With the evolving digital platforms, the world is growing as well. And so the business industries, several startups and established businesses are shifting completely to digitalization.
Digital media is providing all kinds of features and facilities for businesses to develop enormously. In fact, many business owners have made digital their business. And these are growing with an exponential graph of success. Therefore, such entrepreneurs are termed as digitalpreneurs or digital entrepreneurs.
You might be wondering, what exactly is a digital entrepreneur? A digital entrepreneur is a business owner, founder or manager who has an internet-based business such as OYO or Paytm.
In India, there are a vast number of such digital entrepreneurs who have expertise in their field of interest and business with great graph success. India provides all kinds of facilities to its entrepreneurs to grow their businesses successfully.
It also brings development for the country as India is growing towards the digital world with extensive manifestation. Digital entrepreneurs in India have developed some great online platforms that have been proven absolutely promising and convenient to use.
Through this article, we present you with those top digital entrepreneurs who have been a great example to the young generation and are extremely successful. Let’s get started!
Top 5 Tips To Become A Successful Digital Entrepreneur
Byju Raveendran
Digital EntrepreneurByju Raveendran – BYJU’S Founder
Founder of BYJU’S study app, Byju Raveendran is well known for his tremendous work that is helping millions of students. He is one of the youngest billionaires in India. He launched BYJU’S app in 2015 and within 2 months, it reached millions of students who downloaded it.
BYJU’s current value is worth $5.7 billion. Its EdTech company is established in Bengaluru and is considered as the top-notch learning and thinking platform for millions of students. In fact, it has been rated with the “Best Self-Improvement” app in 2016, on Google Play Store.
Shradha Sharma
Digital Entrepreneur Shradha Sharma – Yourstory Founder
Shradha is a very well-known digital entrepreneur of India. Shradha Sharma is the founder and Chief Editor of Yourstory.com. It is a startup media platform that brings the stories of startups, entrepreneurs, change-makers, funding analysis and resource pieces.
Yourstory media has been an absolute success which has around 20,000 stories based on entrepreneurs and tons of several other matters. It provides the facilities to read any story in 12 different languages. Moreover, it has reached more than 10 million readers daily who find this online platform very considerate and interesting.
Digital Entrepreneur Ritesh Agarwal – Founder of OYO Rooms
The well-known personality, Ritesh Agarwal is the founder and CEO of OYO Rooms. OYO rooms are widely famous around India for their incredible service of booking the top branded hotels online or offline. Ritesh Agarwal is a digital entrepreneur who started his journey at just the age of 16 years and now ruling a business worth millions.
He travelled all the fractions of the country with a budget plan settlement. This gave him the idea to build such a platform that would provide the facility to book any hotel at affordable rates. OYO Rooms is one of the fastest-growing online platforms in India.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Vijay Shekhar Sharma – Founder of Paytm
Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of a very famous digital payment company, Paytm. Vijay Shekhar Sharma with a net worth of $2.1 billion, was included in the list of the youngest billionaires of India by Forbes.
Paytm is considered one of the most promising and convenient digital payment platforms. Along with the Paytm app, Vijay Shekhar Sharma also developed Paytm Mall, Paytm payment bank, and e-commerce business.
Youngest Digital Entrepreneur Sanjay and Shravan Kumaran – Founder of GoDimensions
The youngest Indian entrepreneurs, Shravan and Sanjay are siblings merely of age 17 and 15 respectively. Together they built the mind-blowing digital platform, GoDimensions. Shravan and Sanjay are the youngest digital entrepreneurs of India.
GoDimensions are aimed to achieve the simplest and most convenient technical antidotes for digital media. Once in an interview, Shravan and Sanjay were asked about the reasons behind their success, they respond, “Reading a huge number of books and solving the problems that come on the way.”
There are plenty of entrepreneurs who have been brilliant and successful on digital platforms. Before you decide to initiate your startup, take a step hold and look for the business models of such successful entrepreneurs mentioned above.
They have contributed majorly to the successful growth of digital media. The digital platform has taken over almost all our essentials from traditional media to stores. It has given digital a new outlook which is tremendously popular. These experts would provide you with the best business idea for your startup to make it a success.
FAQs
Who is an entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is an individual who sets up a new business by taking a risk in order to make money.
Who is a digital entrepreneur?
A digital entrepreneur is one who works in the digital media space and makes his living by selling digital media or downloads. In other words, a digital entrepreneur is anyone who works online in the digital environment.
What is the job of digital entrepreneur?
A digital entrepreneur job is to utilise the reach and power of the internet to offer products or services for profit.
How do you become a digital entrepreneur?
Learn digital marketing skills – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Once you learn these skills, you can freelance in these fields.
You can start a digital marketing service or build products.
You can also become a social media influencer.
Start any services or products that you can offer virtually.
What are the 4 types of entrepreneurs?
The four types of entrepreneurs:
Coasting, opportunity comes to them (or it doesn’t)
Conservative (very moderate use of resources, protecting existing resources)
A traveller, a tourist and a first-time backpacker. These three have something in common despite their differences in experience. They all want a peaceful night to stay after having a long walk to someone’s dream place or to a normal visit or a trip. The business of giving people home or a place to stay dates back to AD 707.
The hospitality business is one of the indestructible industries wherein famous chains have generations of families leading, in particular, the empire built by people through hospitality. Hotels are the face of this industry. There are buildings that provide people with a place to stay with the utmost comfort. They make people feel cosy in corners not owned by them, yet have rights over them.
Thehotel industry was once owned by the owners with no regulatory bodies on the top of their heads. They had their own business model. But the new generation turned the system into a marketplace that involved filters of the various layers. The whole system was immediately converted into a well-oiled machine. A new system that sided with the huge Indian population.
This huge system turnover was brought by a 22-year-old Indian Boy named Ritesh Agarwal.
The Tourism and Hotel Industry in India is one of the main drivers of growth among the services sector of the country. The tourism industry in India has significant potential as it has rich & diverse culture, historical heritage, a vast range of ecology, and flora and fauna. Indian is known for its geographical diversity, attractive beaches throughout the coastline, 27 world heritage sites, 10 biogeographic zones, 80 national parks and more than 441 sanctuaries.
According to reports, over 39 million jobs were created in the tourism sector which equates to over 8% of the total employment in India. By 2029, the country’s tourism sector is expected to grow 6.7% to reach $488 billion, which will account for 9.2% of the country total economy. The industry has slowed down due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, as the country had many lockdowns and restrictions on travel.
As per the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Association of India (FHRAI), the Indian hotel industry had a loss of approximately $17.82 billion in revenue due to the ongoing pandemic. Despite taking a hit, the industry is looking to come back up with the help of schemes and opportunities provided by the government. The Indian Government is providing free loans to the MSMEs to help them deal with the crisis and revive the tourism sector.
