The global economy has always been positively impacted by the introduction of startup companies, which has paved the way for the growing importance of their establishment among different countries.
This has made the governments of the respective countries come forward to encourage their growth and rapid development, along with apt regulation. This startup growth has been witnessed across different sectors of the industry in India, which is at par with the rest of the world. India is one of the leading countries in terms of its startups. The government of India recognized 14,000 new startups in 2021 and 44 of them have also joined the coveted club of unicorns. The funding that is pouring in India today had never been seen earlier. Along with helping the companies turn unicorns and steering them forward to the next level, this funding is also helping the Indian entrepreneurs grow like never before.
Here are some of the successful richest founders in India.
Byju Raveendran is the Founder and CEO of one of the most prominent EdTech startups in India Byju’s. The veteran Indian entrepreneur was born in 1981 at Azhikode, Kerala. He did his schooling from a Malayalam medium school, where his mother “Shobhanavalli” and father “Raveendran” were mathematics and physics teachers respectively. After schooling, he pursued B. Tech from the Government College of Engineering, Kannur.
Then after completing his graduation in the year 2003, he started working as a service engineer at a reputed MNC. After two years, he quit his job and started helping people prepare for the CAT examination. In 2007, he commenced the test preparation business “Byju’s classes” which was a success. This motivated him, thereby leading him to launch his startup Byju’s alongside his wife in 2011.
With the rapid growth of the smartphone industry in India, he launched what we know today as “Byju’s – The learning app”. Within three years, the app got success at both national as well as international levels, as the app expanded its operation to English-speaking countries, such as the United Kingdom, the United States, etc.
Byju’s app adheres to a freemium operation model, primarily aimed at preparing Indian students aspiring to clear examinations such as CAT, IAS, IIT-JEE, NEET, etc. It also helps to provide teaching assistance and facilities to the students of classes 3-12.
The company overall gained so much success that it even bagged the recognition of being the shirt sponsor of the Indian cricket team, as announced in July 2019, replacing Oppo, who were the earlier sponsors. The deal allows Byju’s name to be printed on the team’s jerseys between September 5, 2019 – March 31, 2022. With over 100 million users and 6.5 million paid subscribers, along with a net worth of approximately 16.5 billion dollars, Byju’s is ranked among the top 5 national internet companies.
Net worth
The combined wealth of Byju Raveendran and his family (brother Riju Raveendran and spouse, Divya Gokulnath) stood at $3.22 bn (Rs 24300 crore), as per IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021. The personal net worth of Byju Raveendran was last reported to be $1.7 bn in 2020. His company, Byju’s is also a market leader in terms of valuation. With a valuation of $21 bn, the Raveendran-led edtech company is the second most valued startup in India and the most valued edtech startup in the world, as per December 2021 reports.
Thus, from his journey, we can learn that the passion for learning and imparting education o others, coupled with an overarching plan in place, one can achieve anything and everything in life.
Awards and recognitions
Awarded the Manorama News Newsmaker Award in the year 2019.
Fortune Magazine 2020 ‘40 under 40’.
Finalist of the Ernst and Young 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Winner of the Business Transformation Award in 2020 by Ernst and Young.
Winner of the Entrepreneur of the Year award at the Forbes India Leadership Award (FILA) 2021.
Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath
Nithin and Nikhil Kamath
Nithin Kamath created Zerodha, a brokerage firm with an open and low-cost business approach, in 2010. Zerodha, presently led by both Kamath brothers, Nithin and Nikhil, is the country’s largest brokerage, with over 5.48 million active clients.
After reports in recent months that approximately Rs 80,000 crore of Indians’ money sits unreported in various banking and Demat accounts, Nithin stated in September that Zerodha would be introducing an ‘alert tool’ to its platform to notify beneficiaries when an account becomes inactive.
Nithin and Nikhil had been trading right from their teenage years. The kids of a veena teacher and the manager of Canara Bank grew up in Bengaluru’s Basavanagudi, which is known for its lively traders. Nithin confesses that “greed” drew him into trading in the first place.
They’d joined Reliance Money and Way2Wealth as sub-brokers, respectively. Kamath Associates, a firm that handles money for others, was founded because of its trading prowess. The trading brothers had a sneaking suspicion that the firm was about to be disrupted. “When the jobs accomplished per transaction are the same, why should fees be dependent on transaction value?” had been a problem Nithin frequently pondered.
Nithin was aware of the industry’s lack of transparency. The number of securities financial transactions tax or brokerage imposed by brokers was sometimes unclear to clients.
Despite the pandemic, Zerodha had its biggest year ever, with 1.5 million new users. Nikhil started his fund, True Beacon, for high-net-worth clients in 2019. It is still modest, with a corpus of Rs 380 crores, but it has gained an amazing 35 percent during the last 14 months.
For the time being, the Kamath brothers are concentrating on what they do best: providing the best trading experience and a risk-free alternative to investors. There is also no stock study and no sales targets for any of the employees, which leads to misselling. They’ve introduced Varsity by Zerodha, which includes market tutorials. And the primary broking service continues to be unadvertised.
Varsity by Zerodha
Nithin, the company’s CEO, makes product choices and oversees the production, while Nikhil, the company’s CIO, manages risk and deals on their account. They’ve invested in various firms in the investment field and given money to climate change solutions, thereby channeling their brokerage earnings for a good cause.
Net worth
They are the biggest Indian entrepreneurs under the age of 40, according to the IIFL Wealth Hurun India ’40 and Under Self-Made Rich List’ 2020, with Rs 24,000 crore. SEBI recently authorized them to establish an asset management firm.
Awards and recognitions
The Confederation of Indian Industry bestowed upon them the Emerging Entrepreneur Award (CII).
In its annual business review, The Economic Times recognized Kamath as among the 10 Indian entrepreneurs to follow in 2016 who have the most impact in their industries.
Forbes Finance in India in 2016 listed them in their 30 Under 30 list.
According to the CII’s CEO, “use technology to manufacture affordable things”.
Economic Times included them in “10 Businessmen to Watch in 2016”.
Divyank Turakhia
Divyank Turakhia
Divyank Turakhia is distinguished as an Indian-born serial entrepreneur, businessman, computer programmer, self-made billionaire, and investor. Turakhia is ranked #1 in the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021. Media.net is the company that Divyank founded back in 2010, which went on to become recognized among the top 5 largest online advertising businesses globally. After scaling media.net to a promising level, Divyank is also credited for selling it to Miteno Communication Technology (Shuzhi.AI) in an all-cash deal in 2016 for $900M. This is also famous as the third-largest acquisition transaction in the online advertising industry worldwide.
Turakhia began programming at the tender age of 9 years, while he started internet consulting for major companies including large corporates when he was just 14 years of age, in 1996. He then decided to borrow $600 from his father and after two years, he co-founded a web hosting and domain registration business. This venture was again quite a success for Turakhia and was eventually purchased by NASDAQ:EIGI in 2014 for $160M. Turakhia studied at Arya Vidya Mandir in Bandra, Mumbai and was later a student of Narsee Monjee College of Commerce and Economics (University of Mumbai), from where he graduated.
Div or Divyank, as he is commonly referred to, reached the milestone of acquiring his $1 million at 18, attained the milestone of possessing $100 million at 23, and then leaped to cross the 1 billion dollar mark in 2016, when he was 34. A serial entrepreneur, Divyank has been Co-founder of Directi, Founder and CEO of Skenzo, Founder and CEO of Media.net, Founder and CIO of numerous global investment funds. Div stepped down from the position of CEO of media.net in October 2018 and is currently planning to spend some time running his global investment funds.
Net worth
Divyank Turakhia’s net worth has been listed at Rs 12, 500 crores by Hurun India in its IIFL Wealth Hurun India rich list 2021. He was featured as the youngest billionaire on the Forbes List of Richest Indians worldwide in 2018.
Awards and recognitions
Economic Times awards the ET Panache Trendsetter Award in 2016.
Ranked #2 in the IIFL Wealth and Hurun India 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List in 2020
Recognized as the Youngest Indian Billionaire successively in 2016, 2017, and 2018.
