Aditya Arora

Meet the son of a fruit seller who owns a 300 CR+ Ice Cream brand👇

1 Raghunandan Kamath was born in Mulki, Karnataka, in 1954. His financial conditions were always poor. Raghu’s father was a fruit vendor, and he earned barely enough to sustain his seven children. Raghu could not focus on studies and failed in his board exams twice.

2. But, one talent he had was to select ripe mangoes from the bad ones. He wondered, “If ice creams can have fruit flavours, why can't they have real fruits?🤔

3.Following his love for the idea, he left his father’s business one day, caught a train from Mangalore and came to Bombay with a second-class ticket in his pocket and a first-rate idea in his mind. 🙌

4. The struggle was real. At just 15 years of age, Raghu started working alongside his brother in a South Indian eatery. The money was barely enough to live in a 12x12 foot chawl in Juhu, Mumbai.

5. Raghu wanted to create an ice cream from these ripened fruits. He wanted to go beyond chocolate and vanilla flavours to make ice cream with fruit pulp. But his brother did not like the idea, and Raghu left the eatery.

6. Taking some money from the eatery, he started a small shop with six tables and a 200 sq ft space in the Juhu Koliwada area in Mumbai. In 1984 - Raghunandan Kamath launched Natural Ice Cream with four staffers and twelve flavours. In the first year, he did 1.5 Lakh rs of sales, which was impressive in 1984. 🚀

7. The idea was simple ⏩ Launch an all-natural ice cream with fruit, sugar and milk. Soon, the ice cream became a rage. So much so that Raghu stopped selling Pav Bhaji and became a full-fledged ice cream parlour. With the renewed focus, things started to change.

8. There were traffic jams outside his shop. Many film stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar came to eat the ice cream. Cricketers like Vivian Richards loved the ice cream so much that he offered to endorse the brand for free. 🤯

9. But, the turning point came in 1994. When a staff member opened his ice cream shop, Kamath realized the need to create a strong brand identity to grow and sustain his business. He took a loan from Saraswat Bank and bought his own factory in Mira Road. The turnover went from 1 CR to 3 CR that year. ✅

10. Cut to today, Naturals Ice Cream has over 140+ outlets in over 40+ cities. In FY 21, the brand did over 300 CR in turnover and won India’s Top 10 brand for customer experience in a KPMG survey.

PS - Raghu doesn't eat ice creams anymore because of diabetes. But his story is a sweet consumable for anyone out there.

#startup #success #casestudy #naturals

Meet the man who left his father's CA firm and built a 45,000 CR company.

1. Coming from a modest Marathi family in Pune, Ravi Pandit had made everyone proud. After completing his CA, he got a chance to complete a master's at the prestigious MIT Sloan School of Management in the USA. But there was a problem. 🤔

2. His educational loan amounted to a payment of Rs 1 lakh annually, while his family income was just Rs 15,000. The 25-year-old Ravi took it upon himself and started working at Grant Thorton in Chicago, USA. After a year, he paid all the loans and came to India. 🙌

3. Ravi's father decade-old firm - Kirtane and Pandit Chartered Accountants, focused on all accounting services, but Kirtan knew that all accounting firms in the USA also focused on IT. In 1990 - he gathered two colleagues to start an IT-based consulting firm. KPIT Infosystems was born.🚀

4. Ravi started when competitors like TCS, Wipro and Infosys focused on offshore centres, while KPIT worked on-site software development services. And the idea worked. ✅

5. KPIT scaled to a valuation of 43 CR with its IPO getting oversubscribed 50 times in the mega global IPO year of 1999, where 565 tech firms went for IPO in a single year. The market boomed but soon came crashing down. The Dotcom bubble busted in March 2000. 🔻

6. When people thought it was game over for Ravi, he came with a bang and strategically partnered with Cummins Infotech, the IT arm of engine giant Cummins India. With an 80-20 partnership in KPIT's favour, the new entity KPIT Cummins Infosystems focused on the automotive and manufacturing sectors. 👨‍🏭

