We are talking about entrepreneurs in India. Who are famous Indian entrepreneurs and one of them is Deep Kalra(Chairman and Group CEO of MakeMyTrip),one of India’s largest travel booking portal. The success journey of MakeMyTrip is a great insight of how Deep Kalra made his trip and took it to next level. It is a journey of an aspiring entrepreneur reaching the new heights to become one of the most successful Indian entrepreneurs.
2. ⦿ It’s never too late to make a change, sometimes
too late is just in time. It took 8 years for Deep to
figure out what he actually wanted to do.
⦿ He was born in Hyderabad and grew up in Delhi
and Ahmedabad.
3. ⦿ He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Economics
from St. Stephen College, Delhi in 1990.
⦿ Then he went to IIM, Ahmedabad to pursue
MBA. After MBA, there was most obvious choice
to join some banking job and he went with the
flow.
4. ⦿ He joined ABN AMRO Bank and worked there
for 3 years and then he realized banking was not
something he wanted to do for rest of his life.
⦿ He took this risk, quit the job and took a break for
about an year.
5. ⦿ He started working with AMF Bowling to set up
bowling alleys in India which was really difficult
task as no one was much interested in it during
90’s.
⦿ After dedicating 4 years of his life, he quit job
with AMF and joined GE Capital as head of
Business Development. But again he felt like he
needed something else to showcase his skills.
6. ⦿He saw internet industry growing as fire, then
the idea of online travel booking came to his
mind.
⦿Hence, with a funding of USD 2-Million from e-
Ventures and along with co-founders like –
Keyur Joshi, Rajesh Magow and Sachin
Bhatia, Deep began his new journey with
MakeMyTrip.com (earlier known as India
Ahoy) in 2000.
7. ⦿For Indians, the venture was too ahead of
time as people were reluctant to using their
credit cards online and didn’t trust non-
established brands.
⦿There were some situations when Deep had
to take some big decisions. The employee
strength of the company literally became half
due to his decisions. Moreover, he was even
not able to pay the salaries of the remaining
employees.
8. ⦿ MakeMyTrip launched IOS and Android app to
make things easier for users. Then company
started to grow and became financially stable.
⦿ In September 2005, apart from flight bookings
MMT started holiday packages and hotel
bookings and tied-up with IRCTC’s online
business model.
9. ⦿ MakeMyTrip has reached below milestones:
⮚Member of the Executive Council of
NASSCOM.
⮚“Best Online Travel Service Firm” award by
Times Travel Honours in 2011.
⮚“E-tailer of the Year” award by ET Retail
Awards in 2013 and 2014.
⮚Member of CII’s Tourism sub-committee.
⮚Chairperson of the NASSCOM Internet
Working Group.
10. ⦿ Today MakeMyTrip is one of the leading
company in Hotel Booking or Ticket Booking.
⦿ Deep Kalra is inspiration for others as not to give
up in hard times. If you are prepared to tackle
the issues, problem won’t last long.