It is also planning to tap into a staycation, which is an emerging trend where people stay at luxurious hotels to revive themselves of stress in a peaceful getaway. With many upcoming developments, the international tourist arrivals are expected to reach 30.5 billion and generate revenue of over $59 billion by 2028. OYO and Airbnb have in many ways helped the industry grow especially in 2020 and 2021, as domestic tourists are expected to drive the growth post-pandemic.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Experience in Industry
Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO of OYO Rooms
When it comes to trust, experienced companies are trusted more.
Ritesh Agarwal, the founder of OYO, formed the most famous chain of leased and franchised hotel chains. We Indians often refer to it as a place to look for the best deals for hotels, The Oyo Rooms. Oyo Rooms started 7 years ago with a bunch of hotels. The company has now expanded globally with thousands of hotels and vacation homes. Oyo Rooms was started in the year 2013.
Ritesh is the second youngest self-made billionaire in the world.
Airbnb’s Founders
Airbnb was conceived years ago by two roommates who rented out an air mattress in their living room. This turned their whole apartment into a bed and breakfast. This was done to sustain the high-priced living in San Francisco. This gave the company its name Airbedandbreakfast. Airbnb was started in 2008.
So the winner here is, Airbnb, which has a lot of experience.
Both the companies share a common goal, i.e. to provide accommodations, a safe place and comfortable corners to people. Yet both the companies have a very different working business model.
Oyo is often believed to be India’s answer to Airbnb. This article will take you through the different business models and things that are uncommon between the two companies.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Front-end
OYO Rooms
OYO, as people know, is a website where one can go through various filters and find a hotel. But this is the front-end of how the Oyo company is. Oyo is a marketplace for only hotels.
Airbnb
However, Airbnb is a marketplace that helps a traveller find an abode of his type. It can be for lodging, primarily homestays and homestays. It also lets the provider of the property fix a price. This helps both sides as well as Airbnb. The company has recently started offering experiences too.
This shows a more varied and real-world applied concept. So, Airbnb has a better front-end.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Places to Stay
OYO Online Booking
Oyo used to get hotels and book a majority of the rooms for a definite time. It then standardizes the room according to the Oyo standards. Later, list the hotels on its website with huge and heavy discounts. The whole business model used to work by acquiring clusters of hotels for a definite time. Standardizing them and making them proper before listing.
Airbnb Online Booking
Airbnb is based on the sharing economy. It makes owners share the property or rooms they own with travellers who in turn share money with the owners. It is believed to be the most successful business that works on sharing economy. A two-faced system that works for the public.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Stay Duration
Oyo works on hotel stays, so an individual can stay there for a good amount of time. Oyo rooms have no particular rule about leaving a room after a set date. The whole system is similar to how one can stay in a hotel. But in Airbnb, there is a 90-day rule. This rule was introduced in 2017. This rule is only for areas in London. The listings in that area cannot be occupied for more than 90 days.
This makes Airbnb not suitable for very long.
Oyo had 5,855 hotels in its network in the year 2016 with an inventory of over 68 thousand rooms. If compared to today it has a portfolio of more than 35 thousand hotels and 125 thousand vacation homes. It has over 1.2 million rooms across 80 countries and 800 cities.
But, the founder and CEO of Oyo – Ritesh Agarwal made an announcement in the year 2017 that the company had evolved its Oyo business model to 100% franchise, managing, or operating. He also mentioned that his company would no longer go for hotel aggregation and will shift towards becoming a proper full-scale hospitality company. The CEO stated that this change in business model will reduce operational costs. Hence, improve service.
Oyo changed its business model to the Franchise model in the year 2017. The company earlier used to take up some rooms on lease and would sell them to customers. This model involves partnering with many hotels and asking them to operate as a franchise. Then selling their rooms to all the customers at competitive prices.
Airbnb, known for not owning any of the properties. Yet known for having a business that does work on providing shelter. All the company does is providing a platform. A platform on which all the people can rent out properties they own or spare rooms to guests. The property prices are set by the owner themselves. But the company intervenes when it comes to the collection of money.
The Business model of Airbnb is a multi-sided marketplace that connects all the travellers with the host and experience providers. The company makes money from the fees that come from bookings from stays and experiences. Airbnb’s model is exponential when it comes to growth.
Airbnb has a better business model in terms of customer comfort and reach.
Airbnb’s business model is quite simple yet very innovative which often dubs it as the world’s fastest-growing travel site.
Oyo charges around 22% of commissions. This has to be paid every month by the hotels’ owners. However, commissions may vary as per the services and features offered. Oyo also charges a commission out of the room reservation fee according to their services chosen.
Airbnb makes all the money through commissions. It charges a 3% commission on every booking from hosts and between 6 – 12% from guests. Unlike Oyo, Airbnb takes reviews and feedback from both ends. Be it the host or the guest, this makes it a proper marketplace.
Airbnb seems to have an upper hand at everything, making it a proper place to visit before actually vising one.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a tool that lets a company store customer and prospect contact information. It also helps the company identify sales opportunities, record service issues, and manage marketing campaigns. Depending on what type of CRM a company has, they can get basic information about their prospective customer and interact with them. CRM helps the company in better analyzing and understanding their customers, which will help them offer better and more efficient customer service. Airbnb and OYO have very different CRM strategies.
CRM of OYO
The CRM that OYO uses is Blueshifts Programmatic CRM, which has helped the company to become a leader in 1:1 customer engagement across all marketing channels. With Blueshift’s precise recommendations and targeted triggers, OYO has been able to achieve 5X higher bookings from email and mobile channels. The company also has a mobile-first approach which has helped it to expand in over 500 cities across ten countries.
CRM of Airbnb
The CRM that Airbnb uses is Twilio, which helps connect with hosts. How it works is, when a traveller makes a reservation through Airbnb, the host has 32 hours to respond to a booking request and this is possible because of its CRM. There is systematic mobile communication between hosts and travellers using a text message. The host can also decide whether they want to accept or deny the customer. The company also uses Hootsuite social media management, which helps them monitor their follower’s growth and social CRM. The system also helps the company to find certain keywords that can eventually be used in campaigns.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Marketing Strategy
OYO – Marketing Strategy
Oyo is known to use the 360-degree marketing method as it implies having a presence on all forms of digital and traditional media. They also have their unique room strategy which helps in attracting more customers with lower room prices in comparison to the base price of the hotel. Besides that OYO has made many successful multimedia marketing campaigns such as #AurKyaChahiye. It also shares location-based posts, promotional posts, which helps people to browse destinations to travel, check for new offers & discounts and encourage them to book OYO.