7. With embedded software and digital transformation, it also enhanced its engineering capabilities by acquiring automotive electronics player, CG Smith in 2006. KPIT clocked a revenue of 870 CR in 2009 and crossed the 100 million dollar revenue mark. 💰

8.KPIT was scaling globally and operated in 10 countries. However, Cummins still contributed around 40% of revenues, and it wanted to focus on the core business of generators. Ravi had to think of something. 🤔

9. In 2013, he de-merged with Cummins. and changed the name to KPIT Technologies. He focused on mobility software products like REVOLO (hybrid electric vehicle tech) and Maximus Pro for two-wheelers. It touched revenues of 1399.88 CR in 2018, and another opportunity came. 👇

10. On 29th January 2018, KPIT Technologies merged with CK Birla's IT firm, Birlasoft, to create a combined entity worth 4500 CR and then de-merged and split into two publically traded entities - Birlasoft (IT) and KPIT (Automotives) worth 1300 CR and 3200 CR respectively. 📉

11. Today, KPIT clocks revenue of 4,871 CR and works with BMW, Honda, Ford, Renault and General Motors. It has over 13,000 employees serving clients across 25 nations and is worth 49,500 CR. 💪

➡️ But the best part is that Ravi Pandit still works from 9 am to 9:30 pm and trains new employees at his company daily. 🙏

#india #startup #casestudy

Meet the man who started a 12,000 CR company at 69.

1. Ashok Soota was famously known as the magic man of the IT industry. In 1978, he took over as CEO of Shriram Refrigeration, which posted losses for four consecutive years and turned it around to its first profit in five years. But his most considerable stint came six years later. 👇

2. In 1984, he became the president of Wipro's IT practice, Wipro Infotech, and grew its revenue from 22 CR to 2200 CR within 15 years, making it the biggest Indian minicomputer company. Even the then-CEO of rival Intel, Andy Grove, gave him a letter of appreciation. But he had other plans. 🤔

3. In August 1999, he founded Mindtree with nine other IT professionals and scaled it to 455.37 CR revenue in six years. In February 2007, he made it public through a 237.72 CR IPO that oversubscribed 110 times. Ashok had made it big, but things went wrong from there. 👇

4. Stagnating revenues, missed growth targets, and disagreements between Ashok and other members on M&A strategy ultimately led to his resignation from Mindtree on 28th January 2011. Even after 33 years of a glorious career, 69-year-old Ashok was thinking about his next steps. 🤔

5. He wanted to build a company that prioritized happiness among its employees and customers. He took the big step and started a company again with nine members a month after resigning. In April 2011, Happiest Minds Technologies was born. 🚀

6. Ashok's vision was simple ⏩ Build a mindful IT company focused on emerging technologies such as cloud computing, social media, mobility, analytics, and security. It would target sectors like travel, media, manufacturing, CPG, BFSI, and retail, and it opened for business on 29th August 2011. 💼

7. Within three months, it had customers from the US, UK and India and opened five offices in Bangalore (India), New Jersey (US) and Reading (UK). On 16th November 2011, it raised 228 CR led by Cannan Partners and Intel Capital. 💰

8. Ashok knew competition was there, but nobody focused on connected IT. So, he adopted the “Born Digital“ approach and sold conventional IT products with a mix of AI, IoT, and analytics, as well as crucial global partnerships like MongoDB (Sep 2014) and Mastercard (Dec 2014). And the idea worked. ✅

9. By 2018, it scaled to a revenue of 460.23 CR and serviced 38 Fortune Global 2000 names. Two years later, it made history with its 702 CR IPO in September 2020, getting oversubscribed by 151 times. With a premium of 111.4% on the listing, it was the most successful IPO of 2020. 💪

10. Today, Happiest Minds has 1710.03 CR in annual revenues and serves 61 billion-dollar and 48 million-dollar companies in the US, UK, India, Canada, Australia, and the Middle East. It is worth 12,276 CR. 🙌

➡️ Ashok Soota has won over 100 awards for his work. Still, he is known as the man who donated 375 CR for India's largest private sector medical research on Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. 🙏

#startup #india #casestudy

Meet the man who beat Zerodha and built a 24,000 CR company.

