Early Life, Education and Career –

Albinder Dhindsa hails from Patiala, Punjab. He completed his bachelor’s degree from IIT Delhi. He then worked as a transportation analyst in URS Corporation for 2 years and later joined as a Senior Associate in Cambridge Systematics in 2007 where he worked for more than 3 years.

In May 2010, he went on to pursue a Master’s degree in Business Administration at University of Columbia, United States. While pursuing MBA, he also joined UBS Investment Bank as an associate and worked with them for around 3 months.

Post MBA, Dhindsa decided to move back to India. He was very sure of the domain he wanted to work in. He joined Zomato as their new Head of International Operations. At Zomato, he gathered a lot of knowledge and experience. While working there, he began working on his life’s most audacious project, Grofers.

The Grofer Story –

As mentioned earlier, Dhindra had already spotted the loopholes in logistic market.  He had found it mismanaged. While brainstorming with his partner Saurabh Kumar, Albinder saw that most of the transactions between consumers and local merchants were unorganized and needed improvement. He also went on to talk with merchants with solid customer base. They were struggling to deliver higher quality and reliability. They lacked the kind of infrastructure needed to deliver that quality. This is when they started ideating the startup that could circumvent such day to day problems. The entrepreneur duo named the start-up as One Number.

Their initial intention was to provide an on-demand pick up and drop service from shops around their neighborhoods. The shops included pharmacy, grocery and restaurants. The idea was to create a one-stop solution for customer’s local delivery needs. With competitors in the market like Zomato, they started observing that most of the orders were coming from pharmacy and grocery stores, and very few from restaurants. Dhindra and his partner realized the need to confine their business to only grocery and pharmacy. Subsequently, they rebranded themselves as Grofers – A hyper-local logistics company.

Albinder thinks that the scope of Grofers is wide. Any business that wants door to door delivery can collaborate with Grofers. It would result in higher reliability with reduced costs. In short, it is a win-win situation for everyone.

The Major Challenge –

At the end of 2015, the company was at a loss of Rs. 225 Crores on revenues of only 14.3 Crores. For few months, Grofers kept recording monthly losses of Rs. 7 Crore on revenues of Rs. 5 Crores. Success had come at a tremendous rate when Grofers had launched a mobile application in 2015. However, the scale-up operation had gone haywire. This is where Grofers’ revenues suffered major losses. Dhindsa identified the loophole. The problem lied in complicated and fragmented supply chain. It was creating problems in delivery consistency. The Grofer entrepreneur thought that the problem can be resolved if the company established its own supply chain.

The idea was to have Grofer’s own warehouse and supply chain management. It needed a lot of investment. At the initial stage, no investor wanted to get into a business that was not making much profit. Gradually, Dhindsa and his partner could convince some investors and business started making profit. Latter, other investors followed suit. They established 60,000 sq. ft. storage facilities in Delhi, Bengaluru and Gurgaon. Other cities like Hyderabad, Chennai and Jaipur had smaller 20,000 sq. ft. warehouses.

This made the supply system captive. Business started picking up from February 2017. Average order value shot up from Rs.750 in July 2016 to Rs. 1300 where it stands currently. Solving this kind of problem and elevating the company from financial turmoil to success, depicted Albinder Dhindsa’s impeccable business acumen.

Achievements –

Under his leadership, Grofers was named one of the top 10 start-ups in Delhi by YourStory.com (2014). It was listed amongst the top 10 promising Gurgaon based start-ups in 2014 by IndianWeb2.com.

It would be prosaic to associate Albinder with Grofers as someone “who joined later”, for his contribution as a co-founder has been massive. Albinder Dhindsa has shown intransigent tenacity in the crisis period of Grofers. His sagacity to identify issues and ideate solutions has allowed him to raise Grofers to pinnacle and he is ambitious about the expansion. His grit and ability to face challenges is something every entrepreneur should emulate. Today, Grofers is valued at $115 Millions in the market.

Here are 9 tech tools that are transforming HR industry –

1.   People Analytics –

Organizations have been moving from back-office HR data to advanced analytics. Instead of building their own solutions, companies are outsourcing such services from SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, ADP, Cornerstone etc. These softwares have employee retention predictors. Workday can predict employee job changes that can result in better outputs and products from oracle and success factors can recommend which training employees should be provided, based on their skills and role in organization.

