List of 15 Successful Indian entrepreneurs

India is the world’s largest democracy, and over the past few decades, its economy has been booming rapidly. As a country, it also accounts for the second-largest native population behind China. So, not surprisingly, India has produced a number of successful Indian entrepreneurs.

However, very few people in the world ever want to walk on the path of walking in the entrepreneur’s route. The failure stories create fear among them. Despite the fear, there have been plenty of people in the world who want to become entrepreneurs and who are currently holding the job as an entrepreneur.

Who makes it to the list of successful entrepreneurs?

The chances of failing are overwhelming, as one report by Fortune Magazine showed that nine out of ten businesses will fail. This number will be confidence breaking to a lot of people, especially the ones that are just starting in entrepreneurship.

Here you can get your will of fire that you had for entrepreneurship back again, once you start looking at the people who made it to the top. There is a reason why they are seeing so much success compared to the people who didn’t get any chance to peak at the field.

There is no success key for anything that you will do in your life, the only way you can accomplish the task is by hard work, passion for the job, listening to others, learning from your flaws, improving on your skill to build yourself a strong being to face the challenges of life.

Having the basic knowledge of how most of the stuff works in the organization, and how you can wield all the tools to move you and your team further. Most importantly you need to look up to the people who made it in entrepreneurship. Because there is a reason why they saw what failed to see. Again, there is no secret that they are gonna give you to find a better version of yourself.

Contribution of these Successful Indian Entrepreneurs

Nearly, everything that you see around in your life, and everything that you use has been a contribution of an entrepreneur. It is an entrepreneur who is behind the fast food that you consume, the cosmetics that you use, the electronics that you use to make your life much simpler, and the communities that you have on the internet.  

All of the companies have common things; they all have successful entrepreneurs with a strong vision behind everything that they have to offer to the public. There are plenty of things that are required for building up to be an entrepreneur. Aspiring entrepreneurs are not going to kiss the pillar’s success by just opening the first door they find in life. That is the reason you see so many entrepreneurs advancing in the game and so many hitting the rock bottom.

Related – Things To Do To Become A Successful Entrepreneur

The List of Successful Indian entrepreneurs

The only thing that you will get for them is the work ethic and the road that they followed to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Here is the list of 15 successful Indian entrepreneurs.

1. Sachin Bansal

• Company – Flipkart
• Title – CEO

Sachin Bansal is best known for his association with Flipkart. But the story is deeper. Being the son of a businessman, Sachin took part in the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and finished his degree in computer engineering in the year 2005. In the next 2 years of his life, he spent working at Techspan, then later in the Amazon Web Services. It is the year 2007, where Sachin Bansal took on a new venture. Not even he knew the step he was about to make, but the idea was always there.

With the initial fund of 400,000 rupees, which translates to $5,600, Sachin Bansal and his co-founder Binny Bansal, started an online bookstore. This is where he took upon the responsibility of overseeing all the business details of Flipkart, he held the position of Chief Executive Officer of Flipkart until the year 2018. When it comes to accolades, in 2013,  he received the Economic Times Award for Entrepreneur of the year.

2. Vijay Shekhar Sharma

• Company – Paytm
• Title – Founder / CEO

You must have heard his name from plenty of publications and financial websites, and there is a reason why that is because he is the founder of Paytm. The journey of Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been quite fascinating. He started his adventure in the entrepreneur market by holding a bachelor’s degree in electronics and communication engineering. One of the interesting facts about Vijay Shekhar Sharma is that when he was in college, he built a website called indiasite.net. Which sold for $1 million dollars. This happens within two years of running the website.

The journey never stopped there, in the year 2000, he started another internet service, this time to fulfill the requirement of news, cricket scores, ringtones, exam results, and various other topics with one97. Then Paytm came into the scene in the year 2010, and one97 was the parent company behind Paytm. The success of the system has been very influential on many entrepreneurs out there in the market, in the year 2017,  Vijay became the youngest billionaires in the Forbes billionaire list. He became the entrepreneur of the year in the year 2016.