1. Born to an agricultural family in the Lepa village of Madhya Pradesh, Lalit Keshre had beaten all odds. He majored in Microelectronics engineering from the prestigious IIT Bombay. But when Keshre entered the job field, things turned out to be different. 👇

2. He started working as a production engineer at Ittiam Systems and started his own Edtech startup - Eduflix, by the side. The startup failed, and Ittiam also closed. Lalit did not give up and joined Flipkart as its product engineer. After working for two years, Lalit wanted to become an entrepreneur again. 💡

3. While looking for ideas, Lalit found that India had 200 million people with investable income - But only 20 million actively invested. Lalit finally had an idea. He quit his job and took three of his Flipkart colleagues along. In 2016, Nextbillion Technology started and the brand Groww was born. 🚀

4. Groww started by selling regular mutual funds on its website. Lalit had predicted 100 users, but Groww expanded to 600 users. But, the problems came faster than users. The users wanted commissionless direct mutual funds on the platform and needed an app. Lalit heard them and pivoted.

5. In December 2017, Groww started as a direct mutual fund distribution platform and built a customer-facing application offering 5000 mutual funds from 34 fund houses. By January 2018, it raised funding from the prestigious YCombinator, Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori (Curefit). 🙌

6. Within a month, Groww scaled to 200,000 users and processed 100,000 paperless transactions. As it touched 1 million users in January 2019, Groww raised 44 CR led by Sequoia Capital. 💸

7. By 2020, Groww grew to 2.5 million users. It had a stellar app rating of 4.5 and 60% of users from 800 Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. As Groww became the biggest mutual fund distributor with 1.5 lakh SIPs monthly, Lalit knew it was time to up the game. It was time to get into the stock market. ✅

8. 2 million new monthly market users were getting added in 2020. So, Groww launched a free series - Ab Invest Karega India, to educate the first time investors, and the idea worked. Groww added 3 lakh demat accounts in three months of launch. 🤯

9. Groww grew with UPI pay, Do It Yourself feature and expanded to ETFs and Intraday trading. As It scaled to 1.5 CR users, 2.5 lakh monthly SIPs and 20 lakh demat accounts, the big headline news came on April 7, 2021. 📰

10. Groww raised 580 CR from Tiger Global and became India's 8th Unicorn of 2021. 🦄

➡️ Today, Groww is a 24,000 Cr company. It does 1277 CR in revenue with a net profit of 447 CR. In September 2023, it scaled to 6.6 million accounts and a 20.35% market share. It defeated the market leader Zerodha in just five years. 💪

Lalit Keshre came from a small village to build India's largest financial investing companies backed by Satya Nadella (Microsoft). He is the big Indian dream! 🇮🇳

#startups #india #casestudy

Meet the man who turned the famous childhood drink “Rasna“ into a 1000 CR business.

1. After Independence, Indians disconnected from their traditional roots and started loving foreign brands. 13-year-old Areez Khambatta was selling soda water on bullock carts and was unhappy about it.

2. He went to his father, Phioja, who had a B2B concentrate company. As a child, Areez saw that there was no refreshing drink for kids of his age. The market had only carbonated beverages, which were unhealthy.

3. Areez launched “Jaffe“ - A ready-to-serve soft drink concentrate, and started promoting the brand locally in Gujarat. Seeing the early B2B success, Areez knew he had to take it to households. He set up in-house distribution and renamed the Jewish name “Jaffe“ to a relatable Indian one. In 1979, Rasna was born. 🚀

4. Enter the 1980's - India started seeing Thumbs Up and Coca-Cola. But, still no brand for children between 8-20. Areez knew the giants would knock sooner or later. He had to do massive brand awareness to gain market share. The famous “I love you, Rasna“ campaign was born. 🙌

5. Under the campaign, Areez showed 32 glasses served from just a 5 Rs Rasna pack. He also displayed that Rasna had no added sugar, and customers could add their own as per taste. The strategy saved Rasna 60% of the costs.