2. The performance management revolution –          

For almost five years, organizations have been making performance management more data-driven and team oriented, but there is no automation in the process. Now, there are more than 10 companies offering cloud based and team centric performance management applications connecting HR management. These applications help in managing employees by team rather than hierarchy, make goals transparent and easily accessible to workforce, have ingrained check-in mechanisms and are integrated with directories of employees and other HR tools.

3. Real-time engagement evaluation –

With technologies of always-on, pulse-based feedback systems, it has become easier for HR management to survey workers on quarterly, monthly or even weekly basis. Modern systems enable event based feedback that can be implemented whenever there is a major change in organization. These tools are integrated with work performance management systems, succession planning initiatives and change management strategies. 

4. The growth of contingent workforce management –

Employers are now using channels on networks where many people look for jobs. On one hand there are cntingent workforce management systems like Fieldglass from SAP, Kronos, Beeline and Workday. On the other hand there are gig-wig networks that match workers to projects like Upwork, Freelancer, Fiverr, Workshop and others. HR professionals who want to find contingent talent should monitor these affinity sites to build a network of experts that can do contract work.

5. A wealth of wellness apps –

Organizations now use tools to manage wellness, work/life balance and employee activity. The applications for wellness, engagement, performance management and recognition are expected to be utilized as each of these areas collect information regarding employee feedback, activities and goals. Oracle, SAP SuccessFactor and Workday have built-in analytics engines that collate such data to employee database. Such tools inform the company about what employees are doing, how happy they are; and provide information about their wellness. A company can have an integrated view of employee wellness and be able to give workers insights, nudges and advice on ways to create a better work environment.

6. Maturation of the learning market –

Now, companies are looking beyond legacy learning management systems like Cornerstone, SumTotal, Saba, Oracle and SuccessFactors. There is a new category of learning products that focus on delivering a ‘learning platform’ and not just ‘learning management platform’. They are easily accessible and offer videos like YouTube to employees and have features for curation and recommended learning. Vendors of such products include Degreed, Pathgather, EdCast, Everwise, LinkedIn Learning etc.

7. The implementation of team management tools –

There are a variety of tools that are making collaboration of workforce easier and less formal by offering real-time messaging, archiving and work tracker. Such tools include softwares like Slack, Workboard, Trello, Asana, Wrike, Betterworks, and others. Not all of them can be categorized as HR technology tools, but most are starting to enter HR space. These tools help manager and employees do their job. Workday’s new learning management systems and talent management systems help employees find their next position in organization, and then view training and video learning relevant to that job.

8. Accelerated automated HR –

HR technology is incorporating artificial intelligence, natural language processing and robotics. The technology includes products that can listen to voices, execute call center processes and connect systems into a new workflow. Such technologies can design the entire employee joining process, processes for employee career and job transitions, including assessment, internal job search, recommendation and offers and retirement options. It would also provide access to employee potential including modules for leadership development.

9. A new landscape for talent acquisition –

There are tech tools that hugely help HR management in finding strong job candidates, and distribute job postings. Also, these tech tools help in performing background screening and psychological testing. Vendors like SmartRecruiters, Lever, Greenhouse, Gild and others are building end-to-end recruitment management systems that deal with sourcing, ad management, analytics, online interviewing, interview management, candidate scoring, candidate relationship management and onboarding. These tools directly connect to job portals like LinkedIn and Indeed. They can store candidate information so that it can be revisited every year. They also focus on building tools that not only HR but hiring managers can also easily use.

Technologies offering mobile computation, videos, sensors and artificial intelligence that have an intense focus on employee engagement, culture, wellness and productivity, are going to shape the HR industry in future.

Early Life and Education –

Sachin Bansal was born in Chandigarh on 5^th August 1981. His father was a businessman and mother was a homemaker. He had completed his schooling from Saint Anne’s Convent School. Being a scholar who always scored well, Sachin was a propitious student. His family believed in inculcating good education and attaining success by excelling in academics. Bansal worked very hard for JEE preparation and went on to stand 49 in All India JEE rankings. Later, he got into Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. At one point in time, he wanted to be a professional gamer. Sachin Bansal soon graduated from computer science engineering and became a software engineer.

Career –

After completing engineering from IIT, Delhi; Sachin started working for Techspan Company. Bansal served there for few months until he got an opportunity to work at Amazon India as a Senior Software Engineer. At Amazon, he learnt the dynamics of e-commerce. Later, his friend Binny Bansal also started working in the same team. Within the timespan of around 6 months, both of them decided to quit their job to discover the possibilities of e-commerce in India.