Airbnb – Marketing Strategy
Airbnb on the other hand uses the marketing approach to building and maintaining a strong community among its users. It also mainly targets long term loyalty from both the guests and hosts. The main marketing strategy of the company is to take your business in front of your potential guest and turn them into bookers. The customers who previously enjoyed their stay with Airbnb places are sent an email encouraging them to list their own property. Airbnb India aims to make its guests feel welcome, its app did the same, as it has a unified interface on Android and iOS platforms.
OYO Vs Airbnb – Social Media
OYO on Social Media
Over the years the company has leveraged the power of social media as it has been able to retain its ranking and stay ahead of OYO competitors in the market. OYO currently has over 169k followers on Instagram and 65.4k followers on Twitter, with actor Sonu Sood as its current brand ambassador. On all the social media platforms, the company promotes itself as being a brand that offers two types of services which are promoting tourist spaces and a safe space to spend time with your loved ones in your own city. OYO also uploads many ad campaigns like ‘Fir Badhega India’ and ‘Sanitised Stays’ that helps in engaging with their customers especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Airbnb on Social Media
Airbnb has a different approach to social media marketing as it heavily relies on awareness generating strategy. The company also uses travel influencers to further promote the platform as it does its social media relies on user-generated content (UGC). So far the company has over 4.9 million followers on Instagram and 733k followers on Twitter. It also has over 6.3 million photos using #airbnb on Instagram which shows us how widespread the company is. Airbnb also heavily invests in video marketing as a part of telling its brand story, it currently has more than 500 videos generating over 100 million views on YouTube.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Airbnb and Oyo share the same kind of services, i.e. hospitality service. Moreover, Airbnb is a website for people to list, find and rent lodging whereas Oyo is a chain of budget and premium rooms partnering with different hotels. Oyo is all about providing a customer experience within a stipulated budget range while Airbnb doesn’t control the customer experience as such.
FAQs
What is the difference between Airbnb and Oyo?
OYO has more hotel rooms whereas Airbnb has more residential plots. In Airbnb, the apartment may have been misinterpreted, not so in the case of OYO as an audit is done every week.
Are OYO Rooms similar to Airbnb?
OYO’s business model is kind of similar to that of Airbnb, i.e. they are an online aggregator of budget hotels. Bookings for these rooms would be made via the website and the mobile app of OYO Rooms. However, the main focus is always is the quality of service provided.
How to give your property to OYO Rooms?
For OYO Rooms registration, you can write an email to partner@oyorooms.com or give a call to this number +91 70530 70530.
Is OYO successful?
OYO Rooms has been one of the most successful startups in India being the country’s largest budget hotel chain. It focuses on standardizing the hotels in the non-branded hospitality sector.
Is Airbnb better than Oyo?
OYO is better in terms of privacy and security. OYO assures quality service while Airbnb doesn’t guarantee anything from their end.
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:
Do you enjoy traveling? Is your top priority safety and sanitation? You’ve found your ideal hotel, but is it out of your budget? In this scenario, you might consider staying in a Dharamshala, but their surroundings aren’t appealing. They do have a lot of rules so you may be wondering if it’s worth it to spend the money.
In light of this predicament, the concept of a “hostel for backpackers” was established. It’s similar to what we have currently in terms of hostels (assuming you are still in college and have come from outstation). There are shared rooms, a common dining room, and a variety of enjoyable activities and games with no or little constraints. In a nutshell, a youthful euphoria has persisted.
Solo travel and backpacking have become popular in this new era. We can now quickly learn about new places and obtain useful information by reading blogs or social media updates.
A startup called Zostel has a similar concept. It is the first hostel chain-based startup in India.
Zostel is like a hostel that provides a home environment with all of the necessary conveniences at an affordable price. Budget travelers, particularly those aged 18 to 40, can find safe, hygienic, and affordable lodging at Zostel.
They have air-conditioned dorms, both mixed and female-only, where rooms may be booked at a competitive price of 500 per night. It has an actual house with beds, a shared space with gaming, a spot for campfires, open mics, and other activities where they may socialize.
Every Zostel is unique since local aspects are taken into consideration when constructing the ideal city-centric Zostel. The founders have considered the importance of safety and comfort while attempting to maintain the vibe joyful and cool. Zostel seeks to deliver great enjoyment to travelers rather than just a place to sleep.
Zostel Hostels, Zostel Homes, Zostel Escape, Trusted by Zostel
Website
zostel.com
Zostel – Latest News
08 March 2021
Zostel, a hostel startup, alleges it has triumphed over OYO, however, the hospitality unicorn has denied such allegations, claiming that indeed Arbitration Tribunal has given Zostel no particular settlement in place of acquiring a stake in OYO.
3 October 2020
Zostel Hospitality Pvt. Ltd, which runs two franchises: Zo Rooms, an affordable hotel business, and Zostel, a travelers’ hostel network, has appealed to its clients to acquire INR 10 crore in fundraising at a pre-money worth of INR 75 crore. The startup has asked its clientele to become angel investors and contribute ranging from INR 5 lakh and INR 1 crore to the Zostel hostel brand.
10 August 2020
Zostel is investing heavily in local tourism, with plans to establish 500 more properties in the next two years. Zostel presently operates 60 hostels and guesthouses across the globe. The firm is soliciting funds from the market for Rs 10 crore.
Zostel – History
Whenever people from engineering and management backgrounds collaborate on any project, it leads to the greatest innovation of all time. Zostel, a hostel for backpackers was a huge success since most of us were waiting for this idea to be explored.
We’ve all seen the film “Queen” and agree that something similar should happen in our country. So, for you adventurous vacationers, Zostel provides the same thrilling experience.
On the occasion of Independence day 2013, Dharamveer Chauhan and his six buddies founded this exciting startup called “Zostel”. Their goal is to assist travelers to enjoy exploring Indian towns. It wasn’t just for backpackers, but also professionals and visitors. Seven pals came up with the idea of combining hostels and today’s Gen Z.
Zostel created homes with facilities and afterward equipped them to offer an atmosphere they have never been a part of with a limited budget of Rs 50 lakhs, participating in several B-school contests, and generating revenue through bootstrapping. Jodhpur developed the 1st Zostel, accompanied by Jaipur.
This company, which began with the hostel concept, is no longer limited to that notion but has evolved into a trailblazing travel solution company. It now operates in 37 cities across India and China, with over 200 hostels.
Zostel – Mission and Vision
The firm was established to encourage people to travel as a part of their lifestyle. They intend to contribute to the promotion of travel by building a reliable, enjoyable image and involving local people in the effort.