3. Ritesh Agarwal

• Company – OYO
• Title – CEO

Many consider Ritesh Agrawal’s story to be one of the best stories of an entrepreneur because it is one of the clearest examples of having a business mind and constantly pushing yourself to the edge without holding anything back. That is exactly what Ritesh did, after graduating from school, moving to Delhi to pursue his dream for college in the year 2011. Within two years of going through the college years, he dropped out and then got selected for the Peter Thiel Fellowship.

The business mind started with booking budget hotels, then this program became one of the winners of the 2013 Thiel Fellowship program. After receiving $100,000, then the App OYO began to see the success. Ritesh Agarwal became the youngest self-made billionaire after Kylie Jenner in the whole world. As you can tell, even not having any prior education or anything to support the foundation of the things Ritesh accomplished in his life, he found an idea and worked on that idea to see what it is now today in the world.

Also Read – Why Entrepreneurship is Important in Recent Times in the World

4. Byju Raveendran

• Company – Bjyu
• Title – Founder /CEO

While many people take a conventional route to see any success in business, Byju Raveendran was not one of them. Born in a village in Kerala, India, he is the man behind BYJU’S The learning app. There are plenty of learning apps in the market, which makes this one much better than the rest? It is the idea of running a system. Byju Raveendran is a strong believer in making people know what they are doing, that ‘s why the tagline for the online firm reads ‘Fall in love with learning’. He pushes the idea of teaching the students, then giving them a route to crack the exam. Byju is a man of many sides, but the one that gets the most priority seems to be the Teacher Byju.

This is one of the great examples for the people who want to enter the field of entrepreneurship, it is what you learn and apply that matters. Proper learning only comes after excellent teaching, once you know what you are reading then you are going to have no trouble figuring out the rest of the road. Byju Learning App is now worth $5.4 billion dollars, all thanks to the man behind the wheel.

5. Bhavish Aggarwal

• Company – OLA cabs
• Title – CEO/ CO-founder

The life of Bhavesh Aggarwal has been intriguing to a lot of people, who share the same field as him. After completing his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering, he moved forward to start a career with Microsoft Research India. There he later held the position of an Assistant Researcher in Microsoft Research India. After spending 2 years of his life in Microsoft, he started his journey and co-founded Ola Cabs.

So the question becomes what made him start a car rental company. Now that we know as Ola. The idea came to his brain when he found himself in an unpleasant scenario of a taxi driver demanding more money for the transport. The bad behavior of the taxi driver and the money he was asking for the transport made Bhavish create a new way of looking at the taxi industry. Now the company has grown to be in the big league, with the recent steps to the auto-rickshaw booking services by releasing Ola Auto. another reason why Ola saw so much success on the road, which is the price point. They came at a fixed rate, and the pricing is way cheaper than the traditional way of dealing with these things.

6. Deepinder Goyal

• Company – Zomato
• Title – CEO/ Founder

Many people may not know this, but the Zomato was founded in the year 2008. At that time, Zomato was considered as one of India’s largest restaurant guides going over 42,000 restaurants, spanning over 12 cities. So who is the brain behind Zomato? It was none other than Deepinder Goyal. The story of Deepinder Goyal will seem familiar to any other entrepreneur on this list. After graduation, Deepinder Goyal went to work at Bain and Company. Here I noticed people waiting in line for food. The idea of creating an online platform, where people can order food online without any trouble came into his mind. And the rest is history.

How is Zomato winning while other startups have been going down at a faster rate? The key to Zomato has always been hyper-local advertising and taking user preferences. Combine both of them, then you have the basic foundation of running a business. Social media helped the industry to thrive for more, as they were getting opportunities by helping out all people, and while at the same time building new connections with people.

7. Deep Kalra

• Compay – MakeMyTrip
• Title- CEO/ Founder

When it comes to the impact that has been made in the online traveling method, nothing comes even close to the influence that MakeMyTrip has done. The brain behind MakeMyTrip is Deep Kalra. After getting a bachelor’s degree in Economics in the year 1990, Deep Kalra joined ABN AMRO. Here, Kalra spent 3 years of his life in the same institution. But in the year 2000, he realized the possibilities of the internet. He slowly started to grasp the full potential of how and what the internet has to offer to the industries that are still bound by the old traditional method. The purpose of MakeMyTrip was to make online travel easier and convenient.

