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Dinesh Agarwal-From A Worker In Railways To Creating $2 billion Company

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Everyone looks up to the owner of IndiaMART as the Ideal Businessman from India owning the biggest B2B Marketplace having a revenue of $2 billion (Rs. 225 Crore). Do you know that Dinesh Agarwal whose company Indiamart wrapped Delhi Metro with its banners once worked with Indian Railways to oversee the computerized reservations system of the New Delhi Railway Station.

There has been ups and down, dot-com bust, market crash, but with a clear Goal in his mind, hard work and dedication, he succeeded in executing things in the right manner.

Never Give Up

IndiaMART was founded in 1996, a time when internet did not have many users. Many in India didn’t even have an internet connection at that time, and Dinesh Agarwal made a B2B Market place, even before the world’s largest b2b Market place, Alibaba got registered. He has been risk taker and visionary, a must trait for any entrepreneur.

During his early days he himself used to write the names and addresses of small businesses from his apartment in East Delhi. He himself went to the Post Office to deposit huge bundles of envelopes in order to get the contact details of business firms across India to list them on IndiaMART. He sent letters to at least half a million businesses.

His website did not have much traffic initially since having a computer and internet connection was a luxury. He made efforts to convince businessmen to get registered on his portal during those days when internet used to be pretty slow, mostly dial up with 56 Kbps. He used to stand up in front of Pragati Maidan in New Delhi for getting forms filled by everyone who came there and created their web pages on IndiaMart.

Dinesh Agarwal IndiaMART

He believed that internet was going to be the primary source of communication in the future and would connect the whole world and make life easy. He was in US when he first used the internet and was fascinated, as finding anything got easy with Internet. It is then he planned  about doing something related to software and internet in India.

He came from a traditional business family and knew that small and medium enterprises have a significant market share in all terms from generating employment to manufacturing goods. Hence he thought of connecting them in an online business directory. IndiaMart started as a listing site and then evolved into a business supply store. During 1997-1998, he succeeded in getting 100 paying clients on board.

Surviving Market Downturn

His company was among one of the few survivors that survived market downturns. After the 9/11 attacks, the global market was going through a bad phase but Dinesh did not fire any employee, he instead took steps like cost cutting and delaying salary hikes till things back to normal.

Tolexo and ABCPaymemts

Dinesh Agarwal did not stop at IndiaMart; he started an online Payment Gateway named ABCPayments.com in 2004 and Tolexo.com, an eCommerce website for industry equipment in 2014.

His company IndiaMART is targeting a revenue of 20 billion by 2020. Today the company has more than 100,000 paying customers and 2.2 million suppliers on its platform with 55 offices and more than 2400 employees scattered across 100 cities.

All this would not have been possible if he hadn’t taken the first step, he implemented his ideas and never lost focus, believing that it will happen without worrying how it’s going to, since then he never looked back.

 

 

Alexis Ohanian’s journey from a waiter at Pizza hut to running Reddit

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Alexis Ohanian is a popular name in the entrepreneurial world as he co-founded one of the biggest content sharing sites, Reddit. Ohanian was born in the year 1983 in New York and had his schooling in Maryland. He completed his graduation in Commerce and History from the University of Virginia in 2005. Although he had no formal education in technical field and was not much aware of the business world that time yet the desire to achieve something big in life kept enlightening his hopes. And his persistent efforts and hard work to get what he wanted turned out to be fruitful. His journey to success had not been a cakewalk. He considered every failure as a stepping stone in his path and accepted the challenges to secure the desired aim.

Ohanian’s first job as a waiter at Pizza Hut played an important role in making him a successful entrepreneur. He has set a very inspiring example for all those who wish t o reach at the pedestal of success that no job is big or small in itself and every task has its own importance. Waiting at the tables for customers gave him much experience to deal in customer service which is a crucial part of every business.

While Alexis Ohanian was studying in the University of Virginia, he shared his room with Steve Huffman who was a student of Computer Science. The beginning of the journey towards the business world could be traced from the room they lived in. It is after befriending Huffman that Alexis got some idea of programming and technology. Steve Huffman discussed his dream idea of opening a food app with Alexis and got positive response from him. This encouraged Steve’s spirit and he insisted Alexis to take the idea further and discuss it with the programming expert Paul Graham.