6. By summer, the mantra became “I love you, Rasna“. Areez even launched a 2 rs sachet to cater to the demand. The 1980s were ending, and Rasna had cornered a massive 50% market share.📉

7. Rasna kept growing and launched flavours like Kesar, Elaichi and Jaljeera, which were both unusual and relatable to the Indian audience. With Rasna, you could mix it in cold water or freeze it to make popsicles. Rasna had a 75% monopoly, but Areez's worst nightmare came true in 1992. 🥶

8. Coca-Cola started in India again and acquired Limca, Thumbs Up, Maaza and Gold Spot from Parle. Pepsi also started. Areez knew that some giant would come after them, and it was not 1 but 2 now. Areez took a deep breath and focused on their start customers - Children. 👦👧

9. He casted child artists, which showed Rasna as the go-to option at every child's birthday party. These quirky ads had given Rasna - an admonishing 85% of the market. Coca-Cola came all guns blazing. 👇

10. In 2002, Coca-Cola launched a similar Product - Sunfill. On the other side, Rasna kept growing with new flavours. It launched a modern flavour range in Litchi, Watermelon and Pineapple and commanded 97% of sales volume.💰

11. Coca-Cola accepted the defeat and withdrew Sunfill in just two years. Later, Cadbury launched “Tang“, but could come nowhere near Rasna. 🙌

➡️Today, Rasna sells across 1.8 million retail outlets in India. It is exported to over 60 countries and is the World's largest soft drink concentrate manufacturer.

Padma Shri Awardee Areez Khambatta recently passed away, but his legacy stays forever.

Story of The Soft Drink Man of India. 🇮🇳

#rasna #startups #casestudy #india

Meet the man rejected 100 times before creating a 60,000 CR company.

1. At 23, Harshil Mathur majored in software engineering from IIT Roorkee and worked as a Wireline Field Engineer for the US-based oilfield services company - Schlumberger. But the love for software never left him. Even with a job, he was doing something more. 🙌

2. He ran a crowdfunding website to raise money for medical emergencies. But, it was hard to accept payments. Small businesses could not find a payment gateway or had to submit heavy documentation for one. They had no other option but to do cash transactions. Harshil wanted to solve this. 🤔

3. He started calling banks to integrate with them, but nobody took him seriously. Within four months, 40 banks rejected him. When he thought to give up, a call with HDFC went positive. As he received the approval, Harshil left his high-paying job and took along his IIT mate, Shashank Kumar. In 2014, Razorpay was born. 🚀

4. Harshil knew that every player focused on large companies and sending money, so he started focusing on startups to accept payments. As he started doing the merchant layer integration, 400 businesses signed up in one year. Seeing the early success, Razorpay raised 74.7 lakhs from Ycombinator in 2015. 💸

5. With funds, Razorpay grew to partner with 50 banks and scaled to 1800 businesses. It grew with a transparent pricing methodology, offering two options at 2% and 2.5% for every successful transaction. In October 2015, it raised another 59 CR led by Tiger Global. And two massive events followed. 👇

6. The 2016 “demonetization” policy and the Goods and Service Tax(GST) adoption in 2017. The 40 banks and 100 Venture capitalists that rejected Harshil opened their eyes to the 30 million underserved startups and the MSME segment in India. Razorpay became the talk of the town. ✅

7. By 2019, Razorpay grew 500 times and worked with 350,000 clients like IRCTC, Airtel and Zerodha. It also launched RazorpayX (neo-banking) and Razorpay capital (lending) for merchants to handle working capital. As Razorpay doubled its revenue to 193 CR, it raised 525 CR from Sequoia India and Ribbit Capital and became a 3000 CR company. 📉

8. Even COVID-19 could not stop them as Harshil quickly pivoted the business towards growing sectors like e-commerce, online education and gaming. Razorpay grew 300% in six months and carried 74 of every 100 small business transactions in India through its platform. As it served 5 million clients, the big newspaper headline came on October 12, 2020. 📰

9. Razorpay raised 721 CR at a valuation of 7300 CR. It became the 32nd unicorn of India and the fifth to enter the club amidst COVID-19. 🦄

➡️ Today, Razorpay is a 60,000 CR company and clocks an annual total payment volume of 12,00,000 CR.