Bloomberg Television in 2010 conferred upon the title “Winning Warrior”
BusinessWeek Magazine listed Divyank Turakhia among Asia’s Best Entrepreneurs Under 25 in 2006
Nakul Aggarwal is popularly identified as the Co-founder and CTO of BrowserStack. Nakul is an alumnus of the IIT Bombay. Started with Lime Spot Technology India Pvt. Ltd., where he served the role of a Software Developer, he left the job after 2 years. In the meanwhile, he had already started QuarkBase.com as the co-founder. Aggarwal then switched to Lime Labs LLC as the Senior Software Engineer but left the same after stepping down from the co-founder position of QuarkBase.com. Nakul eventually took up the role of managing Development & Infrastructure at Downcase Consulting and while he was working with the company, he founded BrowserStack in 2011. Aggarwal then left Downcase Consulting.
Net worth
Nakul Aggarwal was ranked at the second position in Hurun Rich List 2021 with a total wealth of Rs 12, 400 crore.
Awards and recognitions
Nakul Aggarwal is currently ranked #2 by the Hurun Research Institute in the IIFL Wealth Hurun India Rich List 2021.
Ritesh Arora is known as the Co-founder and CEO of BrowserStack. Ritesh co-founded BrowserStack in 2011, which is currently hailed as the world’s leading software testing platform. The vision was mainly to simplify testing for millions of developers globally. BrowserStack scaled far and wide and currently boasts of 50,000+ global customers, along with being backed by marquee investors like Accel, BOND, and Insight Partners. The Ritesh and Nakul-led company was recently valued at $4 billion.
BrowserStack provides instant access to over 3,000 real mobile devices and browsers on its cloud platform and delivers quality software at speed. It currently aids leading companies like Microsoft, Twitter, Wells Fargo, Discovery, and Expedia.
Ritesh Arora has graduated from IIT Bombay with Computer Science and is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple companies after completing his graduation.
Ritesh is known as an angel investor and currently mentors many technology startups in India. Arora started as a Software Developer at Lime Labs and then founded QuarkBase.com and Downcase.com, but he no longer holds the role in the companies. Ritesh Arora finally founded BrowserStack, where he still is a Co-founder and CEO.
Net worth
Ritesh has a net worth of Rs 12,400 crore, as listed recently in the IIFL Weal Hurun India Rich List 2021.
Awards and recognitions
His company BrowserStack has won numerous industry accolades like:
It has been named to Forbes 2021 Cloud 100.
LinkedIn ranked BrowserStack at #1 in its Top 25 India Startups list.
The company was hailed as the Bootstrap Champ by Economic Times.
With the increase in the support and assistance from the Indian government to the startups, the young and budding Indian entrepreneurs must keep these role models as their benchmarks of success. The early initiatives of these listed people got them to where they are now. The startup founders are the embodiment of creativity and innovation. Thus, their journey offers some valuable insights, following which the entrepreneurs can push their initiatives towards glory.
FAQ
Who are the richest entrepreneurs in India?
Byju Raveendran and Family, Nithin and Nikhil Kamath, Divyank Turakhia, Nakul Aggarwal, Ritesh Arora are the richest entrepreneurs in India, as of February 2022.
How much do startup founders make in India?
The average salary of a startup founder is between Rs 15 lakhs to Rs 80 Lakhs depending on the experience.
Who is the youngest CEO in India?
Suhas Gopinath is the youngest CEO in India. He took charge of the CEO of Globals Inc. at the age of 17.
Indians are fixated on the startup culture. People are choosing entrepreneurship over mundane, 9-to-5 jobs. However, not everyone succeeds as an entrepreneur. A survey revealed that approximately 11% of the Indians are engaged in ‘early-stage entrepreneurial activities’. And only 5% of these early-stage entrepreneurs actually went on to establish their startup.
But keeping these statistics aside, some Indian startups have gone on to dominate their target segments. This post is dedicated to some of the most successful entrepreneurs from India whose ventures have revolutionized the daily life of millions, if not billions, across the globe. The path to name and fame wasn’t easy for them; it involved several trials and tribulations.
Ritesh Agarwal founded OYO rooms in 2015. He was the recipient of the TiE – Lumis Entrepreneurial Excellence Award (2014), became the first Asian to win ’20 under 20’ Thiel Fellowship (2013), was named one of the top 50 entrepreneurs by TATA First Dot Awards (2013) and became the world’s youngest CEO at the age of 17. Ritesh Agarwal, an Orissa boy coming from a business-oriented family, went to Kota to become an engineer.
But unlike other JEE aspirants, his passion caught hold of him and he did not take JEE preparation seriously. Instead, he wrote a book called ‘Indian Engineering Colleges: A Complete Encyclopedia of Top 100 Colleges’; the book became immensely popular on Flipkart.
He was just 16 when he was selected for the Asian Science Camp held at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). With a penchant for traveling and having lived in tons of hotels, Ritesh observed a common problem at the places he stayed – the exorbitant price of the hotel room was not proportional to the facilities provided. He felt that majority of the hotels in India couldn’t satisfy the basic needs of a traveler on a budget.
Thus, he started Oravel Stays,his first venture in 2012. He improvised his business model and re-launched Oravel as ‘OYO’ which is short for ‘ON YOUR OWN’. Ritesh Agarwal became one of the most revered Indian entrepreneurs through OYO. At the age of 26 he became a billionaire.
Net worth of Ritesh Agarwal as of now is $2 billion. He became the second youngest billionaire after Kylie Jenner in the world.
An epitome of courage and wisdom, Shradha Sharma was at the top of her career while working with famous news media houses such as Times of India and CNBC (Mumbai). During her stint with these organizations, she noticed that no one was willing to promote and air the stories of entrepreneurs—both successful and not-so-successful. She figured out that there are millions of stories storming around but no medium to share them with the masses. Shradha decided to create YourStory, an online portal that hosts entrepreneurial stories and other share-worthy content.
YourStory was started in 2008 and has allowed over 70,000 stories to come to the fore. Shradha Sharma leads a team of 100+ people who work together to offer content in 11 Indian languages. YourStory’s aim is to provide a voice to the roller coaster of emotions that an entrepreneur goes through. Shradha Sharma is the recipient of the L’Oreal Paris Femina Award and has been included in the list of Worlds’ Top 500 LinkedIn Influencers. She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India. Her channel has earned more than 26 million individual views.She is one of the most followed female entrepreneurs in India.Her net worth is of $1.3 billion.
Bhavish Aggarwal, an IIT Bombay alumnus, co-founded the most popular cab aggregator in India – Ola Cabs – with Ankit Bhati. He is the recipient of the Billionth award in 2013, Best startup of the year by IAMAL, and was listed in Forbes30 under 30 list. Bhavish revolutionized the idea of cab-hailing in India by making use of smartphones. Ola Cabs was different from the other cab services at that time in the sense that it leveraged smartphones and GPS technology; thus, it became easy for people to book cabs from anywhere, at any time. Bhavish Aggarwal left a well-paying job at Microsoft to work on Ola Cabs. No one supported his idea but it was his strong will, determination, and eagerness to take risks in life that led him to the pinnacle of success. Bhavish Aggarwal is counted amongst the most successful Indian entrepreneurs. According to Time magazine Bhavish Aggarwal is one of the 100 Most Influential People this year. His Net worth is $ 500 million.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma is the founder of Paytm, the cornerstone of digitized payments in India. Vijay is from Aligarh, India. A graduate of the Delhi College of Engineering, Vijay worked on several projects and at a small startup before taking the entrepreneurial plunge. He put in USD 2 million to get One97 up and running. One97 is the parent company of Paytm. The payments platform gave Indians access to a mobile wallet, the facility of making payments using QR codes, simplified bill payments, and a lot more. These features made Paytm wildly popular. In this manner, Vijay Shekhar Sharma became an inspiration to budding entrepreneurs all over the globe. He Won the Best Serial Entrepreneur Award at the Rural and Urban Development Summit and Awards 2022 presented by the Minister of State for Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India.
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, founders of Zomato
Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah revolutionized the food delivery segment in India through its first foodtech unicorn Zomato. The duo are IIT Delhi graduates. Zomato started out as ‘Foodiebay’ and was first launched in Delhi. It was later extended to Mumbai and Kolkata. Now, there is not a single place in India where Zomato doesn’t render its services. Zomato’s mobile app is its USP; the app has an excellent user interface that lets you order food from the restaurant/eatery of your choice and make hassle-free payments. In Jan 2020, Zomato acquired one of its competitors- Uber Eats in India for a valuation of $300 million. In July 2022, Zomato went public with its stock listing at a premium of 53% over its issue price and it commanded a market cap of Rs 43,000 cr as of Mar 2023. In 2018, Prakash Chaddah left Zomato to venture into different fields. Net worth of Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal is estimated to be Rs 2,000 cr as of Mar 2023.