Although Graham rejected the idea of food app but the talent and spark in the duo made him welcome both Alexis and Steve to work with him and their working together gave birth to the idea of Reddit. Surprisingly the site took only 3 months to be built and from then on Alexis Ohanian and his partners never looked back. Movement is the basic mantra of life, all you have to keep yourself away from is stagnation.

Image Credit: Wikiepedia
Image Credit: Wikipedia

The world fell in the awe of Reddit
The foundation of Reddit in June 2005 created a storm in the techno world as it was one of the earliest websites that offered social news, discussion and web content rating. Alexis Ohanian managed to get the initial funding from Y Combinator. However, later in the year 2006 when the website gained much of popularity, Conde Naste proposed to acquire the company while Ohanian still being one of the members of Reddit’s Boards of Directors.

Alexis Ohanian’s exit from Reddit
After serving the company for about four years, Alexis Ohanian took an exit from the company in 2009. After leaving the company Alexis didn’t just simply sit back at his home rather he looked out for opportunities wherever he found better prospects.

After deciding to leave Reddit, Alexis worked as a fellow in a micro finance company for three months where he gained more knowledge about technology, marketing and business.

Never ending quest for stability
Ohanian’s journey with technology and computers began with Reddit and such was its seduction upon him that he clung to it even after. In the mid of 2010 he established another company aiming to deal with startups, consulting and advising. The company he named as Das Kapital Capital focused on helping the new youths who wish to turn stones in the entrepreneurial field but possess less knowledge and experience. He also opened many other websites like Hipmunk and Breadpig to keep himself constantly in touch with the techno world.

Alexis Ohanian is also a wonderful speaker and internet activist. He stood against Congress’s protests against online piracy and spoke so confidently that he is known as one of the best speakers in the field of internet and technology. In October 2012, Ohanian worked in collaboration with Erik Martin, the General Manager of Reddit to support the open internet during the debates of President and Vice President.

Alexis was mentioned as important figure in the technology industry by Forbes magazine in 2012. In 2015, Alexis was accused to have played an important role in the firing of Reddit’s communications director Victoria Taylor. Ohanian is supposed to be in a relationship with Serena Williams.

How an IIT dropout became the ‘Bad Boy’ of Indian Startups

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Every idea is not meant to be successful in long run but what matters is your intention and focus. The story of the founder of Housing.com, Rahul Yadav speaks the same. Like most of the youngsters who belong to a middle class family, Yadav too had a target to settle down with a decent college and then a good job. But life had different plans for Yadav and this is why even after joining IIT Bombay in the year 2007 he could not fit in there.

Love for Programming

Although Yadav enrolled himself to study metallurgy but he figured out that this department was not his final destination. He carried on with his thirst for the right place unless he found the well of computers and programming to quench it. While in college he built an online question bank with the name Exambaba.com, for the students of engineering which provided them with the old question papers of IIT Bombay. His interest towards computers led him to drop his college and enter into the world of entrepreneurship. Life changing ideas always involve sincere effort, risk and out of the box thinking and Rahul Yadav was all game for it.

Rahul Yadav
Image Credit: Wikipedia

Foundation of Housing.com

The biggest problem faced by anyone  coming to a metropolitan city is of finding a proper accommodation. Rahul Yadav after coming to Bombay dealt with the same issue and this left a deep imprint on his mind. Therefore, after dropping out from college to start a venture the first and foremost thought that came to his mind was of creating an online market from where people can easily look out for houses to rent or buy. This startup was founded by Yadav with 11 of his classmates and was launched in 2012 with Yadav holding the responsibility of CEO of the company. The company started off well and acquired much attention both from the investors and the public. Many renowned and well-known investors like Haresh Chawla, Nexus Venture Partners, Softbank Cpital and Qualcomm Ventures came forward to invest in the company. Housing.com amassed the funding more than $150 million in the year 2014 and set itself as one of the established firm in the market.

Falling off the position

The first 2 years of the company turned out to be splendid ones with a good amount of funding as well as popularity among the mass. With the great success of the company more and more members began adding up to maintain the pace of company’s progress. Everything seemed to be at its place and it seemed as if the graph of their success would continue to grow. But the wheel of time never waits for anyone to turn its direction.