Harshil's father was a clerk at SBI. Little did he know his son would create the largest digital payment processing company in India. 🇮🇳

#startups #india #casestudy

Meet the man who built Indigo into India's largest airline company. \n\n1. Rahul Bhatia had a tough start. His father's 20-year-old travel business - Delhi Express, went bankrupt. After an electrical engineering degree and a two-year stint at IBM, Rahul had to do something more. 🤔\n\n2. He decided to help his father in 1988 and incorporated a new entity in the travel space - Interglobe. Over time, he transformed it into a conglomerate in travel technology, hospitality, and business jets. Rahul had finally settled down, but his eyes were on something else. 👀\n\n3. In 1992, the government opened airline licenses for private participation. Rahul did not want to go through the conventional bribing process. He teamed up with Rakesh Gangwal (US Airways) and applied. In 2004, the license came through, and Indigo Airlines was born. 🚀\n\n4. When everybody was bleeding money due to rising fuel prices, Rahul ordered 100 Airbus A320-200 aircraft worth $6.5 billion at the Paris Air Show in 2005. He got the delivery of Indigo's first Airbus aircraft on 28th July 2006. And, finally, the moment came. 👇\n\n5. On 4th August 2006, Indigo flew for the first time with a service from New Delhi to Imphal via Guwahati. Its low-cost - no-frills model took off, and Rahul received 15 more aircraft in 2007. Indigo took the market by storm and touched sales of 2664 CR in 2010. 📉\n\n6. When India's two biggest private airlines - Jet Airways and Kingfisher, coughed up a combined loss of 2,114 CR, Indigo turned a 550 CR profit in 2010. With a 17.3% market share, it overthrew Air India to become the third-largest airline in India. 🤯 \n\n7. Indigo had everything right about its model. It had to put a down payment of just 4% on airline purchases, with a 40% discount on bulk orders. It also could sell the aircraft after six years to get a new one. In 2011, Rahul ordered 180 Airbus A320neo aircraft worth $15 billion as Indigo got permission to launch international flights. 🙌\n\n8. Indigo kept growing and offered only Economy Class seating for 180 passengers per aircraft and never spent money on in-flight entertainment or airline lounges. By 2013, it beat Jet Airways to get a 27% market share. Indigo became the largest airline in India. 💪\n\n9. On 10th November 2015, Indigo's parent company - Interglobe, went with a massive 3008.5 CR IPO. As it got oversubscribed by 6.63 times, Indigo touched a market valuation of 44,290 CR. 💰\n\n10. Indigo grew to 58.6% market share with a 20-minute turnaround and 12-hour flight operational time. Even the resurgent Air India (13.2%) and Vistara (8.65%) could not believe it. \n\n➡️ Today, Indigo operates 1800 flights daily across 100 destinations. It is the first in India to have over 300 aircraft and does revenue of 54,000 CR annually with a profit of 702 CR. It flies over 85 million passengers annually. 🤯\n\nRahul has shown that a great business model can beat any competition on any day. He is rightly called, “The King of Sky!“ ✈️\n\n#startups #india #casestudy

The next generation entrepreneurs are never going to come from metro cities.

They will come from smaller towns where there are larger problem to solve and scope of innovation is immense.

Modern problem require modern solutions. But, traditional problems also require modern solution.
This is the true face of Startup spirit. Hats off to Kamlesh and Peyush.

#startup #entrepreneurs #innovation #sharktankindia #startupindia #startupideas #startupfunding

He is earning over 3 Crores per year at the age of 20. 😱

More than that, Ishan Sharma is a kind soul beyond all the fame he has achieved at such a young age.