Kunal Shah graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Wilson College, Mumbai, and briefly pursued an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies before dropping out. Shah’s first startup was a company named Paisaback, which provided cash-back promotions for organized retailers. Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon are the founders of one of India’s most innovative business models – Freecharge. CRED is Shah’s second venture after he sold Freecharge to Snapdeal in 2015 for $400 million. He is definitely one of the most famous entrepreneurs in India.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal, founders of Flipkart
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the founders of Flipkart. The e-commerce segment in India underwent a drastic change courtesy of Flipkart. Sachin and Binny found discrepancies while searching for products on Amazon’s online store. The duo realized that the USP of their e-commerce initiative would be the timely delivery of products complemented by a simplistic user interface that leveraged the latest technology. Both the founders have now stepped down from their positions in Flipkart after it was acquired by Walmart in 2018. Flipkart is still giving a tough fight to all the e-commerce platforms out there and continues to win the hearts of Indians. India Today ranked them 50 Most powerful people of 2017 list.
Deep Kalra is the founder of MakeMyTrip. The credit for the introduction of online train bookings in India goes to Deep Kalra. A graduate of St. Stephen’s College with an MBA degree from IIM Ahmedabad, Deep worked for GE Capital and ABN AMRO bank. But the office culture and 9-5 job couldn’t captivate him enough. With a $2 million investment from eVentures and his co-founders, Deep Kalra founded MakeMyTrip, (earlier known as ‘India Ahoy’) in the year 2000. The company was listed on NASDAQ in August 2010. After IRCTC joined the race, Deep diversified MakeMyTrip by introducing hotel bookings. MakeMyTrip has mergers with MyGola, TrulyMadly, and the ITC group, to name a few. Deep Kalra is the chairperson of the NASSCOM Internet Working Group, a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, and is part of CII’s tourism sub-committee. He was ranked no 1 in a list of most powerful digital influencers in India by KPMG in 2011. His net worth is $ 136 million.
BYJU’S has helped thousands of students who struggle with subjects such as mathematics and science crack some of the hardest entrance exams like the JEE, NEET, and UPSC, CAT, IAS, and international examinations such as GRE and GMAT. BYJU’S has dominated the online education vertical for quite some time now. Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU’S. He is an engineer who worked in a shipping firm and accidentally stepped into the field of teaching when he assisted his friends with their CAT exam. Raveendran’s friends cleared the exam with flying colors and this motivated him to take up teaching on a full-time basis. Byju Raveendran started BYJU’s with an initial investment of just INR 2 lakhs. The startup’s valuation has recently crossed $22 billion as of March 2022, and the company have over 115 million registered students.In January 2022, the company joined Simplilearn, Unacademy, upGrad, PrepInsta Prime and Vedantu to become one of the founding members of IAMAI’s India EdTech Consortium.
In March 2022, the company signed a contract with Qatar Investment Authority to establish a new edtech company and a R&D center in Doha.
The concept of bringing the grocery store to one’s doorstep has done wonders across the globe. With it, the problem of waiting in long queues at groceries has now gone for a toss. Indians too now prefer the online route for grocery shopping. And who has dominated this segment? BigBasket. Hari Menon is the founder of BigBasket. With sales of over INR 150 crores per month, BigBasket has cemented its place as one of the big shots in the Indian e-commerce domain. It is operational in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata at present. In 2021 Tata Digital buys 64% stake in BigBasket His company received a lot of awards such as Consumer Internet Company of the Year by VC Circle Awards 2016, Best Online Grocer at Coca Cola Golden Spoon Awards 2016, Best retail and e-commerce app of the year at AWS Mobility Awards 2017, etc.
Albinder Dhindsa wanted to provide the services of a grocery, bakery, and general store through a consolidated platform. His dream took the form of Grofers, an Indian online grocery service. Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar founded Grofers. The duo worked hard to infuse new ideas into the online delivery system in India. Grofers is worth around $650 million today. The company has shifted from a B2B to a B2C business model. Grofers was named one of the Top 10 startups in Delhi and Gurgaon in 2014. Grofers had attained unicorn status or $1 billion in valuation, after raising over $120 million from food aggregator Zomato Ltd. On December 13, 2021, Grofers changed its brand name to Blinkit. As of 2021 Albinder holds 5-10% stake in the company.
Sanjiv Bajaj is known as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv. Born into a family of the Bajajs, a business house started by Jamnalal Bajaj, who led the Bajaj Group to glory, Sanjiv had the zeal to raise their family business to amazing highs. Sanjiv is the son of Rahul Bajaj and great-grandson of Jamnalal Bajaj. After completing his Btech. in Mechanical engineering, followed by a Masters in manufacturing systems from the University of Warwick and an MBA from Harvard Business school, Sanjiv started his career with Bajaj Auto in 1994.
He had been a promising businessman from the very first, which helped him scale numerous prestigious designations within the organization. He had brought the American-style supply chain management to Bajaj Auto. Bajaj is currently serving as a non-executive director of Bajaj Auto.
Along with Bajaj Auto, Sanjiv also contributed to Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Bajaj Finance for which he was appointed as the Chairman and Vice-Chairman. Sanjiv even led Bajaj Allianz General Insurance to emerge as the 2nd most profitable insurance company in India. Being an accomplished entrepreneur, Bajaj won a range of awards for the same, like the Entrepreneur of the Year” Award 2015-16 from Bombay Management Association, Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2017, Economic Times Awards for Business Leader of the Year 2018. Therefore, Sanjiv Bajaj can be regarded as one of the greatest entrepreneurs and business leaders that India has seen to date. Sanjiv Bajaj has a revenue of over ₹ 36,692 crore ($ 4.4 billion) and profit of over ₹ 2,866 crore ($ 348 million) for H1 FY2022-23.
PolicyBazaar has certainly grown to become one of the best insurance aggregators and a global technology company but it might not have secured the illustrious position that it now stands on if it was not for the Chief Executive Officer and Cofounder of the company, Yashish Dahiya. Dahiya was a student of IIT Delhi, from where he did his Bachelors in Engineering. He then went on to complete a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad, which was followed by an MBA from INSEAD in 2001.
Yashish was the MD of the pan-European travel distributor, ebookers.com, and had previous experience of working as a strategy consultant of Bain & Co. in their London office before he founded PolicyBazaar in 2008. Yashish Dahiya had a major contribution to PolicyBazaar since he founded the company along with Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar in 2008, which has successfully become a key influencer in consumer decisions around insurance now. Furthermore, the platform hosts over 100 million visitors a year on average on its platform.
Dahiya was honored with the EY Entrepreneur of The Year (EOY) 2019 award in the Financial Services category and more for all that he had done for PolicyBazaar. Yashish Dahiya is also an extraordinary sportsperson along with a celebrated entrepreneur. He is the Indian masters swimming champion and has taken part in several world masters swimming championships representing India. Furthermore, Dahiya also boasts of having the 3rd fastest half ironman timing and the 5th fastest Ironman timings amongst Indians across all age groups along with having the fastest timings in his age group. In June 2021, Policybazaar obtained the insurance broking license from IRADA and announced that it would set up 100 offline outlets across India. The company also surrendered its web aggregator license. PB Fintech Ltd, the parent company of Policybazaar, opened its initial public offering (IPO) and raised ₹5,625 crore(US$700 million).Shares of PB Fintech Ltd began trading on National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in November 2021.
It seems nothing less than a dream when we talk about a fan of Manchester United, Mumbai Indians, and the Indian cricket team, who founded a company named Dream11 for the love of sports that he nurtures. Yes, it happened with Harsh Jain, who with his founding partner, Bhavit Sheth, founded Dream11 and Dream Sports, India’s no. 1 sports fantasy platform for sporting enthusiasts. That allows users to play fantasy cricket, hockey, football, kabaddi, handball, basketball, volleyball, rugby,futsal, American football,and baseball.
Harsh was the son of Anand Jain, an Indian business magnate previously associated with Mukesh Ambani. He was born in Mumbai, India, and was an engineering student at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he went for an MBA from Columbia Business School. Harsh began his career with Microsoft from where he completed a 2 months Summer Internship from June 2006 to August of the same year after which he went to work in Jai Corp Limited as a Marketing Manager. His father, Anand Jain was then the Chairman of the company. Jain worked at Jai for 13 months, when in 2008 he decided to establish Dream11.