The Flipkart Story –

Along with his partner, Sachin Bansal invested some money and started working on Flipkart. The duo launched the website sitting in their two bedroom apartment in Koramangala. It was primarily a residential area where Flipkart now owns multiple offices. They decided to kick-start the new company as an online bookseller. For 10 days, the site did not see even a single sale until a customer from Andhra Pradesh placed the first order for the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ by John Wood.  In the early days, Sachin and Binny used to deliver books on their own scooters.

There was a dearth of money earlier but Sachin never fell short of passion. Moreover, he believed that Internet shopping has a great scope in India and deserved to be better. The Flipkart founder worked extremely hard and showed great marketing acumen in the early stage. They used to give away pamphlets of their company outside bookstores to target their actual customers. They were not thinking about numbers in the beginning and believed that something big could be built on e-commerce platform. Gradually, Sachin and his co-founder started observing exponential growth.

Challenges and lessons from Sachin Bansal’s entrepreneurial journey –

2012 wasn’t a good year for Flipkart. The delay in raising money for better valuations turned out to be wrong. The company didn’t show any records of growth till the end of the year. Sachin Bansal took it upon himself and got back to the board to regroup. He came up with ideas to reduce cost and make flipkart more appealing to the consumers. Many organizations would have decided to go public in such a situation. But Bansal decided not to. He believed in the growing market and shun the idea of raising funds altogether. The 2012 debacle came up with some lessons. Here’s what one can learn from Sachin Bansal –

• Raise funds when they are available – Funds are essential for startups.
• Limit yourself to a boundary – A creative entrepreneur may think that there are no boundaries, but in reality it doesn’t work that way. Having some constraints would help avoiding some mistakes.
• Keep an eye on competitors – This may sound obvious but it is imperative to be competitive in the market and know about the market scenario.
• Focus when the business is going good – Sachin Bansal believes that customer is the king. He advises that improvement takes place when things are going good and not when things are going awful.
• Be receptive to criticism – Feedback and criticism from people of same field and customers are very productive and lead to improvement.
• Identify focus area – According to Bansal, major focus area are market conditions and building team strength. Key focus area may differ from company to company. Entrepreneurs need to identify them.
• Personal and professional life is different – The life of an entrepreneur may get very busy, but a person needs to differentiate his/her personal life from the professional one.
• Look at the bigger picture – Things may seem difficult in the beginning but it is important to look at the bigger picture and the impact your business can make in future no matter how far it is.

Achievements –

• In 2012, Sachin Bansal was awarded the ‘Entrepreneur of the year’ (ET Awards).
• In November 2015, Bansal was named as the 86^th richest person in India by Forbes India.
• India Today has named Sachin along with his partner Binny in India’s 50 most powerful people of 2017 list.

Sachin Bansal has an impeccable knowledge of his field and an unassailable sagacity to make decisions. His journey with Flipkart is full of ups and downs but he has never dithered to face challenges and rise again. He has been honest in his role and had also stepped down as chief executive officer in 2016 on the basis of performance – a decision he truly supports.

Today, Flipkart is one of the richest e-commerce companies with revenue of Rs 15,264 crore for the year as on 31^st March, 2017 and Bansal has played key role to bring the organization to this level. With his aspiring story and lessons, Sanjay Bansal is truly a role model for upcoming entrepreneurs.

Early life and Education –

Deepinder Goyal was born and raised in Punjab. He belongs to a humble middle class family. He is an alumnus of IIT Delhi where he had studied mathematics & computing (2005 batch). Goyal is an enthusiastic foodie. The entrepreneur had started an online food ordering portal after he passed out from IIT, but it did not work.

Career at Bain & Company –

Goyal joined Bain & Company where he worked for almost 3 years. At Bain, Deepinder was working as a Senior Associate Consultant. He was one of the problem solvers in the organization. During his tenure at Bain & Company, Deepinder Goyal acquired the business acumen that he is famous for today. Deepinder believes in maintaining relation with his ex-colleagues and he doesn’t dither to reach out to partners and consultants at Bain for mentorship.

Entrepreneurship and the birth of Zomato –

Even though Deepinder Goyal had a high paying job at Bain & Company, his insatiable urge to become an entrepreneur was always alive. He started a website called Foodiebay.com with his colleague Chaddha. The first restaurant menu they had uploaded in their portal was from Haus Khas, Delhi. Deepinder used to work 24*7 to maintain balance between his job and his entrepreneurial dreams. A need of expertise and expansion made him quit his job in 2008. Goyal went to expand to major cities like Kolkata, Mumbai and Bangalore after exploring Delhi. The service soon started getting recognition. As it was an avant-garde innovation, he went on to take the project to an International level. Later, Goyal and his Chief Operating Officer, Chaddha thought to tinker the name to make it more catchy. Foodiebay then became Zomato.