Taking a bold decision to drop out of BITS Pilani requires a brave heart. And not only does he have one, but he has also scaled his startup to a multi-crore business and grown such a digital empire on social media.

Glad to count you as one of my close friends, Ishan. I am rooting for your success!

#business #success #digital #socialmedia #startup

I always looked up to Akshat Shrivastava for how to present numbers in a story format.🙌

His posts here are a valuable addition for anyone looking to understand why the world is full of billionaires or how to grow your salary and manage it effectively. Or why is Madhya Pradesh's Inflation more than the US's? (Crazy, right)? 😅

At an event in Mumbai, I had the pleasure of meeting him. We discussed Startups and how the problem statements have evolved with changing times. We also spoke about emerging technologies that will grow with time and how India is at the fulcrum of this change. 🇮🇳

I truly loved the simplicity and humility with which he carried himself. So much to learn and more.

#india #startups #startups #change #mumbai #event

How Meghana Biryani is bigger than most startups in Bangalore?

Let us look at how. 👇

i) Outlets - 11 (All prime locations like Indiranagar, Koramangala, etc)
ii) Seats/outlet - 120
iii) Table turns daily - 10
iv) Daily Customers served in 1 outlet - 600
v) Daily Customers served in 11 outlets - 6600

vi) Average Billing - Rs 400
vii) Daily revenue per outlet - iv) x vi) - 600 x 400 - Rs 2.4L
viii) Daily revenue for all outlets - Rs 2.4L x 11 - Rs 30L


ix) Total Yearly revenue for all outlets - Rs 30L x 365 - Rs 11 CR
x) Online Food orders daily - 270 (assuming every outlet gets 25 orders)
xi) Total online food revenue - vi) x x) - 400 x 270 x 365 - Rs 4 CR

xii) Total revenue - xi) = ix) = Rs 15 CR

The best part is that this comes with a healthy EBITDA of 8%. No funding, no PR - just a world-class biryani in Indian style.

#bangalore #meghanafoods #startups

Why does a person in Punjab drink more milk than someone in Tamil Nadu? 😳

The answer is a gene mutation called “13910T“, which originated in Europe 7500 years ago and is still relevant today.

Simply put, this allows humans to digest lactose present in milk.

➡️ Since North and West India's population has this gene, they get their protein mainly from milk. That is why tea in Punjab has more milk, and Gujaratis eat their ice cream made from dairy fat. Hence, their diets are also primarily vegetarian.

➡️ However, this mutant gene is less prevalent down south and east of India. Therefore, there are more lactose-intolerant people. Now, you know why Bengalis make their deserts from Chhena or why Assamese prefer vegetable fats. Since milk goes out, the primary source of protein becomes meat and chicken; hence, you find more non-vegetarians in the south and east part of India.

📍Great product insights for your startup can come from everywhere. You just need to have a curious mind to look!

#india #people #startup #europe

How to get 50 Lakhs per annum?

If you reach the top level in a Venture Capital (VC) firm, the salary could range between 30 Lakhs - 50 Lakhs per annum.

So let's see how you can get a job at a VC firm - Step by step! 👇

⭐1st YEAR:

1. Read “The Indian Startup Saga“ report by Grant Thornton Bharat LLP. And listen to the startup school playlist by Ycombinator .It will cover your basics about what startups are.

2. Next, pick the Indian Venture Capital report to read. The latest one I like is Bain & Co for the Year 2023.

3. Now is the perfect time to read some books. Pick “The Moonshot Game“ by Rahul Chandra and “ Angel Investing in India“ by Dr. Mohammad Mustafa . Both books will give you a deep insight into an investing mindset and how VC firms function and make money. 🙌

Pro Tip - Podcasts such as 100X Entrepreneur and the Barber Shop with Shantanu have emerged as great sources to learn recently.

⭐2nd YEAR:

1. Create a basic Linkedin profile. Also, mention that you are an aspiring VC in your bio so that people know your interest before connecting.