Harsh is currently serving as a Culture Enforcement Officer (CEO) & Co-Founder of Dream Sports (Dream11, FanCode, DreamX, and more) and one of the leading entrepreneurs of India. Harsh is a major inspiration for the budding entrepreneurs of the country for sure. In April 2019, Dream11 became the first Indian Fantasy sportcompany to become a unicorn.In November 2021 Dream11 was valued at $8 billion.In December 2022, Dream11 had 160 million active users in India.
Supam Maheshwari is better known as the CEO and Co-Founder of Firstcry, India’s online marketplace for baby products. Supam was a postgraduate student from IIM Ahmedabad and started Brainvisa, as his first company with Amitava Saha, back in March 2000. The Pune-based company witnessed a steady growth before it was acquired by the US-based group, Indecomm Global in 2007.
Supam served as the Co-founder and the CEO of Brainvisa till December 2009 in order to found another company. He founded FirstCry.com in August 2010 along with Amitava Saha, Prashant Jadhav, and Sanket Hattimattur.
The idea of establishing an eCommerce company focused on baby care products was rooted deep in his personal experience as a first-time parent, who faced numerous challenges in sourcing the best product for his baby. Firstcry has grown to be a market leader when it comes to baby products online. The company currently boasts of over 380 stores across India.
His net worth could be estimated at 190 million USD.The baby products marketplace’s valuation stands at 1.9 billion USD after an equity funding round of 13 million USD with pi Ventures As of 2021.
FirstCry had increased its IPO size from around $700 Mn to $1 Bn, aiming at a valuation of around $6-7 BnIN Aug 2022
Richa Kar is the face of one of India’s largest online lingerie stores, Zivame. Richa was born in a conventional family in Jamshedpur. Kar was an engineering student, who completed her graduation from BITS Pilani and eventually went for a corporate job in Bangalore. Richa eventually left her job in order to pursue an MBA, after which she joined Spencers Retail and then SAP Retail.
Her exposure in the retail industry helped her develop knowledge and practical skills beneficial for the retail industry. While working with SAP, Richa was intrigued about Victoria’s Secret, America’s largest retail company for women’s lingerie, and the success it enjoys. Soon after, she realized that India hasn’t got any such websites empowering women to shop for their own lingerie online smoothly and fearlessly.
Though Richa had a considerable experience of around 8 years by then in the retail industry, her parents didn’t get the concept of selling lingerie and weren’t sure how they would speak of her daughter, who is involved in such a profession to others. Therefore, she gravely lacked any support from her family but with her strong will and zeal to found a startup, she ultimately managed to establish Zivame with Kapil Karekar in 2011. Zivame has now become an online leader in its segment, offering more than 5,000 styles, 50 brands, and 100 sizes. Zivame products come at affordable prices with high quality.
The company that initially started with Rs 35 lakhs, which Richa borrowed from her friends, is currently one of the best women’s lingerie marketplace in India. Zivame has received $69 million in funding at a valuation of $98.6M and her net worth is Rs 749 crores, according to reports. The company currently holds about 26% of the market share of the women’s online lingerie market in India, which stood at Rs 430 crore in FY19.
Ashish Hemrajani is an Indian entrepreneur, popularly identified as the Co-founder and CEO of Bigtree Entertainment Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of India’s biggest online entertainment ticketing platform BookMyShow. Ashish Hemrajani completed his MBA with Marketing as his specialization from Sydenham University in 1997.
As soon as he completed his MBA, he went to work with J. Water Thompson. However, after working in the client management segment of the firm for 2 years, Ashish left the company in order to start his new venture with Bigtree Entertainment and BookMyShow in 1999.
BookMyShow still stands as a leading online ticketing solution for Indians. Under the leadership of Ashish, the company further expanded to New Zealand, UAE, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. BookMyShow also had a feature to buy tickets of sports matches like IPL, ISL, etc. They now have employ over 400 people across offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore. Ashish Hemrajani Net worth is estimated at Rs.3000 Crore as of 2021.
Shiv Nadar is a founding member of HCL Technologies and a prominent Indian entrepreneur, billionaire industrialist, and the recipient of India’s 3rd highest civilian award, Padma Bhushan. Shiv Nadar is the 3rd richest person of India, as of September 2021 with a net worth of around US$29.3 billion. Nadar goes by the nickname “Magus” (meaning: wizard in Old Persian), which he received from his friends.
Nadar was educated in the St. Joseph Boys Higher Secondary School, Trichy, and received his pre-university degree from the American College, Madurai. He again pursued Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, and received his Bachelor’s in engineering.
Walchand Group’s Cooper Engineering Ltd., Pune, which he joined in 1967, marked the start of Nadar’s career. However, he soon left his job role and founded Microcomp, a company that focused on selling teledigital calculators in the Indian market. Soon after that, he founded HCL in 1976 in collaboration with several friends and colleagues and with an investment of Rs 187,000.
The company made revolutionary advancements in the Indian IT landscape and is still regarded as one of the best among the homegrown IT companies whereas Shiv Nadar stands tall and towering as one of the top entrepreneurs of India.
The founder and CEO of the cyber security company, TAC Security, Trishneet Arora, was named in Forbes 30 Under 30 2018 Asia list and also in Under 40 List of India’s Brightest Business Minds 2019 by Fortune magazine, in 2020 Entrepreneur of the Year in Service Business-Security, 2021 Fortune India 40 Under 40 and 2022 he was Awarded as global leader of tomorrow.
Arora failed in the 8th standard but his relentless love for computers and coding drove him through the path of glory to become a professional ethical hacker and a renowned cybersecurity expert. Arora dropped out of school but continued with his studies along with fixing computers and cleaning up software.
Trishneet was only 19 when he founded his own company, TAC Security Solutions in 2013 and he has never looked back since then. The cybersecurity company, TAC Security offers protection to numerous corporations like Reliance Industries, CBI, Gujarat Police, and Punjab Police and others, against network vulnerabilities and data theft. Trishneet Arora’s net worth is $5 million as of now.
The founder of Reliance Industries, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, or Dhirubhai Ambani, as he is popularly known, was a successful entrepreneur and business tycoon, who took Reliance public in 1977. Dhirubhai has been recognized with numerous awards and accolades heaped on during his lifetime and was also awarded the prestigious Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian honor after he died in the year 2002.
Dhirubhai was a student of the Bahadur Khanji school. After the completion of his studies, he left for the Port of Aden, Yemen, to work for A. Besse and Co., for which he was later involved in selling shell and Burmah oil products. However, he left Aden and came back to his motherland to start his own company. Initially starting with “Majin” in partnership with Champaklal Damani, Dhirubhai eventually set up Reliance Commercial Corporation in 1966, which was later rechristened as Reliance Industries in May 1973.
Also, it was Dhirubhai who launched the popular textile brand ‘Vimal’. Dhirubhai died when he was 69 and was worth around $2.9 bn upon his death.
Lakshmi Niwas Mittal is the Executive Chairman and CEO of the largest steel-making company in the world, ArcelorMittal, and an Indian steel magnate based in the United Kingdom. Besides, Mittal also serves as the Chairman of Aperam, a stainless steel manufacturer, which spun out of ArcelorMittal. Mittal owns around 38% stakes in his company along with another 20% stakes in the EFL Championship football club, Queens Park Rangers.
Lakshmi Mittal has also been appointed as a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs since 2008. Mittal was recognized with titles, honors, and awards of various kinds from time to time including “the third-richest person in the world” as announced by Forbes in 2005. He was also announced as the “Business Person of 2006” by Sunday Times, “Person of the Year” by Financial Times, In 2008 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, and more.
Born in a Marwadi family, Lakshmi studied at Shri Daulatram Nopany Vidyalaya in Calcutta and graduated from the University of Calcutta affiliated St Xavier’s College with a B.Com degree in the first class. Mittal first chose the business way by founding the steel factory PT Ispat Indo. He went to purchase numerous companies from abroad, like the Irish Steel plant, starting from the state-owned steelworks in Trinidad and Tobago, all of which were successful initiatives.
Mittal ultimately succeeded to come out triumphant in a hostile takeover bid of Arcelor and later renamed it to ArcelorMittal, which is currently responsible for bringing a lion’s share of revenues for Mittal. As of 2022, he was ranked as the 15th richest man in India by Forbes with a net-worth of US$17.8 billion.
Informally known as the Czar of the IT industry of India, Azim Premji is the face of Wipro. Premji is known as an entrepreneur, investor, engineer, business tycoon, and philanthropist who was responsible for cementing the position of Wipro as one of the most prestigious of the Indian multinational corporations through more than four decades of growth and diversification.
