The difference between entrepreneurs and ‘successful entrepreneurs’ is that the latter don’t only just navigate their business, but also achieve beyond their initial targets.
India has gifted this world some of its finest entrepreneurs who aren’t only successful and billion exude brilliance in every character trait you can aspire to.
This blog post will list some of the Successful Entrepreneurs in India
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Ratan Tata
“I don’t believe in taking the right decisions. I take decisions and then make them right.”
Confidence is an ingredient to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Ratan Naval Tata, recipient of India’s two highest civilian honors can attest to it.
He was born on 28th December 1937 in Mumbai. He has a degree in Architecture from Cornell University and has attended the Harvard Business School.
He succeeded J.R.D Tata post his retirement as the chairman of Tata Industries. During his tenure as the head, he has turned Tata from a local industry to Global Conglomerate.
By acquiring huge companies like Tetley, Jaguar and Land Rover, Corus Group, and many more, not only has he proven himself to be a personality and a true leader that everyone aspires to be, but also has also benefited the Tata Group time and again.
His expertise has led him to invest in some prolific startups like Snapdeal, Ola, Paytm to name a few. His current net worth stands at 3500 crore INR.
Dhirubhai Ambani
“True entrepreneurship comes only from risk-taking.”
Taking risks is an essential step towards turning dreams into reality. Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani did this!
He was born to a village school teacher on 28th December 1932 in Gujarat, did his studies at Bahadur Khanji School.
He went to Yemen in 1948 to work for a company and over there using his unique business skills, he made quite some profits.
In 1958, he came back to India to start his own business in textiles with a partner, but it ended after 7 years.
1966 was the year when he formed Reliance Commercial Corporation which you know as Reliance Industries and had then launched the fashion brand Vimal.
He was worth 2.9 billion USD before his demise in 2002.
Shiv Nadar
“If you are calm about your ambitions, you become confident of achieving what you set out to do.”
Shiv Nadar was born on 14th July 1945 in Tamil Nadu. He has a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
After completing his education he worked for an engineering company but left it later. Rather, he began an enterprise- Micro comp, by forming partnerships with a few of his friends.
HCL was founded in 1976, which ventured into the international market in 1980, turning it into a humongous success. Shiv Nadar was the chairman and a major shareholder of HCL Technologies Limited.
With a net worth of 31 billion USD, he’s the 3rd richest man in India and also a recipient of the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award.
Apart from being one of the greatest entrepreneurs, he is also a humanitarian who heads the Shiv Nadar Foundation, which is focused on enhancing education in India.
Azim Premji
“Leadership is the self-confidence of working with people smarter than you.”
The founder and chairman of Wipro Limited were born on 24th July 1945. He’s unofficially known as the Czar of the Indian IT industry.
He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Post his father’s death, he took the charge of their vegetable oil-producing company and extended it to bakery fats, hair care soaps, baby toiletries, and hydraulic cylinders.
In the 1980s, he entered the high technology sector by collaborating with an American Company.
Thus, his focus shifted from soaps to software, which led him to a net worth of 11 Billion USD in 2021
Recipient of India’s two highest civilian honors and a philanthropist like none, Azim Premji is the perfect personification of ‘success’.
Young Successful Entrepreneurs in India
Successful Indian entrepreneurs are not uncommon, but the stories about young adults and teenagers making their mark on the globe are unquestionably the most interesting.
The success stories of these young Indian entrepreneurs should inspire anyone who wants to start a business and is willing to go beyond the box.
Let’s take a look at some of these young Indian Successful entrepreneurs who are rising stars
Ritesh Agarwal
Ritesh Agarwal was born on November 16, 1993. He is the Founder and CEO of OYO Rooms, also known as the second-youngest billionaire of India in 2021.
After dropping out of college, he founded Travel Stays, a budget hotel network that offered bed and breakfast accommodations.
When he learned that no other provider offered a room for a budget tourist, he upgraded to OYO rooms.
