This document discusses two young entrepreneurs in India who have found success through innovative business ideas. The first story describes Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai who started a t-shirt company called Inkfruit with an initial investment of 25 lakhs that now has annual sales of 5 crores by allowing customers to design and suggest t-shirt ideas online. The second story is about Sandeep Maheshwari who turned renting out his moped as a teenager into a stock photo business called ImagesBazaar that now has over 800,000 Indian images and earned him an entrepreneurship award from the British Council. Both entrepreneurs achieved financial success by thinking outside the box and leveraging new ideas.
2. Introduction
India, A spiritual saga for the outsiders, consists of
people of all kinds.
Where cultural and modernism runs parallel , their
exists a perfect mixture of experience and
youthfulness in the country.
Amidst this, There are many stars in India which make it
even more prosperous and successful .
3. The young minds!
Their 5-crore T-shirt venture started with 25 lakhs
The quiet western suburb of Goregaon in Mumbai is a very unlikely
place for a yuppie clothing company, which is changing some of the
age-old rules of garment designing.
Inkfruit is into making T-shirts for the young and restless with smart
designs, eye-catching colours and cheeky punch lines. It is also making
its presence felt in places where it should be -- at Planet M and
Lifestyle stores across the country, as well as a few upscale malls.
What makes Inkfruit's designs different is that they are created or
suggested by the company's customers -- young Internet users who log
on to Inkfruit.com and submit or suggest design ideas.
A visit to the site reveals the high level of user interactivity and the
mind-boggling ideation on what the next line of T-shirts should look like.
4. This is a far cry from the age-old system where, for the
longest time, all you could settle for were plain tees or
striped ones. It is also a revolution of sorts, in an industry
that is run by practical-minded traditionalists who have
believed in mass-producing garments.
The men behind this venture are two young IIT grads
-- Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai, both in their 20s. Inkfruit,
which started with an initial investment of Rs 25 lakh now
boasts a turnover of Rs 5 crore.
5.
6. Out of the box thinking!
This Rs 10.2 cr company started with a 12K camera
Meet Sandeep Maheshwari who runs ImagesBazaar that has over
800,000 Indian pictures making the largest stock of Indian images
in the world.
When he was 13, Sandeep Maheshwari's father thought his son could
do with a moped. So he bought the young fellow a shiny new two-
wheeler thinking it would help him move around in Delhi, a city starved
of a good transport system.
Little did Maheshwari Sr know that his son would actually make money
out of the gift! On the first available occasion Sandeep rented out the
moped to one of his friends who wanted to take his girl for a spin.
Within a matter of months, Sandeep was a star and became known to
everyone looking for two wheels with an engine attached. The rate: Rs
50 per hour and the condition that the rider bears the fuel expenses!
It wasn't long before Sandeep not only recovered the cost of the
moped but was also making money from it!
7. Later when his father fell on tough times, it was this entrepreneurial
spirit that held him in good stead.
Sandeep dropped out of college and by the time he was 21 was earning
over a lakh of rupees per month! Today, he runs Imagesbazaar.com, a
stock photo company that has over 800,000 pictures making the
largest stock of Indian images in the world.
Recently the 29-year-old entrepreneur received the 2010 Young
Creative Entrepreneur Award from the British Council for 'his
entrepreneurial skills through a perfect blend of a good idea and
business venture leading to 'real' change'.
In an interview, Sandeep tells Abhishek Mande what this award means
and the windows of opportunities it opens. He also speaks about the
challenges he faced and how he overcame them.
8.
9. Conclusion …
Here, we are not just talking about richest
person in the country, or the person with
maximum skills; here we are talking about the
innovation, the tricks which make these shining
minds of India stand out !
If you wish, you too can become a part of
“Shining India”