Azim Premji is the founding Chairman and a non-executive member of the board of the company and has been twice listed by Time Magazine among the 100 Most Influential people.
Premji went for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University but he had to come back to take charge of Wipro, which was then termed as Western Indian Vegetable Products. He expanded the business to a large scale and later on discovered the vacuum that IBM left on its expulsion from India. He filled the gap by developing the IT wing of Wipro.
Premji is one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs whose total wealth was estimated $9.3billion and $25 billion respectively as of feb 2023. Moreover, he is also recognized for his philanthropic nature. He makes most of his donations to the Azim Premji Foundation and had agreed to give away half his wealth by signing the Giving Pledge in 2013. In 2019, he dropped from the 2nd position in the Forbes India Rich list to 17th position after giving away a huge amount to charity.
He topped the EdelGive Hurun India Philanthropy List for 2020
We all have heard about Dunzo but do you know who founded it? The 24/7 delivery app was founded in July 2014 by Kabeer Biswas, Ankur Agarwal, Dalvir Suri, and Mukund Jha. Kabeer Biswas is the CEO and Co-founder of Dunzo, who completed his B.E from the University of Mumbai and followed it with an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS).
He started his career with Bharti Airtel, Videocon Telecommunications, and then went on to found Dunzo. Dunzo currently provides its delivery services in eight Indian cities including Bangalore, Delhi, Gurgaon, Pune, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
In August 2021, Dunzo launched a new service, Dunzo Daily, to deliver essentials and household items in 19 minutes. January 2022, Reliance Retail led a US$240 million funding round along with Dunzo’s existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital. Reliance Retail invested US$200 million for a 25.8% stake in Dunzo.
Ratan Tata is the former Chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Group and is still the head of the charitable trusts of the company. A scion of the Tata family, Ratan Tata was the son of Naval Tata and later adopted by Jamsetji Tata.
He is well-known as an Indian industrialist, philanthropist, and one of the few business tycoons who are synonymous with success. Tata was the recipient of two of the highest Indian civilian awards – Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan.
Ratan Tata was a student of the Cornell University of Architecture and completed his Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business school in 1975. Tata was the apparent successor of J.R.D Tata, who started with the shop floor of Tata Steel and was responsible for expanding the company on a massive scale.
Largely credited with the diversification and growth of Tata, Ratan Tata helped the company acquire numerous businesses and companies including Tetley, Jaguar Land Rover, and more, and scaled the company to unimaginable heights. Ratan Tata is currently featured among the top entrepreneurs of India and an inspirational figure for all the budding entrepreneurs and other individuals.
Nithin Kamath is the Co-founder of the biggest stock-broking company in India, Zerodha, an inspirational entrepreneur, and is famous as one of the self-made billionaires of India. Nithin along with his brother, Nikhil Kamat has also been declared as the richest self-made billionaire in India under 40, according to IIFL Wealth and Hurun India’s 40 & Under Self-Made Rich List 2020 with a combined wealth of Rs 24,000 crores, as assessed in 2020. In year end march 2022 zerodha net profit was 2094.3 crore.
The company has valued itself at $3billion, based on the valuations of employee stock option. Nithin Kamath was a student of Bangalore Institute of Technology but he was never quite inclined to academics. Kamath got into the world of trading at the early age of 17 and eventually, his love for trading grew.
Nithin was successful in trading but also lost quite a lot of his money in the early 2000s. Kamath then returned to a fixed job at a call center, where he worked for 4 years before joining Reliance Money as a franchisee in proprietary trading and advisory services. He worked hard and saved his capital to establish his own company Zerodha in 2010 and emerge at the top of his game with Nikhil.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an Indian billionaire entrepreneur distinguished for being the executive chairperson and founder of Biocon Limited and Biocon Biologics Limited. Furthermore, she was also recognized as the former chairperson of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Kiran was the recipient of the Othmer Gold Medal for her contributions to the fields of science and chemistry.
Financial Times listed her among the Top 50 women in the business list while Forbes listed her as the 68th most powerful woman in the world. Furthermore, Kiran was also named the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2020.
After completing her graduation from Bangalore University with a bachelor’s degree in Zoology, Kiran went to the fermentation science and brewing at Melbourne University and topped her class emerging as a master brewer in 1975. She struggled to join as a master brewer in India after serving Carlton and United Breweries because the breweries here believed that the job of a master brewer is a “man’s work.”
However, Kiran discovered huge opportunities abroad and joined Biocon Biochemicals Limited, and eventually started Biocon India. In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthrop. In 2019, she was listed as the 68th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes. She received Firodia Lifetime Achievement Award 2022 for her contributions to science and technology.
In January 2020 Kiran received the international award and became the fourth Indian citizen to be honored with Australia’s highest civilian award. In year 2023 they start
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw scholarship for the students who study in the fields of science, technology or mathematics at the Mount Helen Campus. By 2022 she has a net worth of $3.1 billion.
Back in 2010, paying gas, electricity, telephone bills, and recharging our mobiles, DTH, and more wasn’t as easy as it is now. Then, Freecharge was one of the companies that came into being, which greatly helped the Indian masses to empower their digital ways. Sandeep Tandon was one of the founders of this precursor of today’s digital payments app, Freecharge, which he founded in 2010 with Kunal Shah.
A technology investor and one of the most successful entrepreneurs of India, Sandeep Tandon was a student of Bombay Scottish, after which he pursued a Bachelor’s and then Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California. Sandeep started his career with a Los Angeles startup where he worked as an application manager.
However, it wasn’t long before he left the company and initiated his own venture, Celetronix but that was again sold to Jabil Circuits.
Freecharge was the next company that he founded, which emerged as the fastest-growing mobile payments app in India. After a short but successful period, Freecharge was acquired by Snapdeal and then eventually acquired by Axis bank, which currently owns the company.
Being a successful entrepreneur with years of experience, Sandeep Tandon is currently serving as the Managing Director of Tandon Group, as an Angel investor, and a mentor to the young entrepreneurs.
As eccentric as its name, Bewakoof boasts of an incredibly successful run as a casual wear and accessories hotspot for the current generation and undoubtedly a major part of its success goes to its Founder Director, Prabhkiran Singh. He along with Siddharth Munot founded Bewakoof.com back in 2010, which has since been a raging success for its unique printed t-shirts, joggers, funky mobile covers, and other accessories.
Both being civil engineering graduates from IIT Bombay, Prabhkiran and Siddharth were well-known to each other. In fact, both of them started with their independent startups right after they completed studies but none of them truly worked before Bewakoof was launched, which disrupted the Indian markets, promoting the “silliness” when it comes to fashion.
The estimated annual revenue of Bewakoof in 2020 was INR 200 Crores. The net worth of Bewakoof is estimated at INR 100 Crores.
The Indian traditional consumer products market was all saturated and boring, hoping for an upcoming disruption, which Mamaearth brought with its honest, organic, and safe products. The initial idea emerged out of a real-life problem that Varun and Ghazal Alagh faced while raising their own baby.
All of us want to extend our utmost care and best quality products to a newborn and Varun and Ghazal Algh wanted the same for their baby. However, it was when they were expecting their baby that they found the reality about the Indian baby products, none of which met the safety standards required to be applied on a baby. They first started to import baby products from the US but that was neither feasible nor less of a burden to their finances.
This made the research, apply for proper certifications and resulted in the launch of Mamaearth after 4 years of hard work and R&D. Mamaearth is currently hailed as the first Asian brand with the MadeSafe certification for its toxin-free and entirely herbal products. Furthermore, it boasts of having served over 1.5 million customers across 500+ cities of India. The parents turned entrepreneurs, Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh have achieved an envious success and are looking forward to a brighter way ahead as one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs.
The company has expanded into offline distribution through multi-brand retail outlets and exclusive stores, to both online and offline markets. Their next step is to expand the offline business to 100,000 outlets and 100 Indian cities. The company has estimated revenue of INR964 crore in FY22, a growth of 109% over the past year.
PhonePe is akin to digital payments in today’s India. This market leader of a UPI-based digital payments platform was founded by Sameer Nigam, along with his co-founders, Rahul Chari and Burzin Engineer in December 2015.
Sameer Nigam has an MBA in Entrepreneurship from The Wharton School. After completing his schooling at DPS Noida, Sameer went to study Computer Engineering at the University of Mumbai and then completed a Masters of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Arizona, finally finishing his MBA in 2009.
