Inspirational, innovative, creative mind, and a Kashmiri full of encouragement are the words that come in mind when we talk about the entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo.

What made him succeed?

Whenever, according to society, he was successful, he switched and started doing something else.

How can someone who is not following the social norms be inspiring?

How can someone Quit his own company Groupon and other significant companies willingly in his right mind and still taste the fruit of success?

We are going to feed all of your curious minds but let’s start with the central question

What made a middle-class Kashmiri Pandit from a Warikoo clan this successful?

In a world where no one is paying attention to develop creative minds. Where primary focus is to mass-produce engineers.

Where if you don’t opt science after 10^th or if you wish to follow your dreams.

You will be considered a loser.

In that kind of horrifying world, Ankur Warikoo Born on August 25, 1980, is a rebel from the very beginning of his career.

Now, He was clueless on what to do like any other person he took advice from his friends, family. All collectively suggested him to do an MBA. He started doing an MBA but that too with a twist he chose the Indian School Of Business, which was not very popular back then and was brand new and expensive.

Yes, just like that Although he had a word with his father, who was shocked as any father would. But Ankur had made up his mind, so he came back to India.So He Quit.A man with a motto to ‘Do Epic Shit’ writes a Gratitude letter every day. He has faced many hurdles but overcame every single one of them. When he went to do P.h.D. in physics, he was very good at what he was learning there. But he realized that was not something that he loved. Completing his P.H.D. was not making him excited enough to continue.

I am highlighting the expense part because Ankur was not very wealthy back then, and being in a middle-class family, his father was not either. So to enter that business school, he had to take a loan of whooping 14 Lakhs, which was a huge amount back then.

And for what?

His father asked him. And his father was right on his part. Indian School of business had no track record as it was new. “There was no return of investment,” his father said. Ankur even asked that “ what’s the guarantee that you won’t come back to square one after this course” and to that, Ankur answered, “there’s no guarantee, but this is what that makes me happy, and I want to pursue it.”

He did he gave the exam and got selected, then took admission and completed his MBA with flying colors. He learned many things from the interactions which he had with different people.

Ankur Warikoo’s family members

Ankur warikoo is happily married to Ruchi Budhiraja Warikoo. She is Ankur’s high school sweetheart. She met her when he was in the Hindu college, and she was in Miranda house. They were introduced to each other on the way to college on a bus where almost everyday Ruchi with her group use to play dumb charades. She is the only one who understand and supports him unconditionally. They were blessed with a child who they named Vidur.

After MBA 

After completing his MBA, he landed a job at A.T.Kearney. as a management consultant. He met with so many people, made some great friends who helped him. But once again, when everything was going on smoothly, and his parents were happy, he did something which was not very assuring to his father.

Ankur was contacted about an idea to provide a second chance of marriage to the ones who were not satisfied with the first. And that was Secondshaddi.com. He joined him and was working on this project after the office and on weekends. But after some time, this business became successful and needed more attention to succeed even further.

So, he again went to his father and told him that he wants to quit and join a website called secondshaddi.com without any salary ( all the profit was being re-invested). At this time, his father lost his cool, but still, Ankur managed to persuade him and joined secondshaddi.com full time. They ran it for 1.5 years, sold it, and made a profit.

He was again uncertain as to what to do further with his life. He joined rocket internet for some time then became CEO of Near buy worked for four years. And now, after all the hard work, he and his team made the company cash-flow positive. Now you all must be thinking that he had changed. But no, he again will step down from his position of CEO from Near buy this November.

Ankur Warikoo said

“It’s been such a pleasure and honor leading the company for all these years. I am so proud of the team we have built, the culture we have established, and the relationships we have formed in the ecosystem,”

Ankur is going to leave the company in the hands of Ravi Shankar and Snehesh Mitra.

What will Ankur Warikoo do now?

He is uncertain. Uncertainty has always excited him, and that constant fear of the unknown is terrific. Never regret if you made any decision. If you fail, never give excuses. Failures will teach you but never be comfortable with them. Always play to win. Your best shot is only best if you win. He is not sure of what he will do next, but he still is happy and is trying to live each moment.

The post Ankur Warikoo- The Definition of success (OR Uncertainty is exciting) appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

This acquisition was no ordinary deal by any sense. It was one of the most expensive acquisition deals in the history of ad tech space. Today the deal certainly shines as the biggest milestone in Divyank’s two-decade old entrepreneurial journey that was started when he was as young as 14 years old. Not to mention the deal made him one of the youngest billionaires of the country.