They strive for a basic, adaptable hotel and hostel brand with a great understanding of visitors, the latest trends, and the required confidence, that has garnered them an unconventional status in the travel sector.
With a simple approach, they hope to ensure that travelers simply pay for the features that they genuinely require and desire. They provide their clients with budget-friendly lodging in the heart of the city, with a strong emphasis on rates and comfort.
Zostel – Tagline and Logo
Zostel Logo
“Live it Now”, as the tagline suggests, Zostel is for intrepid adventurers. Throughout your stay, you will meet people who have had interesting and intriguing travel experiences.
During your trips, you seek peace. You get everything in one place, including well-furnished dorms, tasty foodstuffs, a private kitchen for cooking enthusiasts, game spaces, WIFI connectivity, and absolute coziness.
Zostel Hostel is the company’s main product. It may be found in most tourist destinations. Initially, the majority of Zostel’s properties were owned by the company. Then it devised a franchising strategy.
Zostel X
It is a service that allows you to stay in a private home. Instead of being in the heart of the city, they are found on the outskirts. It is mostly suitable for groups of visitors or families. It is a privately owned property that is rented out.
Zostel Escape
It was created to provide guests with authentic local services. Only locals provide the services, allowing travelers to go beyond the typical tourist attractions.
Zozo Bus: Zostel provides a Zozo bus service, which allows travelers to travel on a budget. It’s a 12- or 13-seater bus that brings you to pre-determined destinations.
OTA (Trusted by Zostel): As a brand, Zostel has consistently provided excellent service to its visitors, making it a reliable location to stay. Inquiries are coming in from places where Zostel does not have a hostel. In situations like these, Zostel has partnerships with local hostels, allowing it to provide OTA services.
Zo rooms: Zo Rooms is a Zostel subsidiary. Its like OYO, a hotel aggregator.
Zostel – Business Model
You may have heard about Zostel’s services, but its primary business model is franchise-based. Zostel came up with a unique project to assist and inspire imaginative minds who aspire to be entrepreneurs and escape from the chains of mundane existence.
Zostel will guide you in the process of opening your own Zostel at a place of your preference through this project. The choice of location and the ideal property to operate is based on your skills, belief, and viability. Zostel will help you with the setup, branding, marketing, and operations aspects of your franchise.
Based on the value of the building, the location, and your accord with the landlord, your Zostel franchise might cost roughly 30 lakh rupees. It will not be funded by Zostel but the periodic monetary incentive will be provided based on the performance of your Zostel compared to others.
Traveling is a kind of relaxation for all of us. But the fear of staying in filthy rooms makes our trip a bit less fun. Considering that, Zostel wanted to change the way we Indians have traveled and it has made its goal to deliver the best services throughout our staycation. They’ve done so by forming a powerful network of backpackers and entrepreneurs capable of ushering in a change.
In 2019, Zostel offered OTA, which allows them to earn a fee of 10% to 15% on each transaction. Both Zo rooms and Zostel work on a commission basis.
This is usually paid in one single payment after the franchise contract is signed. INR 2,00,000, including taxes, is charged by Zostel. Their commissions and monthly fees begin once the business is fully operational.
Depending on the operational ranking, they charge a flexible fee of 18-24 percent of the lodging income. They also don’t charge fees on meal and refreshment revenues or any other supplementary income of the business.
Royalty Fees
In certain franchises, the franchisor offers a franchisee special power to sell the firm’s merchandise locally in exchange for royalties. These royalties are usually calculated annually or quarterly as a proportion of the franchisee’s gross sales revenue. This recurring fee allows Zostel to offset the expenses of continuous benefits offered to its franchisees while still generating a return from its operations.
Site Assistance Fees
Site assistance fees, also known as a set-up charges, are charged to the franchisee by the franchisor, Zostel, for assistance in locating and establishing a crucial site. They provide some support in venue selection and formation, but the franchisee is normally in charge of the ultimate choice, which is up to the permission of the parent firm. They opt to reimburse these expenses as part of the franchise fee.
Ongoing Services
Zostel offers assistance to its franchisees, such as staffing a service center for scheduling bookings and building and operating an app that can be utilized to improve efficiency at all franchisees. For them, it serves as a supplementary income source.
Marketing
To reach a wider audience and assist each franchisee in becoming more profitable, Zostel invests in domestic or foreign promotional activities. As a result, profitability is increased and more funds are allocated to royalties.
Zostel – Challenges
Controversial journey
When Zostel introduced Zo Rooms, hotel aggregator company OYO rooms filed a lawsuit accusing Zostel of deception i.e. data theft. OYO took the case to court, which was soon resolved.
Following that, OYO rooms were in talks to acquire Zo rooms. OYO spent a long period looking into the documents of Zo rooms for acquisition purposes but ultimately opted not to buy them.
In return, Zo rooms filed a data theft lawsuit against OYO rooms, believing that OYO may utilize their information in the future. This acquisition battle went for 3 years and eventually, Zo rooms claimed victory over that.
Vulnerable industry
Zostel is entirely devoted to tourism. Micro and macro incidents have the greatest impact on the tourism business. Take, for example, the pandemic that wreaked havoc on the tourism economy. As a result, Zostel’s vulnerability will always be a challenge.
The mentality of people
Since Zostel provides cheap accommodation, people might think their services might be poor as well. The traditional concept of hostels being mostly for students hasn’t changed yet so it might take a while for people to get acquainted with this new idea.
Zostel received $1 million in funding in 2014. Recently, funds were raised on 25th July 2018 in a Venture series unknown round. Zostel’s recent investors are Orios Venture Partners and Presha Paragraph.
Date
Stage
Amount
Lead Investor
May 13, 2014
Venture Round
$1M
Presha Pargash
July 25, 2018
Venture Round
Orios Venture Partners
Zostel – What makes it unique?
The services offered by Zostel are similar to those offered by hotels, yet the experience is unique. In hotels, you may not have the opportunity to interact with other visitors, but at Zostel, rooms are shared, so you may connect with your roomies and learn more about their adventure.
The majority of Zostel’s are set up in natural settings. In this sort of environment, tourists feel more at ease and may openly converse.
So, the ultimate goal is to connect more individuals and provide them a memorable experience while staying within their comfort bubble.
Zostel – Competitors
Traditional low-cost hotels have long been a threat to Zostel, but the number of local hostels and homestays is fast growing. In India, there are over ten hostel chains with a national presence, posing a direct threat to Zostel.
The top 2 competitors of Zostel are:
Backpacker Panda
Backpacker Panda is a young, energetic firm with a vision of becoming a data-driven firm and revolutionizing the way Indians travel. The hostel brand has eight zones all over India, and its mantra of hygiene is often kept in mind.