Sameer served as the Director of Search Product Development at Shopzilla for a little over 6 years, after which he launched Mime360, an online social media distribution channel. Mime360 was eventually acquired by Flipkart, where he again served as a Senior Vice President, Engineering but he left the company after one and half years to start his own company, PhonePe.
PhonePe has since been a roaring success! PhonePe continues to be the top player in the Indian payments ecosystem and accounted for nearly 50 percent of all UPI transactions processed in December 2022, According to National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Conclusion
We hope this list of famous Indian entrepreneurs motivates you to act on that startup idea you have in your head. Who else do you think should be featured in this list? And what makes you go gaga over him or her?
Contact: shubham@startuptalky.com
FAQs
Who is the youngest entrepreneur in India?
Shravan Kumaran and Sanjay Kumaran are the youngest entrepreneurs in India. They co-founded the company called ‘GoDimensions’ a development unit, in 2011 at their home at the age of 10.
Who is the world’s richest person?
The world’s richest person is none other than the founder and CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, who boasts of a net worth of $223 billion, as of February 28, 2022.
Who is the richest Indian?
Mukesh Ambani is the richest Indian with a wealth of $103 Billion, as of March 2022.
Is a CEO an owner?
The title of CEO is typically given to someone by the board of directors. Owner is a job title that is earned by sole proprietors and entrepreneurs, who have total ownership of the business. However, these job titles are not mutually exclusive — CEOs can be owners and owners can be CEOs.
Who are the leading Indian entrepreneurs now?
To name some of the most prominent Indian entrepreneurs, we must list:
2020 has been a terrible year for all of us financially. People lost their jobs, business went into loss and many shops ended up with unsold and wasted products. While the middle class managed the crisis by cutting down expenditures, top entrepreneurs across the country are forced to do the same.
Since 2020, millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs in India have suffered back breaking losses. Crores of rupees went down the drain as the market went south and businesses were closed. Hospitality agencies, food delivery chains and e-commerce business owners were among many who faced losses.
Here is the list of top Indian entrepreneurs who lost money since 2020:
The youngest billionaire of India, Ritesh Agarwal suffered a loss of a staggering 3000 crores in 2020. The company’s net worth fell by 40%. One of the reasons is supposed to be ‘the conflicts with hotel owners’, said Masayoshi Son.
It is also contemplated that the investors got overly enthusiastic with the idea and overdid the whole thing without thinking much about the shortcomings.
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal
Company – Flipkart
Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal
In March 2017, the company had 39.5% of all e-commerce market shares. Then, in August 2018, 77% of Flipkart’s shares were bought by Walmart, an American retail corporation. In FY 2020, it reported losses of Rs 1936.6 crore with Rs 6317.7 crore in revenue.
Kumar Mangalam
Company – Idea
Kumar Mangalam
After the emergence of Jio, many network companies in India suffered major losses. ‘Idea’ is no different. In March 2020, the company was Rs. 1,15,000 deep in debt including Rs. 87,650 due to deferred payment obligations. Rs. 46,000 crores were to be paid as AGR dues. Rs. 68,544 million were paid.
The company faced a loss of Rs 73,878 crores with Rs 44, 957.5 crore as revenue in FY 2020. The CEO, Ravinder Takkar has said that they are focusing on 4G coverage and capacity expansion to improve customer’s overall experience.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Company – Paytm
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Paytm is also lost money due to many competitors in the e-payment sector. In Ant Group IPO filing, losses are seen to be around 1435 crores. There was some light as it cut its losses by 28% in FY 20 but its revenues have also fallen 1% to 3350 crores.
Vipul Parekh, Sudhakar, Hari Menon, Ramesh, and Abhinay Choudhri
Company – Big Basket
Soon to be acquired by Tata group, this Alibaba-backed company offers home delivery of groceries. The company went unicorn in March 2019 but now records heavy losses back-to-back.
It lost Rs 611 cores which were greater by 6.7% as compared to last year. The company is planning to be big in the coming year but now, it’s losing huge amounts of money each year.
Naresh Goyal
Company – Jet Airways
Naresh Goyal
After being grounded for nearly two years, the company suffered a loss of Rs 2,841.45 crores in FY 2020. 2019-20 total income was Rs 354.2 crores as per said in BSE filing. The company has been struggling financially since April 18, 2019.
It’s under CIRP i.e., the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process. The company failed to get funds for even daily operations and was temporarily shut down.
Sunil Bharti Mittal
Company – Airtel
Sunil Bharti Mittal
Bharti Airtel posted a net loss of Rs 2,866 crores by the end of the June quarter. The company has been in loss for a long time now and is struggling to get the back on its feet. The tough competition among Indian network services and the free services of Jio for a substantially long time has left very little room for other companies to thrive.
Kavin Bharti Mittal
Company – Hike
Kavin Bharti Mittal
Hike has been the sole local competitor of the online messaging giant, WhatsApp. But right since the beginning, it has been struggling with its operations. Hike’s revenue in 2019 was mere Rs 13,000 crore.
It has failed to generate any substantial revenue in FY 2020. The company has been cutting down its losses as much as it can by reducing marketing expenses and employee benefit expenses.
Delhivery is an e-commerce logistics startup based in Gurugram. This suffered loss of Rs 284.13 crores in FY 2020. Unlike other companies on this list, Delhivery has managed to cut down its losses drastically from Rs 1781.04 crores in FY 2019.
Its revenue for 2020 was Rs 2986 crores with expenses of Rs 3250 crores. The company is also planning for public listing in 2022-23.
Deepinder Goyal
Company – Zomato
Deepinder Goyal
Zomato’s losses went up by 160% in the fiscal year 2020. It reported a loss of Rs 2,451 crores. The expenses of the company went up by 36% to Rs 4,628 crores. The good news is that the revenue also grew.
Zomato also started dine-out which is mainly a transactional business as customers have to pay through the Zomato app. Zomato is a food delivery company which is bound to lose money in the Covid era. But there’s hope for growth as Deepinder Goyal is confident that it will witness a steep recovery post-Covid.
Conclusion
These were some of the Indian Entrepreneurs who lost crores of rupees due to various reasons. Some of them may recover and for some; it’s highly unlikely.
FAQ
Did entrepreneurs lost money in 2020?
Yes, Many entrepreneurs lost money in 2020. Some of the top entrepreneurs who incurred huge losses are Deepinder Goyal, Vijay Shekar Sharma, Ritesh Agarwal and Sachin and Binny Bansal.
What were the challenges faced by entrepreneurs by startups in 2020?
Some of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in 2020 were acquire funding to start the business, keeping existing customer, and finding new customers.
Entrepreneurs are constantly striving to develop and push themselves to be better in their lives and their businesses. While dealing with so many people, activities, and achievements, one may wonder if they deserve the things they get.
It makes one think that they are been overvalued and they don’t deserve the things for which they would’ve actually struggled. Such a psychological situation that is strongly rooted in a fear of failure or appreciation is known as impostor syndrome.
People who face the problem of impostor syndrome feels that they are frauds and lives in the fear that one day people will know that they don’t know anything or they are not worth the respect they get.
Entrepreneurs are one of the largest group of people who faces this situation. This is not about how successful you are. In fact, many entrepreneurs who are so successful and are appreciated in their lives are the ones who are likely to have impostor syndrome.
The first thing that one needs to understand when they try to deal with this psychological phenomenon is that it is very common and it is okay to feel the way they are feeling. Various studies show that more than 70% of people in the world feel that they are imposters at one time in their life or the other. It is important to acknowledge and discuss this issue without letting it affect your business.
The first step that one should take towards identifying impostor syndrome is by looking out for signs that your mind and body gives every time you doubt yourself.
Think honestly about what you believe you are and understand why you are feeling what you are feeling contrary to the general belief that you have about yourself.
After answering that question understand that if you are having self-doubts it is only because you are pushing yourself to greater heights.
In this process, it is important, to be honest with yourself especially in terms of the things that you know and you don’t know. Look out for the thoughts that you get when you feel down.
Identify it and tap them down when you get those thoughts again.
Positive Affirmations
Avoid grammatically negative words from your speech. Whenever you are about to do something different or something that you are afraid of believe that you are qualified enough to do that.
Chanting positive affirmations is easier said than done. From having self doubts to talking positively about yourself there is a bridge that might be hard to cross.
Here you should step in with your conscious mind and every time you feel that the impostor syndrome is trickling in, tap yourself down, understand that what you are feeling is not in fact you but caused due to an unfavourable situation you are in.