And least if we forget that Divyank is only 35 years old. He touched the pinnacle of success at an age when either most people are forced to endure midlife crises or are still busy wondering whether they should embark on the entrepreneurial journey or not.

This young man unarguably can be called as the encyclopedia of entrepreneurship. The rich entrepreneurial wisdom that he brings on the table can be truly matched by only few young entrepreneurs. Hence I didn’t have think twice for bringing some important extracts from Divyank Turakhia’s recent interview with a popular online startup publication.

This interview was conducted barely hours after Divyank quit Media.net, which leaves this young entrepreneur with a new road to chart and probably script another memorable entrepreneurial success. Below are some of the important excerpts from this interview.

Entrepreneurs ought to think about the long term

Divyank minces no words to firmly perpetuate the already strong perception that startups or for that matter any business is a long run affair. He claims that if any entrepreneur starts a business with an assumption that success will somehow filter in within few years then he is pursuing a self-defeated quest

“As you run the business, you have to think in terms of running it perpetually and, along the way, certain options may come which may or may not make sense, but you evaluate them as they come and focus on running the business,” he says. 

And, of course, this young entrepreneur can’t overstate enough the importance of ‘failure.’ He unequivocally says that it is not only important to keep failing fast, but also learn from them to keep charting ahead to achieve success.

“I have made several mistakes and I also learned a lot from other people’s mistakes so that I don’t repeat them,” Divyank claims. He further adds that it was only through series of mistakes that he learnt the importance of taking tough decisions, especially decisions pertaining to firing someone.

Divyank has also learnt a great deal about entrepreneurship and also day-to-day life because of his voracious reading habit. A habit that he has still manages to practice despite his extremely busy schedule. To give an idea about how much importance Divyank attaches to reading then he spends nearly 800-1,000 hours a year in reading books.

He, however, doesn’t read only entrepreneurship related books. His books hail from diverse background – from fiction & non-fiction to autobiographical books.

On Indian startup Ecosystem

Divyank has a blunt answer as to whether Indian startup ecosystem can be really as big as its Chinese counterpart in next 5 years. And his blunt answer is ‘no.’ He specifically blames India’s macroeconomics for this. He justifies his assumption on the basis that even though today India is among top 10 countries in economic size, but the country still lags behind in per captia income.

Divyank argues that Indians have only so much money to spend. He, however, says that the limitation in the domestic market should propel Indian startups to have global dream.

 “We can build from India, but don’t necessarily have to focus only here.”  

He argues that if American and Chinese companies can come here then why Indian companies can’t do the same. Not only is their market size larger but even their per capita income is much higher.

Additional note: The interview was originally published on Inc42

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Over the years Indian startup ecosystem has fleshed out several rags to riches billionaire stories. These stories undoubtedly serve as great inspiration for today ’s generations and they will continue to do so even for the coming generation. But in case some of you as budding as well as startup entrepreneurs want inspiration at this very moment then this article will offer you more than a helping hand. In this article, we have brought brief stories of 5 entrepreneurs, who once started their companies with humble beginnings but over the years their efforts transformed these companies into mammoth success.

As fortunes of these companies grew so did the fortunes of their founders, propelling them to the long list of India’s self-made billionaires. So without wasting any further time let’s check out the inspiring stories of these entrepreneurs.

Sridhar Vembu

Company: Zoho Corporation

Headquarter: Chennai  

Employee strength: 7000

Top competitors: Google, Microsoft & Salesforce     

Today as CEO of Zoho Corp. (formerly AdventNet Inc.), Sridhar Vembu is heading a company whose market valuation surpasses beyond $1 Bn. His company has achieved this stellar market valuation without taking help of any external funding. But what makes his success appear even more stellar is his humble background. Having grown up in a modest middle class family, taking tough challenge of entrepreneurship was a far cry for this young lad. The only option that he could have possibly settled for was to take up a secure job and forget about his entrepreneurship pursuit forever.

But after working as wireless systems engineer at Qualcomm for a considerable time, Vembu decided to take incredible leap of faith. This Buddha moment led him to start Zoho Corp in 1996. A company that offers online business, network, and IT infrastructure management applications.

Over more than a decade, Vembu’s small humble company has grown into one of the most respectable companies in the I.T. industry. Today the company successfully competes with big giants like Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.

Currently, Zoho Corp is on such a strong financial footing that it continues to resist external funding. In a day and age, where fundraising is considered as a stepping stone to success, Vembu is immensely proud that his company remains a completely bootstrapped. In all probability, this highly successful I.T Company will remain bootstrapped as long as he is in the helm of the affair.