Right from the beginning of 2015 things turned out to grow worse in the business and within no time the company’s graph faced a steep downfall. It is believed that this was the outcome of Yadav’s rash and impulsive actions. His indulgence in controversies seemed to be more than his focus on the business. He was very vocal  against his competitors than taking his own company and plans forward. And as a result of his consistent involvement in controversies he was fired from the company in June 2015.

Rahul Yadav came into the spotlight for a number of controversial statements he made against his competitors including the founder of Zomato, the CEO of Infosys and the founder of Ola. Also his bold announcement of distributing his company shares worth $30 million among the employees created a tumult in the business world. He also sent some controversial mails to the company’s investors which resulted in further soaring his relationship with the board.

With all these controversies, the board of directors of the Housing.com made a unanimous decision of firing Rahul Yadav for he was too straightforward to do the business.

His New Venture: The return of Rahul Yadav

Yadav was never among those who would be thrashed by a failure or a defeat. He had much experience in standing again on his legs even after falling down 100 times. In about 2 and half months, Yadav again made a sensational entry in the market with his new venture, Intelligent Interfaces in September 2015. This start-up is all about data analysis and visualization in e-commerce. The company reportedly was said to have acquired funding from Paytm, YouWeCan, Flipkart and Micromax. However, so far there is no news of of his new venture except rumors of its failure and shutting down in months. It seems that Industry has to wait for “the return of Rahul Yadav”.

 

WhatsApp founder, Jan Koum: Journey from a cleaner to billionaire

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Building up dreams takes not much effort but turning them into life sometimes require more than an age. But if you firmly decide to follow your dreams until they become a reality, no power in this world can hinder your way.  Jan Koum, the co-founder and CEO of the most popular mobile app, WhatsApp, once worked as a cleaner. It was his hard work, commitment and passion that Facebook who rejected him once for job acquired WhatsApp for whopping $19 billion.

Jan Koum

Jan Koum was not born in riches; his father was a construction manager and mother, a housewife. Despite the financial crisis, the family lived in peace in a small village of Ukraine. But the uprisings brewing in Ukraine disrupted even their little happiness and he had to move to California along with his grandmother and mother when he was 16. However, his father could never make it to meet them after. The life for him changed to worse. Although they got a small apartment there but their daily needs remained unfulfilled. He had to wait in long queues to collect food stamps. He had to take up a job as a cleaner in a grocery shop to support his family while his mother took the job of babysitting to meet their ends. In all Koum then was leading a miserable life with little hope and scope for the betterment of their situation.

Love for computers and professional journey

Despite all these troubles Jan didn’t compromise with his studies and while studying in his high school he began developing love for computers and programming. By the time he completed his schooling he had already mastered in computer networking and was no less than a self-taught engineer. He then got himself admitted in San Jose State University to complete his education and at the same time took up a job successfully at Ernst & Young to meet up the expenses on his education. There he worked as a security tester which further intensified his passion for computers. Because of his love for programming and networking he finally managed to buy a computer at the age of 19. While working on an assignment of Ernst & Young where he had to test the security level in Yahoo’s advertising system, he met Brian Acton who then worked at Yahoo and later became the co-founder of WhatsApp.

Later Koum got a job at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer while still pursuing his studies. But then came a time when he had to choose between two, either to continue his college or to secure his job at Yahoo. Although the decision was quite a risky one as his whole life depended upon this decision yet without much dallying he chose Yahoo. He worked for about 9 years there and developed close bonds with Brian Acton who held same interests as Koum.

Rejection by Facebook

After serving 9 years in Yahoo Koum found him getting clogged at the same place as the company did not offer him much scope to work in the field of social media which always allured him. And then again he took one of the most difficult and important decisions of quitting his job in 2007. Brian Acton too left the company at the same time to follow their interests in social media. Both then applied in Facebook and Twitter for jobs but got rejected. Yes! Jan Koum was not welcomed by Facebook and Twitter.

In 2009, he bought an iPhone and this is where sprouted the idea of WhatsApp. On looking at Apple app store, Koum felt the need and possibility for an application that could facilitate easy and cheap communication. He approached Acton with his idea and the duo then got themselves engrossed in the making of this app. They named it as WhatsApp Inc. in February 2009 and finally launched it in 2010.