2. Attend all networking and startup events on websites like Linkedin, Eventbrite, etc. Attend as many as you can to start developing connections slowly. Make sure to connect with everyone on Linkedin within 12 hours of meeting them. Also, post whatever you learn so that your contacts remember you. Out of sight, out of mind.

3. Now the killer move - Lookout for fellowships in Venture Capital (Yes, they exist!). Kauffman fellowship and the diversity fellowships run by 500Startups accept people just starting in the VC space. Till now, you have learnt theory, but these fellowships would give you real-life knowledge of how the industry works.

⭐3rd YEAR

1. Now, it is time to put the knowledge you have gained to the test. Apply for internships in VC firms. Prepare a list of active VCs and check their Linkedin pages for real-time postings.
Pro Tip: Remember I told you to add people on Linkedin. Contact them to see if they can refer you; VCs hire the most through referrals.

2. Mention that you already have a fellowship and apply for VCs which invest in the sectors you better understand. Prepare a thesis about the growth of some industries, too, and you will have a very high chance of selection.

3. In your internship, talk to more founders through Linkedin connections. And ask promising founders to refer you to their ilk. The better you understand founders, the more chances you will become a successful VC.

4. Stay patient and work towards picking the right companies to invest in. With the success of the companies you choose, the fund becomes bigger, and you move up the ladder in the firm.

📍These are some of the best practices I have seen and done to enhance my journey.

Please share this with people so they know how to break into VC step by step.

#founders #startups #investing #money

Mothers are definitely the first Investors for any potential Startup Idea. 💡

#startup #business #venturecapital #motherVC

Started the business at 17 when his father died and built a 60,000 CR empire.

1. At just 17, after he passed away, Nirmal Minda had to join his father's (Shadilal Minda) automotive parts business, Minda Industries. It produced ammeters for vehicles and had a modest turnover of 60 lakhs. But Nirmal had problems. 👇

2. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) would trust only international players with quality, let alone a 17-year-old boy in India. Nirmal also had no funds to invest in modern machinery, and a 120-day working capital became a challenge in scaling operations. He had to do something. 🤔

3. He realised he had to pivot from ammeters to high-demand automotive switches and wait for one big client to come so that people could start trusting him. But beating players like Lucas TVS, Hella, and Lumax was impossible. Nirmal persevered for seven long years and finally struck gold. 🙌

4. In 1987, Minda Industries finally received a contract from Maruti and entered into contracts with Hella and JM to set up a testing and validation kit. Minda Industries scaled to an annual turnover of Rs 1.5 CR. But Nirmal knew a contract wouldn't do; getting larger contracts from these OEMs was the main game. ✅

5. The liberalisation policy came in 1991, and the economy opened completely. In 1992, Nirmal partnered with Toyota's group company, Tokai Rika. The joint venture became a technical license three years later as Minda Industries expanded to horns and lighting systems for even four-wheelers. And magic happened. 🪄

6. It scaled to an annual turnover of 100 CR. Since Maruti contributed around 60% of the revenue, Nirmal shifted to clients like Tata Motors and Mahindra for lighting and horn solutions in their passenger and commercial four-wheelers. And finally, the big moment was due. 👇

7. As Minda clocked a turnover of 396 CR in 2007, it listed on the stock market with an IPO that oversubscribed 30 times. By 2010, Minda Industries became a global name and served clients like Volkswagen and BMW. It became a 500 CR company and clocked a revenue of 597.1 CR. 💰

8. Minda Industries kept expanding and scaled to over 50 product lines, with 145 product patents and 165-plus design registrations by 2017. With 43 factories, 1000 suppliers and a presence in four continents, it became a 3500 CR company and leapt to revenue of 3505 CR at a profit of 384 CR. 📉

9. Today, Uno Minda (its name changed in July 2022) has 26 product lines, 252 patents, and 73 factories. With a revenue of 14,030.89 CR and a profit of 1585.26 CR, it has more than 70% market share in the 2/3-wheeler segment in India. 💪

➡️ Who would have thought a 17-year-old boy would build his father's 50 lakh legacy into a 60,000 CR business empire? 👑