Roadhouse hostel
Ambarish Raghuvanshi established it in November 2014. It operates in India from five different locations.
Final thoughts
In India, Zostel pioneered the backpacker hostel lifestyle. Zostel became a popular alternative for backpackers due to its unique strategy and high-quality services. Zostel’s services and experiences are unrivaled in their magnificent settings. As a result, they are a well-known hostel chain among travelers in India.
FAQ
What is the concept of Zostel?
The concept of a Zostel is that its is a hostel for backpackers. In Zostel there are shared rooms a common dining room, and a variety of enjoyable activities.
Who is the founder of Zostel?
Akhil Malik, Dharmveer Singh Chouhan, Paavan Nanda, Tarun Tiwari, Chetan Singh Chauhan, Siddharth Janghu, Abhishek Bhutra are the founders of Zostel.
Did Oyo acquire Zostel?
No, Oyo was in talks to acquire Zostel but later opted not to acquire them.
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.
The world we live in is always in need of innovation. Be it from domestic help to data analysis. For all of this one thing is unavoidable – investment. With an aim of investing in transformative technologies, The Japanese company SoftBank has initiated a $100 venture capital fund called the visions fund.
The Vision Fund was a materialisation of a talk between Masayoshi Son, Chairman of SoftBank and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia Muhammed Bin Salman. As the name suggests, the Vision Fund envisions a long-term growth of companies for the benefit of humanity.
Being the biggest venture capital fund in the world, their plans for investment are almost equal to the global venture capital investment of the world. Most of their companies are in the transportation and logistics sector followed by consumer services and frontier technologies. Here is a glimpse of a few startups that are funded by SoftBank’s Vision Fund
The banking startup is the latest unicorn now. In May 2021, it raised $250 million in a series C funding of Vision Fund. This has raised the value of the firm to $1.45 billion. It was founded by Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati in 2015. Zeta provides a modern and cloud native platform to improve the cost to income ratio and consumer experience.
ByteDance
With a mission to “Inspire creativity and enrich life”, ByteDance is a startup that is spread over 150 markets with offices in 126 cities. They offer high quality Global Creation and Interaction Platforms as and while ensuring that the digital life of billions of its users are made beautiful. It was found in 2012 in a four bedroom apartment. In 2019, SoftBank’s Vision Fund invested in ByteDance and its corporate value quadrupled soon after.
Trax
Making in-store execution easier, Trax has been very useful to both retailers and customers. They say that through them the best of digital technologies comes together in the physical reality for the best experience of the users. In 2021, it secured $640 million funding lead by SoftBank Vision Fund. Trax will continue to optimise its retail stores through creating awareness about changing store condition and improving purchasing intent.
Firstcry
Founded in 2010, It aims to be the largest retailer in child and mother care products in the world. In 2018, SoftBank Vision Fund bought a 40% stake at a rate of $400 million which makes them the biggest investor in the company. It also valued Firstcry at $1.1 billion at that time. Today, they have a customer base of over 20 million families. Under the leadership of Supam Maheshwari, they continue to conquer greater heights in the business realm.
It is a startup that revolutionised the untapped market of opticals. It is indeed a magical unicorn of India and there is no surprise in Vision Fund investing in Lenskart. Beginning from contact lenses, today it has a range of prescription glasses and sunglasses as well. It was launched in 2010. It fared really well in business and was aided by SoftBank Vision Fund in the year 2019. They invested a total of $275 million after which it was valued at $1.5 billion. In 2020, Lenskart generated a revenue of 1000 crore.
Meesho
The top rated reselling app of India was found by two IIT Delhi graduates Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal. They have transcended beyond earning profits for themselves alone by helping small businesses and individuals to set up their own online stores.
In the latest funding round of Vision Fund (2021), it invested $300 million which raised its value to an enviable $2.1 billion. Earlier, when it was valued at $700 million, they had received a funding of $125 million in 2019. The latest funding is three times greater than last time. It was the fourth deal in the second Vision Fund in India.
Oyo Rooms
The most popular hospitality firm that upturned the ways of hotel booking raised $807 million along with RA Holdings. In this SVF has picked up 9626 holdings of Series F CCPS for $506 million. This will make SVF entitled to 50.5% stake in the firm. Oyo has always surprised us by expanding to countries like wildfire. It is expected that this fund will be used to increase the efficiency of the company by delivering the best services.
Flipkart
Flipkart is a very familiar name in the e-commerce industry for the past few years. Its growth has been tremendous and inspiring. Softbank Vision Fund had invested a sum of $2.5 billion in 2017. Now, Flipkart is completing its merger with Walmart and SoftBank has only sold 20% of its stake during the process and thereby continues to stay invested. Softbank is now again trying to invest in Flipkart.
Unacademy
It is a Bangalore based Education technology firm which was founded in 2015. It began its journey as a YouTube channel in 2010 and its growth over the decade is commendable. Unacademy received a sum of $150 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund in 2020. This will take the committed firm’s overall value to $1.4 billion. This is a triple gain as far as the firm is concerned in a span of 6 months. They will be using the fund to launch new products and expand the organisation.
The UK based bank for small and medium sized companies was founded in 2013. It gained regulatory approval in 2015. The firm was founded by Rishi Khosla and Joel Perlman. In February 2019, SoftBank invested $440 million in OakNorth and its value skyrocketed to $2.8 billion. Many times, it lends more than $5 billion which is higher than its counterparts. However, they recover more than 90% of that money. Today, it is one of the highly valued startups in Europe.
Softbank’s Biggest Investments
Grofers
Founded in 2013, Grofers is a grocery delivery service in India. It allows you to order a large variety of products through their online supermarket. Their potential did not skip the eyes of SoftBank either. In 2020, they invested $55 million in this firm to help them further improve their efficiency and services. The bank’s trust in the business can be further reiterated by the fact that they hold 46% of the total holdings.
Paytm
Since its launch in 2009, Paytm has transformed the money paying etiquette of people in India and many other e-commerce payment platforms followed suit. In 2019, it was founded by Vijay Shekhar Varma. Paytm raised $1 billion from Vision Fund along with Ant Financial Services. The new fund will be used to ramp up the expansion of the firm into rural India. They aim to popularise payments in rural India online.
Biofourmis
It is a health tech company that makes use of machine learning and AI to improve services in the health sector. It was founded by Kuldeep Singh Rajput with a team of committed members backing him. Together they have been successful in improving outcomes of major healthcare providers. In 2020, they raised $100 million through the Series C of Vision Fund. This was indeed a booster shot for them. They are now on their path to develop better portfolios which are inclusive of digital therapeutics for pain and cancer.
