Today Velumani, after all, is at the helm of a thyroid testing company – Thyrocare Technologies – that is worth Rs 3,600 crore. His miraculous entrepreneurial journey has earned him a title ‘maverick entrepreneur.’ Someone who believes in unconventional wisdom and not tested & standard ideas.

Through this article, we are bringing some of the important anecdotes from the life of this maverick entrepreneur. Tracing his journey from poverty stricken life in a small village in Tamil Nadu to circumstances that inspired him to build a multi-billion dollar company.

Poverty taught him to be a chronic optimist        

The one important lesson that poverty taught Velumani early on was the importance of having a stubborn positive attitude. As a small boy, who could barely pay his school fees, he knew that only his dogged positive attitude could rescue his family from endless humiliation of poverty. With the help of this resolute attitude, he somehow managed to complete his graduation in Chemistry from a local college in Coimbatore.

The college degree was his hope to get a decent paying job and bring a sense of dignity for his family. He did manage to find a job as a chemist in a tablet manufacturing company in 1978. But his pay was measly Rs 150 per month, which in those days was still not good enough to feed a large poor family.

Velumani’s hopes to find a good paying job were continuously dashed by his lack of experience. Worse, the company he worked for soon closed down, leaving him once again jobless. But his chronic attitude to always see a glass as half-full ensured that he kept looking for better opportunities.

His perseverance eventually paid off as he secured a post of scientific assistant at Bhaba Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai. In 1980’s to have a government job with a decently monthly pay of Rs 880 was nothing short of a dream. After seizing this once elusive dream, Velumani was finally able to lift his family from lap of poverty.

Velumani’s urge to come out of his cozy job

Feeling suffocated and trapped in your own comfort zone is probably the first step towards entrepreneurial journey. Velumani was well into his job at BARC for more than a decade, when guilt feeling of living an uninspired life started getting better off him. By the time these feelings became too evident, he had completed his post-graduation and also doctorate in thyroid biochemistry through a collaborative program between BARC and Mumbai University. The knowledge and exposure about thyroid that he got through this program was eventually going to help him in building a highly successful company.

But well before that Velumani was caught in a dilemma over whether he should take a leap of faith or remained caught in an uninspiring job forever. He finally did take a leap of faith in 1995, quitting his 15 year old good paying job at BARC.

Back then, virtually no one except for his wife, supported his decision to venture into gritty path of entrepreneurship. Today Velumani rightfully describe his wife as ‘apple of his life.’

Backed with a supportive wife, Velumani started Thyrocare Technologies from small capital Rs 1 lakh from a 200 sq ft rented garage at Byculla, Mumbai. He had sourced most of his capital from his hard earned provident fund.

So the monumental struggle to build Thyrocare begins

As is well-known, entrepreneurial journey is always laced with sacrifice and unimaginable hardship. But Velumani had endured enough poverty in his life to get deterred by unforeseeable hardship that his entrepreneurial journey was going to entail for him.

The first sacrifice that he and his wife made was cutting down on their monthly expenses. They became extremely frugal and saved as much as they could to save for their new business.

But real sacrifices are made when an entrepreneur toils hard to build his business from scratch. For Velumani, litmus test of his sacrificing skills started from the very first month as he was the lone warrior for his company. He used to personally visit from labs to hospitals to collect samples. There were even times when he walked almost 10 to 12 kms only to collect samples. Covering such long distances effortlessly was something that he had learnt when once his life was languishing in the lap of poverty.

In the initial days, Thyrocare did testing of only 300 samples every day. Those were days when hospitals and labs charged expensively for thyroid testing, but their quality of testing was very poor. Velumani poured all his expertise knowledge about thyroid biochemistry in his pursuit to raise the quality of Thyroid testing.

The great thing was that he succeeded in this pursuit while charging highly affordable fees from his clients. Offering quality at highly affordable price always proves winning proposition for any business and this is what helped Thyrocare to overcome to all the seeming & unseeing challenges in the initial years.

By 1998, i.e. within three years, Thyrocare achieved turnover of Rs 1 crore and increased its employee strength by manifold. By this time it was also operating 50 franchises across different parts of the country.

With business growing at a berserk pace, Thyrocare obviously felt the need for a better and advanced laboratory. Hence the company soon shifted its main laboratory to Navi Mumbai, which today acts as its headquarter and also central processing laboratory. This laboratory with its state-of-the-art facilities has today undeniably become a huge boon for the company. It boasts several advanced facilities and instruments that are not widely available across the country.

But today Velumani’s company doesn’t deal only with thyroid testing. Today the company has successfully transformed into diagnostic laboratory company, covering more than 200 tests and 50-odd profiles under its brand name Aarogyam. However, despite venturing into different diagnostic space, thyroid testing still remains Thyrocare’s core business. Thyroid testing continues to account for substantial part of company’s profit & revenue.

Thyrocare’s IPO moment in 2016

When Velumani launched Thyrocare in a small garage room in Byculla, little did he knew then that one day his company would become huge enough to launch an successful IPO. That unexpected momentous occasion came in 2016, when Thyrocare became India’s only second diagnostic company to be listed in India’s stock market.

Thyrocare’s IPO was oversubscribed more than 73 times. Investor’s stupendous faith reflected company’s strong fundamentals and phenomenal success achieved over the years. Today the company is valued approximately Rs 3,600 crore, with Velumani owing majority 60% stake in the company. This makes Velumani, who once walked to school barefoot, one of India’s proud self-made billionaires.

Velumani’s unconventional business wisdom   

While most companies understandably gives huge importance to experience while recruiting employees, Velumani chose to defy this conventional wisdom. Hence even today Thyrocare’s 95% employees are fresher while only 3 – 4% employees are experienced.

Velumani claims that company’s heavy tilt towards fresher employees is not merely driven by economic factor. He argues fresher employees bring along with them youthful exuberance and dynamic energy that can turn fortunes of any company.

The post Arokiaswamy Velumani: How a son of Landless farmer built Rs 3,600 crore Diagnostic Company appeared first on Platform to Showcase Innovative Startups and Tech News.

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.