from corporate accounting experience and services that have always been inaccessible to them. The birth of AG FinTax had always been written on thecards. What I hadn’t anticipated was how crucial the year of its establishment would prove to be.
2019 was unlike any year I had seen before. Six months after I had set up my entity, a health crisis spread across the whole world. By 2020 the Covid pandemic had also led to a financial emergency that threatened to uproot the lives of regular people and businesses.
I sacrificed my sleep to thoroughly study the program and become perhaps the first subject matter expert on PPP. Within 36 hours of its introduction, I held a webinar to help explain the complexities and provisions of the program to those who needed it the most. Time was money here. PPP offered funds to businesses on a first-come-first-served basis. You had to apply for the aid before the money ran out.
The Paycheck Protection Program came as a blessing. According to the US Treasury, PPP aimed to provide ‘small businesses with the resources they need to maintain their payroll, hire back employees who may have been laidoff, and cover applicable overhead.’
By the end, the AG Fin Tax team was able to help over 1000+ small businesses to get government funding through PPP. Now, in just 3.5 years since the company’s inception, we are providing financial services to firms in almost 40 states.
I had been fortunate enough to be in a position where I could lend a helping hand to relatives and support charities close to my heart. Through AG Fin Tax, I hope to provide free-of-charge accounting services to charitable organizations to help them achieve their objectives in the best way possible. For the time being, my goal is to keep the company’s growth momentum going so that one day I can proudly say that we helped at least 100,000 families lead a more financially secure life. I am also working on an aggressive growth plan which will take me into a new orbit every year for the next 5 years.