Klarna
Klarna Bank AB or Klarna, as it is commonly termed, is a Swedish fintech company that is mainly associated with online financial services to support payments for online storefronts, direct payments, and post-purchase payments. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and boasts of more than 3,000 employees, most of whom work from the headquarters.
With the latest investment round, Klarna announces an equity funding of $638 million. This equity funding has been led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, which was then followed by additional participation primarily from Adit Ventures, Honeycomb Asset Management, and WestCap Group. The latest round of funding raised the valuation of Klarna to $45.6 billion. This recent funding round is aimed to support the international expansion of the company and further capture global retail growth.
Eightfold AI
Eightfold AI, as the name indicates, is a Talent Intelligence platform powered by Artificial Intelligence. Eightfold AI announced on Thursday, June 10, 2021, that the company has been successful in raising a fund close to $220 million in the Series E funding round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
The company has been successful in raising more than $410 million to date, with around $350 million coming in the past six months. According to Eightfold AI’s Founder and CEO, Ashutosh Garg, the company will continue to use the funds to widen its operations in India, with investments focused on the most talented data scientists and engineers across the country. This way Eightfold AI would ensure that its funds are used for fast and effective growth and development of its talent intelligence platform and further expanding its growing partner ecosystem.
Whatfix
Whatfix is a SaaS-based company, which primarily focuses on providing in-app guidance and support for software products and web applications. In the Series D funding round of the company, Whatfix announced that it has raised $90 million. This recent round of funding was led by Softbank’s Vision Fund 2, followed by other participations including that of Eight Roads Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Dragoneer Investment Group, F-Prime Capital, and Cisco Investments.
Whatfix claims to have tripled its investments after the completion of this recent round of funding, according to TOI. The firm has reportedly raised around $139.8 million in the last segment alone and with that in, the company is presently valued at $600 million.
With the latest round of funding, Whatfix aims to strengthen its position in the US and look for further expansion in Europe and the Asia Pacific. It also strives to focus more on product innovation to provide personalized user experiences with effective use of Artificial Intelligence.
Here are a few other startups in which SoftBank’s Vision Fund have invested in
Name of the company
Year of Investment by SBVF
Amount of investment
Ola
2014
$210 million
Delhivery
2019
$350 million
Policy Bazaar
$200 million
OpenDoor Labs
2019
$300 million
Cameo
2021
$100 million
Banco Inter
2021
$471 million
Exeger
2019
$10 million
Zume Pizza
2018
$375 million
One Tap Buy
2018
$17.32 million
Compass
2018
$400 million
Conclusion
There was a lot of criticism with regard to the functionalities of Vision Fund. Many opinionated that the mode of its functioning was hitherto unseen. The loss it faced in the last year further sharpened the criticisms against it. However, it was able to come back with a bang and give a sharper reply to the critics through its economic performance.
The performance of the companies in which it invested is a testimony to the win of SoftBank as well. The Japanese multinational company has significantly helped a plethora of startups to ace in their business through the Vision Fund.
By extending help to startups, it also didn’t fall back in emerging as the biggest profit earning company in the history of Japanese companies. After a year of unprecedented loss it has emerged as one of the world’s biggest earning firms in the world. SoftBank and its Vision Fund will always remain as a ray of hope for all startups.
FAQ
Who owns SoftBank?
SoftBank’s founder and CEO is Masayoshi Son who is the third-richest person in Japan, with a $20.6 billion personal fortune. He owns $45 million worth of real estate in Tokyo as well as a $117.5 million estate in Silicon Valley.
What is SoftBank Vision Fund?
Softbank Vision Fund is the world’s biggest innovation-centered investment finance, with over $100 billion in the capital.
How does SoftBank earns?
SoftBank owns stakes in many technology, energy, and financial companies. It also runs Vision Fund, the world’s largest technology-focused venture capital fund.
“Rules of Hiring #1: If there is doubt, there is no doubt. Rules of Hiring #2: Always hire people who are smarter than you.”
-Sachin Bansal, Founder of Flipkart
Shashank ND | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Never hire someone to do your initial sales. In fact you should acquire your first hundred customers yourself”
Quoted by- Sashank ND, Founder of Practo
Abhishek Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Raise money from investors who are more excited about the BUSINESS or MARKET than the TEAM. They can help discover amazing opportunities”
Quoted by- Abhishek Goyal, Founder of Traxcn
Kunal Shah | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“I strongly believe all students should have a startup during college. Doesn’t matter if successful or how big or small. Worst case scenario it will make them 10x better employee than someone with no exposure to how a business works”
“If you fully accept the worst that can ever happen in your journey, fear won’t ever be an obstacle in starting-up”
Quoted by- Kunal Shah, Founder of Freecharge
Kunal Shah is the founder of FreeCharge, which recently got acquired by Axis Bank for $60 million. Before that, Snapdeal had acquired FreeCharge in the year 2015 for about $400 million. He has done his MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and studied at Wilson College, Mumbai.
Girish Mathrubootham | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Building a company is similar to building a product. Culture is the UX for employees & Support is the UX for customers.”
“Don’t be a jerk! Even if you are brilliant, don’t be a brilliant jerk.”
Quoted by- Girish Mathorrobootha, Founder of Freshworks
Girish Mathrubootham is the founder of Freshworks which is a software-based service company. Prior to this, he was the VP of Product Management at ZOHO Corporation.
Rahul Yadav | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“There is no secret ingredient. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.”
Quoted by- Rahul Yadav, Founder of Housing
Shradha Sharma | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“It’s a long long road. Sometimes all you need are people who pat your back and say, carry on. Thank you to everyone who encourages.”
Quoted by- Sharaddha Sharma, Founder of Yourstory
Ritesh Agarwal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Building predictability on top of market place economy is how new age businesses will get built. Super excited”
“It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than making something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like.”
Quoted by- Ritesh Agarwal, Founder of OYO
Ritesh Agarwal is founder of OYO which is India’s largest marketplace for branded and budget hotels. OYO Rooms worth over $1 Billion. He began working on the project in 2012. Agarwal started his venture in Gurgoan and it is now spread in 230 cities in India and also in countries like UAE, Nepal, China and many others.
Kunal Bahl | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“Scale is important for a startup. Think big, but take one day at a time.”
Quoted by- Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder of SnapDeal –
Co-founder of Snapdeal, Kunal Bahl, did his schooling from Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram and went to Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He and his friend Rohit Bansal launched this Indian startup in 2010. He worked with Microsoft at the beginning of his career. Today, his e-commerce platform is a huge success and is competing with Amazon and Flipkart.
Deepinder Goyal | Inspiring Indian Quotes
“The fundamental model of our business is that in mature markets we should make profits and they shouldn’t need any more outside money to grow.”