Arokiaswamy Velumani

Company: Thyrocare

Thyrocare’s market valuation: 3,377 crore

 Number of Thyrocare branches: 1,122   

Today Arokiaswamy Velumani is the owner of the world’s largest thyroid testing company. But this is just one part of the story, the other part of the story is far more compelling and the one that will fill you with huge inspiration.

Velumani was born in a poor landless farmer family in a remote Tamil Naidu village. His crippling poverty meant that he had to take the help of government subsidies to complete his BSC degree. His financial troubles, however, did not end even after his college education.

His first job as a shift chemist at Gemini Capsules paid him measly Rs 150 per month. Worse, the company shutdown barely three years after Velumani had joined, leaving him jobless. But as luck would have it, he soon found a job at BARC in Mumbai, where he worked for almost 14 years.

Before quitting his stable job, Velumani had more than made his mind to start a thyroid testing company. To start this new venture, all he had in his hand was merely 1,00,000, which actually came from his provident fund. Back then odds were clearly staked against this man, who neither had the pedigree in entrepreneurship nor the networking clout.

However, Velumani was too tough a person to let his business fizzle under pressure. If anything, his company Thyrocare kept rising above the challenges that kept coming in its way. And today this thyroid testing company stands as a subject of great envy as well as inspiration for all.

Today Thyrocare boasts 1,122 outlets across India, Bangladesh, Nepal and the Middle East. Listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, currently Thyrocare is worth approximately Rs 3,377 crore. Velumani owns 64% stake in the company, which makes him worth 2,158 crore.

Kailash Katkar

Company: Quick Heal

Market Valuation: Rs 200 crore

Employees: 1200 – 1500

Kaliash Katkar is the brainchild behind Quick Heal, India’s best known computer software security company. This is a man who is a school dropout and once did odd jobs to survive, but today owns a company that is worth almost Rs 200 crore. Mr. Katkar’s s story has all the virtues of a perfect underdog story.

Katkar’s inspiring success is even more overwhelming, considering that before starting Quick Heal his knowledge about computer software was almost zero. This brings us to an intriguing question as to how did this man thought of starting an anti-virus company. Well, Quick Heal’s genesis was laid by Katkar’s younger brother Sanjay, who developed a basic model of antivirus software. This was way back in 1993, when computer was on its way to become predominant force in India.

Both Katkar brothers sensed a fantastic market opportunity. They somehow knew that increasing computer penetration across India would pave way for the need for an affordable anti-virus software.

Their gut instinct and hard work was slowly and steadily vindicated. And today Quick Heal stands as India’s most successful anti-virus company.

P C MUSTAFA

Company: ID Fresh

Revenue: Rs 100 crore

Employees: 1,100 to 1,500

P C Mustafa knew very early on what it means to be a poor. Born to a father who worked as coolie, Mustafa had endured worst poverty even before he could properly stand on his feet. However, poverty somehow failed to tame this young lad as he kept vying for opportunities that could give him and his family a dignified life.

Interestingly, he saw this opportunity in Idli batter. Feed up with low quality Idli batters that were sold across the shop, Mustafa decided to start a company called ID Fresh. The idea behind ID Fresh was to offer high quality Idli batter at affordable cost.

Mustafa’s idea not only clicked but soared so high that his once small company is today making revenue of more than Rs 100 crore. From producing 10 packets of Idli batter in 2005, today ID Fresh produces more than 75,000 packets. Currently, the ID Fresh brand is so popular that it is reaching millions of homes across all the prominent Indian cities.

Patricia Narayan   

Achievement: Successful owner of restaurant chains

Earning: 2 Lakh per day

Today Patricia Narayan is running chain of successful restaurants and is earning almost 2 lakh every day. She may not be running a million dollar empire, but this hardly diminishes her success. In fact, the odds that stood in her way makes her success story even more special.

A failed marriage had left her absolutely broke. Worse, she had two kids to feed and take care of. This grim reality forced her to make living from selling eateries from mobile cart on Marina beach in Chennai. In those tough days, Patricia would have never thought even in her wildest dreams that one day she would be earning in lakhs.

She started making inroads to success when she started expanding her eatery business and this eventually lead to starting of a full-fledged restaurant. Today this full-fledged restaurant has grown into chain of restaurants, with more than 200 employees working under Patricia Narayan.

Of course, this awe-inspiring success was not achieved in short span of time. It took this gritty woman almost three decades to redeem her life and proudly stand on her feet. She even won the prestigious FICCI Women Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010.

The post Awe inspiring stories of Five Rags to Riches Entrepreneurs appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.