While not everything was sunshine and rainbow for Deep Kalra. There were plenty of hurdles he had to overcome, especially in mid-2001, where the business was lacking sufficient investors to keep them running. In these tough times, Deep Kalra never thought about giving up on his dream, he kept on pushing, as we know by now, the success he got.

8. Albinder Dhindsa

• Company – Grofers.com
• Title – CEO

The life of Albrinder Dhindsa has been quite interesting from being a Transportation Analyst at URS corporation to Senior Associate at Cambridge Systematics.all of this took place in his life after graduating in 2005 the second phase of his life he moved to the US to pursue his Masters in Business Administration, where he joined UBS investment bank for 3 months, after that he became the head of international operations at Zomato.com. All of this helped Albinder to gain as much knowledge from the field. Then he started Grofers.com

His most ambitious project Grofers.com showed the world what Albinders dream idea really was. The name slowly started picking up steam, as more people subscribed to the idea of getting groceries and pharmacies through online delivery. Grofers.com provided just that to the customer, with a lot more features for different demographics of people.

9. Yashish Dahiya

• Company – Policy Bazaar
• Title – Co-founder

The chief executive officer of the insurance aggregator co-founded the company Policy Bazar in the year 2008. No company in this would even exist with a vision. The same notion is true for Policy Bazaar, where the vision of Yashish was to provide financial safeguards to the middle-class people in case of a worst-case scenario. The primary focus of the company has always been informing people about health and term insurance while maintaining transparency. That is why most people trust the policy bazaar over anything. It’s because of the solid foundation that this company based upon.

He still finds time in his daily routine to swim and run. Spending time swimming and running has become one of the things that bring so much joy to Dahiya, as he thinks of these activities to reduce the level of stress that comes with life.

10. Harsh Jain

• Company – Dream 11
• Title – Co-Founder

Harsh Jain brought the world of fantasy sports to India. Here the website allowed the user to take part in fantasy cricket, hockey, football, and basketball. Like many other services on the internet, Dream 11 also follows the freemium based method. When it comes to the states and figures, they are going over the roof. In 2014, the website had 1 million users, in 2018, the number was sitting at 45 million.

The website has also been associated with quite familiar companies and organizations, such as International Cricket Council, International Hockey Federation, WBBL, and BBL. all of this helped the Dream 11 to reach for the brand new height.

Also, Read – 10 Qualities of Leadership That Every Entrepreneur Needs To Be Successful

11. Supam Maheshwari

• Company – FirstCry
• Title – CEO/ Founder

Before the invention of FirstCry.com, Supan was the man behind Brainvisa Technologies, which is still being considered as one of the best and largest eLearning companies. After leaving the company, he started to look towards something new. The idea of opening FirstCry.com came when he started buying baby products on business trips. Here he saw the opportunity to capitalize on the market.   At that time the choice for getting baby products was quite limited compared to the stuff that anybody can get now in this day and age. But back then people didn’t know where to get it or whether they could get it from online.

FirstCry provided just that to the millions of consumers, who were seeking to get the best product for their child. Supam Maheshwari is now looking forward to capturing the offline market as well. As the online presence of the company keeps getting bigger, much of it due to the service and the products they provide to people from all walks of life. One of the best things Supan has done through FirstCry.com is the establishment of a good relationship with the customer and the target demographic.

12. Kunal Bahl

• Company – Snapdeal
• Title – CEO

Kunal Bahl is the man behind Snapdeal. He co-founded the e-commerce website with Rohit Bansal in the year 2010. Since then, the Snap deal is considered one of the best online e-commerce sites available in India.  The life had been pretty tough and fair for the Kunal Bahl and his childhood friend Rohit Bansal. Because they both left the life of a good salary and holding atop position to a life of uncertainty. Where a wrong decision can bring a landslide into your whole project. But Kunal Bahal stood strong in these dark times, where they had less than 1 Lakh in their bank account.  But instead of giving up, they kept on pushing forward until they found the perfect idea to start a new journey.