OYO rooms began with 11 rooms at a Gurgaon hotel and have now grown to include 65000 rooms in around 5500 establishments across India, with a valuation of over $10 billion.
He has also majorly invested in companies like Arora Ventures and Magic Pin.
Ritesh has a net worth of $1.1 Billion.
Kunal Shah
Kunal Shah graduated from Wilson College in Mumbai with a B.A. in Philosophy and briefly attended NMIMS before dropping out.
Shah’s first business venture was Paisaback, a company that offered cash-back promotions to organized shops. Shah and Sandeep Tandon started FreeCharge in 2010, sensing the potential of internet recharging in a burgeoning industry.
Shah is also the founder of CRED, which is expected to be India’s second-fastest-growing unicorn firm in 2021. With a $200 million investment, this business is expected to reach a $2 billion valuation.
Like a visionary investor, he’s also put money into companies like Innov8, Spinny, Zepo, Unacademy, and Bharat Bazaar. Shah has a net worth of $480 Million.
Bhavish Agarwal
Bhavish Aggarwal is an Indian entrepreneur and the CEO of Ola Cabs, a ride-hailing service that he co-founded with his friend Ankit Bhati in December 2010.
Ola has approximately 1.5 million driver-partners and operates in over 250 locations around the world, including India, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
Peer-to-peer ridesharing in luxury or normal cars, auto-rickshaws, bikes, taxis, and food delivery are among the services offered by the company, which is now valued at around $10 billion.
Bhavish Aggarwal, an IIT graduate, spent two years with Microsoft Research India before starting his own company. He has a net worth of $500 million.
In May 2017 he co-founded Ola Electric, which is a product line of Ola only, aiming to bring battery-driven e-rickshaws to service.
Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal
Sachin Bansal, a businessman from India, was born on August 5, 1981, while Binny Bansal was born on August 5, 1981, in Chandigarh, India.
Bansal and Sachin graduated from IIT Delhi. Flipkart was founded in 2007 by them and was valued at $20.8 billion in just the next year only.
Walmart paid $16 billion for a 77 percent share in Flipkart in 2018. Binny is currently invested in xto10x Technologies.
He’s a founding partner of venture capital firm 021 Capital and has major investments in SigTuple, SuperCraft 3D, and Niramai. While Sachin Bansal’s major investments include Ola, Boat, Ather Energy, and CRIDS.
Each of them has a net worth of $1.1 billion.
Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Son of a schoolteacher from a tiny town in north India, Vijay Shekhar Sharma developed the fast-growing mobile wallet Paytm in 2011. He graduated from Delhi College of Engineering with a bachelor’s degree in engineering.
Paytm, one of the greatest benefactors of India’s demonetization in 2016, has 400 million users and processes 25 million transactions per day.
In August 2018, Sharma made headlines when he convinced Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway to invest $300 million in Paytm.
Sharma also founded Paytm Mall, an e-commerce company, as well as the Paytm Payments Bank. He also intends to plan an IPO of Paytm to raise $2.2 billion.
He has also heavily invested in companies like Unacademy, Milaap, Flyrobe, Zapr, and has a net worth of $2.3 billion.
Falguni Nayar
“I started Nykaa at the age of 50 with no experience. I hope the Nykaa journey can inspire each of you to be the Nykaa of your lives,” Falguni remarked in advance of her company’s IPO on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).
With the company’s excellent stock market debut, Falguni Nayar has now become India’s richest self-made female billionaire.
Nykaa’s CEO and founder, Falguni Sanjay Nayar, was born in Mumbai on February 19, 1963.
She graduated from the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad with a master’s degree in finance.
She is a well-known entrepreneur and a top-flight female banker.
Nykaa’s company, FSE E-Commerce Ventures, is the first unicorn company run by a woman to list on the Indian Stock Exchange.
Falguni Nayar owns over half of Nykaa, which is currently worth $6.5 billion, approximately, after the company’s stock recently soared up to 89%, when it first went public.
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