Quoted by- Deepinder Goyal, Founder Zomato
“If you want to walk fast, walk alone. But if you want to walk far, walk together.”
“I don’t believe in taking right decisions, I take decisions and make them right.”
Quoted by- Ratan Tata, Chairman of Tata Group
“However big or small, make it a good business, make it a clean business, make it a business you are very proud of.”
“Today I see a billion people as a billion potential consumers, an opportunity to generate value for them and to make a return for myself”
“It is important to achieve our goals, but not at any cost.”
Quoted by- Mukesh Ambani, CEO & Chairman of Reliance
“If people are not laughing at your goals, your goals are too small”
“Leadership is the self-confidence of working with people smarter than you.”
Quoted by- Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro
“Whether ecommerce companies make money or not, these logistics companies make revenue which is guaranteed for them by ecommerce transactions.”
Quoted by- Arvind Singhal, MD of Technopak
Arvind Singhal is graduate from IIT Roorkee and did his MBA from UCLA, USA. It is India’s leading Managing Consulting firm focusing on retail, consumer product, fashion-textiles and apparel and many more.
“The trade market is the place with the least scope for emotions, especially of fear and greed.”
Quoted by- Rachit Chawla, Co-Founder of Finway Capital
Rachit Chawla from Aston Business School has done his Bachelor’s in Commerce. He is the co-founder of Finway Capital. Finway Capital talks about loan funding. It funds people and helps creating wealth and give personal loans and insurance.
“Entrepreneurship is akin to riding a dragon – there are more ups and downs than you can ever imagine. But every challenge on the way only makes you stronger, and every failure only bears new learnings.”
Quoted by- Yatin Hans, Founder of Bigsmall
Yatin Hans, Bigsmall.in which promotes gifting culture in India. It gives unique and fun gifts to the Indian public. He has done his schooling from Heritage School and B.Com Honours from Delhi University. He later went to ESADE Business School to complete his Masters in Marketing.
“Human capital is the most precious of all forms of capital available”
Quoted by- Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Ryerson Futures Inc.
Ajay Ramasubramaniam, Director of Zone Startups, is promoting Indian operating system as well as initiatives including corporation innovation programs and thematic accelerators and has raised around Rs. 150 crores. He has done his MBA from Mumbai University in Finance and Marketing.
The Startup scene in India took off after it realized the potency of this sector. This was not because of some magic and it obviously didn’t happened overnight. This took a long time. It took off due to many internal reasons like massive Fundings, growth of Angel Investors chain, boom in technology and the need to change.
The startup ecosystem in India is the 4th largest in the world. India has produced some very famous startups like Paytm , OYO Rooms , Redbus , Zivame. In 2018, 8 startups were evaluated at $1 Billion. But among a ocean of startups, why only 8 ?
Is India a saturated market?
India stands unchallenged , holding the second spot in global population. It is a major economy that is dependent equally on both the rural and urban sides. However, major startups serves only the pat living in the urban areas. Due to this the population of the rural areas go unnoticed. The main problem is here. Too many startups are serving a very small part. This makes the economy more and more saturated. This chasing of very few customers by a lot of companies makes the startups to fail.
Problems for startups in India
Fear to take risk: A major problem is the Funding in India. Investors in India lack trust and the risk taking factor. Only a portion of investors have the will to give in to a new comer. Due to this a majority of startup population cannot succeed.
Startup rate of nations
Managing the Business: After a business takes off and starts to shape up it is required to be maintained well. Not only from this point. The founders should take care of the management from the start to prevent the company from going into problems like debts.
Pressure from the surroundings: There’s a term for people who gym. Its called ego lifting. Ego lifting is something that is born out of jealousy and pressure from friends. Startups also follow this. This leads to their downfall.
Why Foreign countries?
Countries abroad provide a lot of scope to Startups. Moving abroad gives the Startup a broader audience. A more technological advanced audience. Apart from all the money saving and tax reasons. Moving abroad also enables the startups to gain fame for being associated with foreign countries.
What we all already know is the fact that India doesn’t have a proper infrastructure. Our nation lacks financially, technologically. All this affects the infrastructure directly. Startups move abroad to use the better infrastructure.
Foreign countries have hubs and clusters. Countries like Estonia have special things to provide. They are minimal taxes, low rent places and many other things. Countries like these have there own angel investors chain. Different countries specialise in different sectors. For example Israel is known fro its strong base in Security and Agriculture.
Sales
When it comes to population or number of customers. India is not behind. So, wheres the issue? The issue lies in the fact that not a major portion of the population is through with the technological advancements. Not many are interested to know about what goes around in the world. This narrows the range for any startup in India.
To increase the sales and the range startups move abroad.
Finding Money
To find money one should know where to look. Only 8 Indian startups made about $1 Billion in a year. The failure rate is much more than the success. So, current India is not a place to look for money. Due to this not many investors come forward in order to fund the startups.
So, Indian startups move abroad to get the investments rolling. Above this the population outside India has a very acceptable mindset.
“Businesses, by very definition, are aspirational and going international is part of it. It gives more exposure, better access to financial investors, and of course a hope of revenue growth,” said Yugal Joshi, vice-president of Texas-based consulting firm Everest Group.
Favourite countries for Startups
Serbia
In the recent few years Serbia has seen US companies building up operations there. Serbia is changing rapidly to evolve into a hub for application development , programming and IT outsourcing. The reasons behind this sudden change is the multilingual and well educated population. They also provide for fancy and attractive incentives for IT investments from other countries.
Australia
The countries small yet talented workforce and closeness to Asian markets, makes this a good option for startups. The country also attracts a lot of immigrants who are highly qualified.
Estonia is a place with one of the highest per capita rate in terms of startups. Estonia is the most suitable place for entrepreneurs. It has a very entrepreneur friendly tax policy. It provides many attractive incentives to foreign investors.
India too appears in the list for suitable places. But the country is still like molding clay. It is still building and it would take time. It would take time to generate investors or a proper ecosystem. But for now India is not a suitable ground to play for startups.
In this time of pandemic, China is pushing borders against India and other neighboring countries.China has a powerful and bigger weapon and that is Economy and that is why China is getting political. China is using its economy to dominate our neighbouring countries and thus it is becoming a superpower.
It is the worst time for India to go on a war as our economy is down and this war couldn’t be won by money as China has its allies around us. It is helping our neighbouring countries in infrastructure and other projects but if no one uses them, it becomes difficult for these countries to pay back China. China also overstates his own bills and there comes China again and asks to handle the operations and takes control over these infrastructures so that it can use these bases as military base in times of war and be prepared. In case, the war is held, it will be from all the sides as we are surrounded by China’s allies. China has a military base in Africa and it is using it to threaten U.S. However, India is taking serious precautions to make China realise that it will impact their economy as well.