In October 2015, Goyal had to face difficult times. It was reported that Zomato, which had operations in 22 countries was readying to dismiss 250-300 employees, many of them in the US as part of global restructuring exercise. Later in May, Zomato again gathered attention when its annual earnings were reportedly low. However, Deepinder Goyal is a man who learns from his mistakes. He has shared lessons from the 2015 debacle on this blog which is worth a read for all aspiring entrepreneurs.

Millions of users use Zomato today but Deepinder Goyal refuses to stop. He feels there are still many problems in the restaurant industry that need to be solved. He envisions Zomato continually reinventing strategies to make life easier for people.

Deepinder Goyal’s life story may not be a stereotypical tale of a start-up enthusiast. However, his forte in technicalities and his business prowess is something that future entrepreneurs should emulate. His cool demeanour and progressive approach towards exploring the possibilities of restaurant industry is what makes him successful in his niche.

Vijay Sharma: Education

Vijay Sharma was born in a small town of Aligarh in 1978. His father was an honest school teacher, who believed in strong principles. Vijay was a child prodigy. He completed higher secondary education in a Hindi medium school at the age of 14 but he wasn’t proficient in English.

After a comfortable childhood in his cozy hometown, his tough time started when he went to Delhi College of Engineering to pursue his graduation. In this phase, Vijay Sharma realized the value of English. He got low grades and felt hopeless, but refrained to give up. Vijay grappled with language problem for a long time. He bought second hand magazines and books to learn English. His friends at college also helped him. A topper in school was struggling in college. There was a time when he wanted to quit, but his will power kept him going.

He stopped going to college and spent a lot of time on the Internet. This was the phase in his life which endowed an entrepreneurial mindset in him. Sabeer Bhatia and Yahoo became his idols. Vijay thought of going to Stanford for further education just like his entrepreneurial idols. He soon realized the lack of financial resources and language challenge. This is when he decided to learn coding himself.

Vijay Sharma: Entrepreneur

Vijay Sharma started building his own content management system with some of his classmates. Indian Express and other big news publications used it. He also started his first job at an MNC and resigned after six months to start his own company with friends.

Vijay Sharma was left bankrupt after his partners conned him. He raised Rs. 8 Lakhs through his venture. He was conned off 40% of the money. This became the darkest time in his life and his dreams of entering the Silicon Valley were shattered. He was utterly devastated but again did not give up. He started living in a hostel near Kashmiri Gate in Delhi and would walk long distances to attend work or meetings in South Delhi.

Paytm was born

Things started getting better when Vijay Sharma ideated One97 – the parent company of what is now a big giant called Paytm. The company was based on the three essentials of Internet – Content, Advertising and Commerce. The moment of exuberance came when Vijay came up with the idea of entering payment ecosystem. The board was a bit perplexed with the idea of entering a non-existent market in India. So, he put 1% of his own equity in front of the board to take the risk of starting this new venture.

Vijay Sharma was quoted saying, “there is no fun in doing what others ask you to do; the real fun is in doing what others say you can’t do.”

Subsequently, PayTm was out in the market, and Vijay never looked back. The trust he built with his customers is the secret behind Paytm’s success. He incorporated a robust 24*7 customer care service center that resolved queries and issues swiftly and made customers feel safe about putting their money in the Paytm wallet.

The idea of putting 30% of company budget in customer care worked well. It made Paytm’s relationship with customers special and unique. Paytm also launched customer service accounts on Twitter and Facebook to ensure every customer complaint was heard and resolved.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma strongly believes in teamwork. He hires people that share the same passion of building a company like Paytm. He has also given 4% equity to his team. In current value terms, it turns out to be $120 Million. Vijay values every single contributor to his vision. He never addresses people working in Paytm as employees but only as colleagues or teammates. His values have made Paytm a big corporate giant today.

Life has been very busy for Vijay Shekhar Sharma. He has struggled in each phase of life and overcome many hurdles. There were times when nothing seemed to be working for Vijay and he had to survive with 10 Rupees in his pocket. He considered meals a blessing then. Amidst such adversities and challenges, what consistently stood with Vijay Sharma is his hard-work and determination.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s life and the success story of PayTm are truly inspirational.