After acknowledging this feeling, say positive sentences about yourself, your experiences and your achievements.
Remind yourself
Another thing that you can do is that keep a note of good things that you have done and the appreciation is that people have given to you.
Even if you cannot remember these when you are feeling low, you can always look up to these notes to improve your self-esteem.
It will help you realize your worth and continue the works that you have been doing.
Business is indeed a world full of competition and as an entrepreneur, you are more likely to compare your success with that of others. This can trigger or aggravate impostor syndrome.
You need to understand here that the timeline of a person or a business can never be compared with that of others. Just because a person became a millionaire at the age of 23 does not mean that you cannot be one at the age of 30.
What you have to deliberately do is to stop thinking about others and putting yourself down by the act of comparison. Instead, you should divert that energy to focus on your business.
As mentioned earlier comparison can also lead to another dangerous trap where are you celebrating your victories and achievements. This might even lead you to believe in unrealistic expectations and toil towards it only to fail later since they were impractical.
This variation within impostor syndrome can be adjusted and mitigated by celebrating small achievements that you gain as an entrepreneur.
It might not be directly related to the business but can even be related to your own personality.
Never stop celebrating yourself. It will help you accept and acknowledge that although you are not perfect you can always be better than yesterday.
Seek help
This is one of the most important and the least sought method. Impostor syndrome is very common and it needs to be addressed seriously.
Ignoring it as negative whims of the human mind or trying to bury it by invalidating your feelings can only aggravate the situation to an extent where it will start fully affecting your company. Hence, it is extremely important to seek professional help the moment you feel the need to do that.
Also, stay connected with your close friends and mentors who you are sure will be cheerleaders for you when you need them. But the most important thing is that never hesitate from taking professional help.
Conclusion
Impostor syndrome might feel like a silly thing event to the person who is experiencing it.
Although it can be controlled and can be controlled very easily, it is also extremely important to acknowledge and face it.
Unfortunately what most of the entrepreneurs do in such a situation is simply bury down their feelings into the back of their mind or plunge into the lies that our mind creates.
It will only lead to repression which will later culminate in a very bad explosion of all your emotions.
So realize that impostor syndrome is real and it was okay to face that. Embracing your uniqueness, positive affirmations and taking professional help will significantly help you stay away from this menace.
FAQ
Who suffers from imposter syndrome?
As per the Research 70% of people may suffer from imposter syndrome.
How to get rid of imposter syndrome?
Separate feelings from fact, Accentuate the positive, Develop a healthy response to failure and mistake making, and Visualize success are some of the things you can do to .
What causes imposter syndrome?
Imposter syndrome is likely the result of including personality traits and family background.
The digital transformation of the world has created an abundance of knowledge online to teach us, when we don’t have the opportunity to learn from a mentor or guide ourselves. With the help of online courses, we can apply some structured guidance to how we approach our interpersonal interactions, entrepreneurial pursuits, and even the way we think. These hyper-focused, organized lesson plans can help us hit refresh and streamline our paths to success.
Amidst the global outbreak of a lethal pandemic, many of us are surviving the lockdown at our home with some extra time on our agendas at our comfort level. To support those forced to join the office exodus, many online platforms, universities and distance learning organizations are offering free access to their courses.
Maybe this the perfect time, so that an entrepreneur can boost up their career at their own comfort level. There is a list of some of the top7 online courses for entrepreneurs, which can take your mind off things and help you gain a skill or two. This can boost your career at the same time for free, or a small fee. Because when there is a need to master a wide range of skills, then it’s wrong to waste a single second of your time.
Harvard Business School-Online Lessons
Harvard Business School- Online Lessons
Harvard Business School is consistently ranked as the top business school in the world. Since the beginning of the outbreak, when there was this prediction of staying home for a long time, they came up with free interactive business lessons that you can complete online. These lessons are now open for everyone who wants to advance their careers with core business concepts, from leaders to students.
The course offered was: Entrepreneurship essentials and leadership principles, but there is plenty for everyone. This is a great way to stay engaged and sharpen your business skills by learning from the best. Keep an eye out for the next deadline.
Blockchain For Business: The New Industrial Revolution
This course is over five and a half hours, which breaks down how blockchain technologyworks and today’s conception of the potential impact it has on society. If you’re confused about what blockchain is, then this course is made up of you. By the end of the course, you’ll have a firmer sense of what ‘decentralization’ is, and how blockchain is shaping the future of transaction or exchange.
Blockchain for Business: the New Industrial Revolution 4.0
With its clarity in terms, it provides various examples of how large corporations including UBS, Allianz, IBM, Kodak and a range of industries from finance to retail to logistics are using blockchain technology to improve security and efficiency, as well as what developments are on the horizon and challenges the tech will face in scaling.
The Complete Product Management Course
The Complete Product Management Course
Do you ever wonder how organizations like Apple, NASA, and Ticketmaster design their products? This course is designed to give entrepreneurs a deeper understanding of what it takes to bring a product from “idea to launch”, and how to develop strategies and concepts for products, coordinate their development, analyze and validate ideas and help them grow.
It features case studies from NASA, Google, Zappos, and many more. This course also teaches you the fundamentals of Agile Development and industry-standard tools like Pivotal Tracker, Axure, and Popplet.
Artificial Intelligence: Stanford University
Artificial Intelligence Stanford University
This online learning program is based on a course offered at Stanford University, taught by Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of Udacity, CEO of the Kitty Hawk Corporation and founder of Google’s self-driving car project, and Peter Norvig, director of research at Google. There is a prerequisite for the course, however: a background in probability theory and linear algebra.
For a crash course on AI and its applications, head to Udacity for Intro to Artificial Intelligence. In the 4- month course, students can start from the basics of machine learning as well as how statistics, logic, and planning come into play with AI. Then from there, they are going to learn how AI comes into play, per se, move onto the applications lesson segment of the course. They further provide you with insights into image processing, natural language, and processing robotics.
Udacity is an online platform devoted to digital marketing and since Content Marketing is part of it, then Content Marketing Essentials is one of its components. The creator of the course is Hubspot, a marketing software company. They have developed the syllabus to help students plan content marketing strategy and measure its reach and effectiveness.
Basically, the program starts with the segment involving the planned content to best which further communicates a marketing message. Further, the course heads on with content creation through storytelling, curation, and other techniques, followed by distribution, promotion, and tracking.
This crash course also provides tips for designing the user experience (UX) of a website, where actually the content resides, to resonate with readers. In the end, it provides real-world examples of careers in content marketing and gives prospective hires and hiring managers alike a sense of what makes a successful job candidate in the field.
The Essential Guide to Entrepreneurship: Guy Kawasaki
The Essential Guide To Entrepreneurship: Guy Kawasaki
An Apple-alumni and Canva evangelist Guy Kawasaki is sharing his experience as an investor and entrepreneur in this class. It states the each and every step process of starting a business, covering launching, pitching, fundraising, building a team, using social media, and evangelizing in over 56 lectures and 4 hours of content. Described as highly informative and entertaining, Guy uses real-world examples to show you the dos and don’ts of being an entrepreneur. You will definitely be inspired to get your startup off the ground.
Now, this is a sort of important inter-personal skill that every entrepreneur should have. So, whether you are leading a meeting, negotiating with partners, or making a media appearance, it’s important that you master this skill. Body Language for Entrepreneurs teaches “nonverbal communication to increase your income and influence as a business owner” in scenarios like networking, public peaking and delivering an elevator pitch, in order to nail it. Because, it’s not what you say it, but how you say it.
The fact the course states that “93 percent of our communication is nonverbal,” and it’s visible in your online presence, during your interactions with customers, as you connect with colleagues and in just about every other professional scenario involving another human being.
This course reaches not only for entrepreneurs but students on the flip side can apply the same strategies to get a better read on prospective hires, potential clients, and others.
Other Online Courses For Entrepreneurs
Startup India L & D Programme by UpGrad
Inbound Marketing
Inbound Sales
Starting-up Post COVID
Startup School by Y Combinator
Understanding Design Thinking
Introduction to Managerial Accounting
Managerial Economics
Supply Chain Analytics
Human Computer Interaction
Introduction to Data Analytics
Financial Statement Analysis and Report
Security Analysis & Portfolio Management
Enhancing Soft Skills & Personality
Consumer Behaviour
Economics of PR
Economics/ Management/ Entrepreneurship
Web Development with HTML and CSS
Android Programming
Amazon Web Services
Entrepreneurial Idea
Knowingly or unknowingly, we are all learning new things each day. As an entrepreneur, it is important to keep learning and to quit thinking that you stop learning at a certain age. Picking up new skills is a lifelong, ongoing process, and it becomes even more necessary when you are the helm of things with a whole workforce looking up to you for motivation. However, in this age of fast-changing technologies, it wouldn’t suffice to be a jack of all trades.