Although this is not for the first time as the supporting stand of China towards Pakistan pot URI attack also led to a campaign to boycott Chinese products in India. However, this time, many social media influencers are coming up with several reasons to boycott Chinese products to spread awareness among Indian citizens. I would like to share some YouTube links which are helpful to understand the agenda of China for using Economy as a weapon against India:- SonamWangchuk
Baba Ramdev
These videos will also help in understanding the reasons to boycott Chinese products. There are many alternatives available for the Chinese apps and if we start using these alternative apps instead of the Chinese apps, it will affect the economy of China. As India is the biggest importer of Chinese goods and trade deficit of India with China is one of the biggest between two trading partners. A boycott is only possible if we start using alternatives from other countries or we become self-reliance as our honorable Prime minister wanted to say and import substitution can be done. If we will be able to boycott Chinese products completely then China will be in a situation where he will need to think twice before waging a war against any neighbouring countries. Our country now needs to manufacture products which are ‘Made in India’ but are ‘Made for the world’.
Here are some examples, how Indians are totally depend on Chinese apps and using them continuously and on daily basis and these apps are the reason behind the growth of Chinese Economy:
According to facts provided by some news and personals, China is using the data from the Chinese invested apps and Chinese apps to gain information and also some information have been hacked by China through these apps as well.Recently a person from Vadodara Twitter account was hacked and the access point were seen as China. He stated that his account was synced with Pubg mobile and that might be the reason of hacking. China is a stakeholder in the company Tencent which has developed Pubg. Now this becomes more important to boycott these Chinese apps, to protect your data and information and also in order to support India so that China’s biggest weapon can be used against them.
India is also trying their best to deal with China and make them taste their own medicine. They have reviewed the FDI so that Indian can’t Chinese puppet like our neighbouring countries. We are late but we are not in China’s trap and we have learnt the truth about China’s economy.
Vocal For Local campaign
Prime Minister Modi in his address to the nation on May 12, 2020 launched a ‘VOCAL FOR LOCAL‘ campaign. He urged the citizens of India to buy and promote local goods and brands. The Prime Minister further said that global brands were once local but when people started supporting them they went global.
It is known that India and China are the two fastest growing economies in the world and India is the largest importer of Chinese goods and services in the world.
The trade deficit between India and China is the largest among the major trading partners. It is interesting to note that India imports about seven times more from China than it exports. India imports more than $ 50 billion worth of goods from China and exports $ 2.5 billion worth of goods to China.
It is a known fact that Chinese products are very cheap compared to their Indian counterparts. In addition, the Chinese government also provides subsidies to its exporters. India spends around 9% on transportation, energy etc., but this cost is nil by the import duty imposed on China by India. To avoid import duties, many Chinese companies use trans-shipment routes — sending goods to Bhutan and then India.
Globalization has spread its roots so deep in our lives and the supply chain is so interconnected, the productions process is so complex that it is difficult to isolate one country and boycott it’s goods completely but as Mr. Sonam Wangchuk mentioned, systematic and phased boycott is possible. We can starts from stop using the Chinese software in a week and hardware in a year. We need to constantly make efforts to ease the business environment in India and bring out labour reforms and look for less expensive alternatives which will take time but it is the time to make some uncommon decisions that will impact our lives and will help Indian Economy and will impact Chinese Economy as well.
The Confederation of All-India Traders (CAIT)
CAIT
A traders’ organization, on Sunday expressed solidarity with the Ladakh-based educational reformer and visionary Sonam Wangchuk’s appeal to boycott Chinese goods. Tension between India and China, the man who inspired Bollywood blockbuster “3 Idiots”, has appealed and asked Indians to boycott all Chinese companies. In a tweet, the engineer-turned-education reformer asked people to boycott all Chinese products in Ladakh to stop Beijing’s “bullying” and to free 1.4 billion bonded labourers in the country.
CAIT, which claims to represent seven crore merchants, said it had identified around 3,000 categories of heavily imported Chinese products “which should be immediately replaced by Indian products as good quality for such products Indian replacements are available “
CAN INDIA REALLY BOYCOTT CHINESE PRODUCTS
India imports many raw materials as well as finished products like steel, minerals etc. from China. When it comes to boycott imports from China, this can only be done in the case of finished goods but the import of raw materials from China cannot be stopped.
India also imports consumer durable like electrical appliances, mobile phones, cars etc. Medicinal drugs like leprosy, antibiotics etc. from China. In addition, the Chinese smartphone market accounts for $ 8 billion of India’s smartphone market (Lenovo, Oppo, Vivo, etc.). If India planned to boycott Chinese products, India’s GDP would fall drastically.
After the launch of ‘Make in India‘ campaign by Prime Minister Modi, many Chinese companies have set up their units in India, employing hundreds of thousands of workers in India. If India boycott Chinese products, these companies may face pressure from Chinese authorities to stop their production in India, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed.
As mentioned above, India imports about seven times more from China than its exports. If India plans to boycott Chinese products than find an alternative that can match the cost and availability is almost impossible. Thus, India’s GDP can be contracted.
5- It is interesting to note that almost every product we use has a little bit of China. Smartphones, laptops, air conditioners, etc. which we use in our daily life, some parts are manufactured in China.
We must understand that the present process of manufacturing is interlinked. For example, a phone is made with the help of Chinese laborers and land, investment from a different country says that the US has made an innovation from Japan and can end the Made in India apps. Every product has the same process when it comes to labor, investment, innovation, etc. Thus, it can be concluded that each nation cannot be separated nor its good can be boycotted.
Many countries in the world started boycotting products from various countries, but were unsuccessful due to the complex manufacturing process. Some of them are listed below:
1- In 1930, China tried to boycott all Japanese products to protest against the Japanese colony, but failed.
2- In 2003, the US attempted to boycott French goods after 9/11 in protest of France’s refusal to send troops to Iraq but then failed.
SO IS THERE ANY ALTERNATIVE?
Sonam Wangchuk
Recently, Sonam Wangchuk answered several questions on the boycott of Chinese products. He said that the customer is king. This means that consumers should stop using Chinese products. He chanted a boycott of China’s software in a week, hardware in a year, finished and non-essential products in a year, and systemic boycott of essential products, raw materials, etc. in the coming years.
We can also implement the import-substitution method in India to boycott Chinese products. This means that the products we import from China can be manufactured in India, but in the short term this is impossible.
The Indian government should reduce the rates at which loans are issued to Indian companies like China. In addition, the government should provide infrastructure, services, etc. to prepare Indian companies to compete with China. India may boycott Made in China products but in a systematic and planned manner as stated by Sonam Wangchuk.
Shubham Kumar