WhatsApp

Today, WhatsApp is most popular app in 109 countries with more than one billion users. However, everything didn’t work as planned after the app was launched as it kept crashing in the initial phase and also the duo were finding it hard to promote the application. Their relentless efforts failed and after few months Koum decided to call off the whole project. But then Brian Acton came forward as a support system and infused hope in him and then the slope of their success never face a downfall. In October 2009, WhatsApp Inc raised $250,000 in seed funding. WhatsApp gained much popularity and the number of downloads kept increasing with 200 million users in February 2013 and crossed 1 billion in February 2016. Witnessing the rapid growth and increasing popularity of the app, Facebook acquired the app for $19 billion in the year 2014. As per the records, WhatsApp has become the most popular application for messaging and is used by one billion people today.

WhatsApp

Image Credit: Wikimedia.org, Jan image Credit: Flickr: Dan Taylor

Steve Jobs: The tech visionary who created such a lasting legacy

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Success and struggle are just like two sides of the same coin. A man who used to return Coke bottles to earn 5¢  to buy food, and  walk  7 miles every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple created a legacy which is flourishing even after his death.

Steve Jobs the man behind MAC, iPad, iPOD and iPhone was abandoned by his biological parent, fired from his own company and suffered from cancer. Despite all these ups and downs he never lost focus and love for technology. Coming generations would hardly believe that it was one man who revolutionized music, smartphone and computer industry.

Steve always loved technology and even in college days he preferred practical knowledge over bookish knowledge. Jobs’ interest in electronics began to smoke up as he extended a helping hand to his father’s garage and began to befriend many engineers living in his neighborhood.

Love what you do

In his high school Steve Jobs approached Hewlett Packard and asked for some parts for his school project. The boy’s boldness impressed him and he not only agreed to provide the parts but also offered him an internship at his office. This was indeed a great opportunity for Jobs to formally step into the techno world. While interning for Hewlett Packard he met Steve Wozniak who worked as an engineer there. Wozniak was very passionate about technology like Jobs and they both became friends to change the face of technology in the coming future.

Jobs then got entangled with his higher studies and finally admitted himself in Reed College. But it seemed he could not find his place there and therefore dropped out from the college after first semester. His inclination towards spirituality tempted him to visit India, yet the love for electronics never faded away.

Beginning the journey with Applesteve jobs yourtechstory

After he returned from India, Steve Jobs contacted Wozniak who then was busy in building a small computer. The idea caught up Jobs’ far sighted eyes and he proposed to take this computer into the business world with him. After convincing Wozniak they arranged to set up a shop at his father’s garage and named their business ‘Apple’. We therefore see how this topmost company sprouted from a garage. But as is the way of life, nothing goes smooth and easy and the task to collect seed money to start the business stood like a gigantic monster in front of them. Jobs sold his micro bus and Wozniak his calculator to make an investment of $1350. And this is how they introduced Apple I in 1975.

Although the computer could only get attention of hobbyists yet the sales collected decent amount of cash which gave them a way to redesign the computer into a better model. After 2 years, Apple II was launched in the market with coloured graphics and keyboard. The computer hit the market making huge success and made $3 million in its first year while the sales went up to $200 million in the next year. The success of Apple II marked a benchmark in the career of Steve Jobs.

Facing a downfall

Undoubtedly Apple II was a great success for Jobs but he failed to retain it for long. However, he did not put a pause to his efforts in introducing new designs and techniques to his computers but his efforts failed every time. The sales started decreasing with Apple III and LISA as new companies like IBM began to take over the market. But he never backed out and in 1984 Jobs brought another design in the market and named it as Apple Macintosh which came with a new user-friendly hardware, a mouse. But even this enhancement could not save him.

Jobs’ troubles didn’t seem to end here as the clash with his company’s board of directors in 1983 resulted in his losing of control over Apple in 1985. And eventually he had no other option than to sell his shares and resign. The irony of life could be exemplified best with this situation as Jobs was kicked out of the very company he founded.

NeXT

Stagnation was never meant for Steve Jobs and thus after resigning from Apple he launched another computer company named NeXT. But his aim to bring a revolution in the technical field did not come out as expected since the computers were highly expensive. Meanwhile, he also bought Pixar Animation Studios in 1986 which became the most important stepping stone in his career. With Pixar he made an animation film ‘Toy Story’ which was a smash hit. The great success of ‘Toy Story’ raised Pixar’s 80% shares to $1 billion.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

Just after Pixar was made public, Apple bought NeXT for $400 million and gave Jobs a position as an advisor to the company’s CEO. But the company faced a failure in keeping up its old position and dealt with a quarterly loss of $708 million. As a result of this, the then CEO of Apple resigned from his position and Steve Jobs got back hold of the company by seating himself as the new CEO of Apple. He raised the company value by signing deal with Microsoft and also brought in new technology fronts in the computers. In no time the company’s sales revived and reached to $5.9 billion. Jobs then expanded the company with new products like iPod, iPhone and iPad. However, struggling with ill health Jobs resigned from his position as CEO in 2011.