If you bought anything from Snapdeal, now you know how much of the dream that they have fulfilled by working hard and putting time to make every aspect of the job better. These changes happened to attract users from all over India, As the user will spend most of their time researching the product that they were gonna purchase, snap deals provided all of the information right away. It went from selling discount coupons to one of the largest eCommerce marketplaces.

13. Shashank ND

• Company – Practo Technologies
• Title  – CEO

The idea of digitalization of health records, so it can be viewed faster, came to the mind of Shashank ND, when his father had to undergo a knee replacement surgery.  As the doctor required to see the father’s medical records, but he didn’t have it with him at that time. But this got him thinking about the perks and benefits people will get by keeping record health records. Practo Technologies offers two unique features to the consumer.

One to keep track of their medical practice management and improve on this field, which gets done by Practo Ray, and the other one is called medical practice management, as this is done by Practo Ray. the platform allowed the doctors to upload the medical records of the patients along with the history, prescription, billing schedule, appointments, and the list goes on. The entire platform wouldn’t have succeeded if they hadn’t taken in the feedback of doctors on what they want to see on a site. After receiving both ends the slides. They worked on making a better platform for anyone to visit.

14.Richa Kar

• Company – Zivame
• Title – CEO

After spending time on Spencers and SAP retail on consulting and gaining valuable experience. All of this gave her a great entrepreneurship boost. Like others on the list, the idea came into her head when she was shopping for lingerie from the local stores,  she felt discomfort anytime she had to buy lingerie from local stores. That is why she created Zivame, so any woman in the world can buy any type of garments without feeling any sort of social discomfort or embarrassment offline.

She is a great example of a woman finding a foot in the world, and using all the experience to build something new from scratch all to help other women to have better lifestyles that separate faraway from the traditional way. Now Zivame sits at the top of the league when it comes to lingerie shopping.

Also Read – 15 Influential & Successful Women Entrepreneurs in India

15. Kunal Shah

• Company – CRED
• Title – Founder

The MBA dropout has built quite a reputation after launching FreeCharge to the world. The major focus of this app is to let the user have an ecosystem to make payments, invest, pay their bills, along with other valuable works. Now that can be done with a single platform. The product became slowly popular amongst people, who had to switch different services to do a task, now it can be done with one single app.

As he stated the key to raising the investment of any startup is to understand what the party wants, then you will be able to understand each other’s vision to kick start something that will have a lasting effect. And pushes the idea of people taking a chance, whether the idea fails or succeeds, it is all about taking a chance. That is why Kunal has become one of the best entrepreneurs in the country. 

Also, Read – 10 Unconventional things to do to become a successful  entrepreneur

Lesson

Now that you know all the details about all the major key players in the entrepreneurship business. There are plenty of things you can learn from them. From their struggling days to the good years, in their journey, they never gave up on an idea or they never thought of an idea being bad without trying out in the world. That is the only way they succeeded, as every bad product leads to the creation of a good one, and every good product leads to creating something far better.

But the message seems to be patients, determination, and planning to start the venture in the marketplace. Some of the entrepreneurs don’t even have a strong educational background to do what they have done in their life. But they have one thing that others don’t which is an idea and work ethic. That is why they spend most of the time on the idea and making it better for the people, the targeted demographic. Otherwise, you will lose sight of what is important and what is trivial.

Conclusion

The building value of a service or product is worth as much as the idea behind the product or service. The people on the list made sure the service matches the requirement of the people without compromising on the quality. These people have an idea, and they made that idea into reality, millions of people are benefitting from one man having an idea of changing the world for the better. That is why these entrepreneurs have left a great mark on the history of entrepreneurship in this country.

Having a great amount of experience, skill, the basic idea, understanding the people, understanding their requirements, executing the plans, making sure to take the negative and positive feedback. These are some of the ways these entrepreneurs have broken into the system of success.

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