You will need to have a basic understanding of a wide range of topics. This doesn’t, however, mean that you need to pay humongous tuition fees and attend classes. You can learn new things and pick up newer skills from the comfort of your home through online courses.
Whether you choose to read books, take free online courses, or join a local entrepreneur’s group, the most important thing is that you never stop learning.
StartupTalky is one of the strongest community in India and we have a lot of professionals who are doing great in their lives. To share their learnings and inspire as many people as we can, we are interviewing all the StartupTalkers in our “Know the StartupTalker” series.
Today, we have Mr Sainath Maharatta as our interviewee. Sainath Maharatta is the founder of StrongHumanNetwork. You will learn a lot from this story of Sainath Maharatta in his own words.
Who Are You?
I am a millennial kid born in 1990 in Hyderabad. My schooling and college and 1st 2 years of my professional experience have been in and around Hyderabad. I have graduated in computer science. I was preparing to pursue MBA since my college days. Later I worked with an IT company and then became a probationary officer in state bank group. While I was working as a probationary officer in the state bank, I got admission into IIM Calcutta.
At IIM Calcutta, I was very active in campus activities through quiz club, marketing club and hostel activities which helped me sharpen my leadership skills.
I Interned in a sales & marketing role in a Startup and FMCG environment in Mumbai. Later I was hired as a manager reporting to the founding team at stayzilla.com ( which was a direct competitor to OYO while I was working). After a year stint at stayzilla, I moved to Hyderabad in a sales role at Paytm.
I was responsible for building the distribution network of Paytm in AP and Telangana upcountry and was at the helm of things during demonetization. I got an opportunity to see and work on things on the ground during demonetisation. I saw how the whole country, administration and private sector players like Paytm were mobilized and worked during this time which gave me a hope that anything can be changed if we know how to do it.
How did you come up with the name of your Startup?
I was working with a lot of youngsters during this time and was very successful in my work. During this time I went through a deep introspection phase where I recognised the core qualities in me which were making me successful across all the aspects of my life. One day I wrote all these qualities on a board – confidence, self-awareness, fair world exposure, willingness to work on myself, chasing excellence. When I thought of an adjective which I would like to identify with, “Strong” came to my mind. That was a key moment in my life where I discovered the StrongHuman Framework.
What did you do just after getting the idea?
During my discussions with friends, I found that this framework can be a universal formula which can help anyone to improve their lives. Also because of my business and startup background, I could see that a profitable organisation can be built around this concept and hence StrongHumanNetwork was born.
In the last 2 years, we have taken SHN’s concept to thousands of people across the globe and it was received with open arms and warmth across. People were inspired by this idea and a lot of people invested in this idea. Till date, people have invested more than 60 lakhs (Excluding my investment) into this project.
As we are a sustainable profitable organisation, our main aim from the inception was to find out the right product-market fit. During this process, we did a lot of product-market trails through an offline sales team-driven model, college workshop, corporate training models and finally found our product-market fit through the digital lifestyle membership model executed through a 5-level structure which is open for individuals across the globe.
As of now, we have 100 paid members spread across the globe who come from very highly acclaimed educational & professional backgrounds. Most of our members have a Postgraduate degree from reputed colleges and have management experience. Many of them are located in countries like USA and Australia apart from India. We are currently offering lifestyle memberships to select professionals, senior professionals, Life coaches and world-renowned leadership experts at Level 3,4 & 5.
To become a lifestyle member, one has to accomplish the StrongHuman Challenge – a 21 day paid self-awareness challenge.
One can register themselves on www.shn.life in the suitable category, we will review their profile and if they are eligible they would be invited to take the StrongHuman Challenge.
I generally start my day with meditation, walk in nature followed by listening to Carnatic music. Then I read the regular newspaper and economic times to stay up to date with current happenings. My work starts with talking to highly accomplished individuals through networks like LinkedIn where I bounce ideas and perspectives and identify the right individuals to join SHN.
As an entrepreneur, I deal with uncertainty on a day to day basis and I need to be aware of the situation and not let the situation control me. Whenever I feel overpowered by situations, I go to meditation or listen to inspiring talks by Sadhguru, J Krishnamurthi, Tom Bilyeu, Gary Vaynerchuk etc.
What are your job responsibilities and how they have changed over time?
Post-MBA, my primary job has been problem-solving through planning, execution and people management. Before my startup journey, I was solving problems in a controlled environment of the company. Now as a startup, it is like transitioning from a man-made park into a forest – the real world. Now I solve things in the real world. When you are facing the real-world you need much more awareness to understand the situation and do the right thing.
In a corporate environment, you have a certain power which comes through the position you are placed in the organisation and you need to act according to that and people’s behaviour is also shaped by your position of power.
As an entrepreneur in real-world, your designation has no values unless backed by legible, constructive behaviour and results. Everyone around you behaves the way they want and it is your job to carefully analyse people and situations and do your best.
A startup goes through different phases, such as zero to one phase, 1 to 10 phase, 10 to 100 phase and so on. You need a different skillset at each level. Zero to 1 phase is the toughest which builds you as a person and lays the foundation. 9/10 entrepreneurs don’t make beyond this phase due to multiple reasons, but a major reason is a lack of adequate self-awareness and awareness of people and the world around. Some times you learn it the hard way and luck also plays a role in this journey.
Any Struggle/Challenges you have faced in your professional/ startup life and how did you overcome it?
When we were at the inception stage of SHN, I tried to move as fast as possible with the given resources and people. Also, I believed that you can motivate anyone to be the best version. Later I came across situations which made me understand that there needs to be an innate willingness from the person, without which nothing can be done. Some times when someone has already come to certain conclusions, things won’t move despite your best efforts and intentions.
Self-awareness is my superpower. Over the last 2 years, this has improved more. I can see situations just the way they are and this gives me an immense power to handle it the way I want to.
World-exposure is also a big strength. I love to read and consume content from very different subjects starting from business, international & national politics, spirituality, history, artificial intelligence and other technologies. This helps me in connecting the dots – a very important skill in the current situation.
Another important skill I have is problem-solving. I can analyse any kind of problem and can say what kind of solution is required and come up with probable ways to solve it.
Which online tools/ services/ apps do you use the most and would like to recommend as well?
YouTube & LinkedIn are 2 of the most important tools I would recommend. YouTube has a lot of thought-provoking content which can blow your mind. You need to tap into the right channels. LinkedIn is a very important tool for anyone who wants to grow professionally. It allows you to participate in sensible, thought to provoke discussions and develop the right professional network,
Who or what has shaped who you are?
If I have to speak of personalities who inspired me and keep inspiring me, I would say as a child, APJ Abdul kalam inspired me a lot. His book “Wings of Fire” was the 1st book where I learned about leadership. Also a lot of contemporary personalities who have worked through the tough times to success such as our PM Modi, K Chandrashekar Rao, who lead a long Telangana movement to become the current CM of Telangana inspire me.
Any hack/ learning which make your professional life easy/productive?
Put your ego aside and start thinking from the opposite person’s point of view. This will give you solutions to most of your problems and expedite things.
What’s your workspace setup like?
It consists of visuals which inspire me and a board where I write the most important thoughts which drive me.
Fashion Day
What’s the best advice you’ve ever received? Or a quote that inspires you the most?
A quote which I read during the initial phases of SHN –
I always wondered why somebody didn’t do something about that. Then I realized I am somebody
What are you currently reading, or what do you recommend?
I am deeply researching on yoga, consciousness and future of humanity through the content of people like Deepak Chopra, J Krishnamurti and Yuval Noah Harari
I love using boards. Whenever I have a lot of things to do, I write them on a board and prioritize and get it done.
If you get a chance to start your career again what would you do differently this time?
I would not do anything different as I believe I got the perfect launchpad for what I am currently doing
Anything else you would like to share?
StrongHumanNetwork is a lifestyle concept and a global network of individuals focused on personal growth. It helps individuals transform their career, relationships, health & fitness through StrongHuman Lifestyle which enhances one’s confidence, self-awareness, emotional intelligence and world exposure. SHN offers lifestyle membership to individuals who accomplish the StrongHuman Challenge.
Pratyusha Srivastava