Steve Jobs’ journey could be summed up in his own words uttered at Stanford University in 2005. His success could be traced by “connecting the dots” of the events that took place. Every turn of his life proved to be of immense importance at some point later. From taking the risk to drop out from the college to resigning from his own company, his decisions led him to better prospects. And his mantra of life, “keep looking, don’t settle” unless you are truly satisfied with what you are doing is worth adopting. It was his relentless efforts and uncompromising attitude that made him the pioneer of techno world. The legacy still continues with latest iPhone 7 and AirPods.

Jobs historic Standford address about life, love and loss

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?”

Infographic Credit: Funders and Founders
Info graphic Credit: Funders and Founders

The journey of this man from the dusty streets to a $100 million IPO

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It is a universally acknowledged fact that the combination of talent and persistent efforts always pay off well. Hurdles and hardships become easy to handle when you have firm determination and a positive attitude towards your goal and life. Most of the successful people talk about hopefulness and hard work as mantras to success. Even a small idea can change the face of your entire life if you are determined to take it further. Same is what the co-founder and CTO of HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah speaks of when he talks about his journey towards success.

No idea is big or small

Dharmesh Shah had a deep interest in technology and at the same time he wanted start his own business. He first established a company named Pyramid Digital Solutions at the age of 23 with his 17 year old brother. It is no less than a surprise to know that he bootstrapped the company in less than $10,000. As stated by Shah himself, he faced a number of hurdles while hiring employees for the first time and also being a beginner there had been issues in cash flow as well but all of this couldn’t pull him back even for a moment. This is how his first company could be seen as a smack on the faces of all those who do not believe in small or medium scale business. With such less amount invested in the company, Dharmesh Shah took it to various levels of growth and got the Inc. 500 award thrice for it. He devotedly worked for the company for about 11 years and in 2005 sold it to SunGuard Business Systems for millions.

HubSpot

The hunger for knowledge and desire to expand his business drove him to acquire an MS degree from MIT in the management of technology. His education itself states how he had been into both technology and management at the same time. Although after selling Pyramid Digital Systems, Dharmesh Shah promised his wife to be aloof from setting up a start-up and find his

Image Credit: Wikipedia
Image Credit: Wikipedia

contentment and settlement in investing in other companies yet his desire and thirst for more led him into the business market again. And in 2006, he founded the most successful company of his career, HubSpot along with his college friend Brian Halligan. Their intentions to take the company to its pedestal of success could be observed right from the beginning as the two founders started a blog for the company even before the product was launched. This inbound marketing technique boosted the popularity of the product when it actually came in the market. These strategies adopted and well pursued by Shah and Halligan marked the early growth of the company. Dharmesh Shah has set up a great example for all the potential entrepreneurs for how to use their knowledge and learn from the experiences in order to build a successful company.

Work Ethics and Transparency

The basic agenda for any business to be a success according to Dharmesh Shah is transparency. Unlike other businessmen who like to conceal company’s important information and strategies, Dharmesh Shah believes that to maintain a healthy and pleasant atmosphere, each and every employee must know everything about the company. Shah always promotes a friendly work culture within the company and treats his employees as no less important. This transparency builds up trust of the employees for the owner. Shah has given importance to company culture along with other business priorities. This is the reason why he had come across minimum number of controversies as compared to other successful businesses.

Coding is still his first love

Even after coming in the list of world’s top entrepreneurs, Dharmesh Shah has clung himself to his roots. His passion for coding is still the same as before and writing code every day is just like another habit for him. Coding rejuvenates his mind and keeps him “in touch with reality” as he states.

Dharmesh Shah has deep interest in blogging and social media and has also founded an online community for blogging, OnStartups.com. The journey of Dharmesh Shah based on his strict principles and morals make him an outstanding entrepreneur and an inspiring personality.