Ritesh Agarwal was born in Bissamcuttak, a village in the district Rayagada, Odisha. His childhood days were all about fun and learning. He had an upbringing that was different from that of the other kids around. His family was well-off and had different ideologies about money. While others used to think that, “A rupee saved is a rupee earned”; his family believed in, “Earning two rupees is a rupee earned.” Akin to the notions elucidated in Robert T. Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, he was ingrained with an appetite to take risks, go out and get the stuff done. It was more about cultivating a go-getter attitude right from his childhood.

During his childhood, he was very fond of computers and never dithered to explore what’s inside a floppy disc or CD. There was a computer at his father’s office, something that hugely helped his love for computer grow; which later on proved to be the pivotal aspect of his success. He developed a keen interest in software from a very early age. Though he was always well ahead of the school curriculum, learning BASIC and PASCAL, he quickly started grasping higher knowledge from his elder brother’s books. By the time he was in 10^th grade, he had made up his mind that he wanted to code for a living. What better place to foster these coding skills than the premier Indian Institute of Technology and that is where he set his target.

In 2009, Ritesh went to Kota for the coaching program. He was admitted to the famous Bansal Tutorials for IIT-JEE. It did not take much time for him to realize that Kota was not a place to learn to code. For a while, his dream to become a coder took a backseat and he grew unsure of his ambition. It was in such times that he started taking short trips to Delhi, where he used to stay in bed and breakfast (B&B) places and attend events and conferences to meet other entrepreneurs. As he couldn’t afford the registration costs, he used to sneak in unnoticed, exhibiting his street smartness and penchant for adventure and risk-taking. These exposures expanded his vision and his urge for doing something better and bigger kept on increasing.

Realizing that even getting into IIT was not going to do him much good, he quit Kota and moved to Delhi in 2011. Living in a small dingy rented room, he aspired to work on a start-up program of his own and prepare for SAT to go to the US for further studies. Unfortunately or fortunately, SAT never happened and after 1 year of meeting people and reading about start-ups, he came up with the idea of Oravel – an Indian counterpart of Airbnb in May 2011. Success was not instant for him and for a long time, it was just him, Anuj Tejpal – the guy he hired for operations; and a couple of interns. Eventually, the project started getting funds and Oravel turned into what is now one of the most used applications for hotels – OYO Rooms.

A timeline of Ritesh Agarwal’s achievements –

• At 16, Ritesh was one of the 240 children selected to be part of Asian Science Camp at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.

• At 17, he authored his first book on Engineering Colleges of India – A complete encyclopedia of Top 100 Engineering Colleges, which became a best seller.

• At 17, he became the youngest CEO in India at a company called Worth Growth Partners.

• At 18, he found Oravel and the same year he secured funding of Rs. 30 Lakh from VentureNursery, an accelerator that brings together investors to nurture start-ups.

• At 19, he was chosen for Thiel Fellowship – a global contest in which he happened to be the only winner from India.

• At 19, he rebranded Oravel as OYO Rooms abbreviated from ‘On Your Own’ which now has become the most sought-after platform for bookings.

• At 21, he became the youngest Millionaire from India’s booming startup community.

• At 23, He was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 in Consumer Tech.

Ever since OYO Rooms was founded, Ritesh Agarwal focused and showed an unassailable commitment towards delivering the high-quality guest experience, which makes it the first preference for the guests. He believes that for a startup to succeed, setting up the right team is very important. And more than anything it is important to create something of value that people would accept and use.

“It is extremely important to build something that a 100 people absolutely love using rather than make something that a 1000 people would just, kind of, like”, he says.

Today OYO rooms has grown to operate across 70,000 Rooms in 8,500 hotels in 230 towns of India, Nepal, and Malaysia with monthly revenue of around $30 million housing more than 1500 employees. It also features among the companies which are tipped to become the next start-up unicorns according to CB Insights research’s findings, published in The New York Times. It has raised a total of $125million of funding in 4 rounds from 7 investors. OYO is primarily backed by leading global investors, including the SoftBank Group, Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital.

Ritesh Agarwal is a guy that has always backed his decisions with guts and hard-work – the two essential elements of a successful start-up. Apart from his sheer eminence in software area and ability to ideate and innovate, he had street-smartness to take up each opportunity to meet key people and had an impeccable sagacity to convince investors. He did not have a formal education but he never let this fact become an impediment to his dreams. Being one of the youngest entrepreneurs from India, Ritesh is a true inspiration to the aspiring start-up founders.