Your Tech Story

Aanchal Awasthi

Aanchal is a freelance writer and has been writing since 2013. She is currently pursuing her masters in English Literature from University of Delhi and received her B.A. (hons.) degree in English Literature from University of Delhi. She has a great passion for writing poetry. She is also a keen reader of inspirational stories of people who have achieved success through hard work.

BookMyShow Story: Rise, fall and comeback

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No idea is big or small; rather one’s success depends upon the amount of efforts and dedication one puts in to it. But this is not it, as only after you firmly determine to achieve something and start putting in your hard work, the real journey begins. You might find your path paved with numerous challenges and hurdles but you must always remember that, difficult times are life’s way to test your patience and determination. The story of Ashish Hemrajani, the founder of BookMyShow would definitely inspire you to leave your comfort zone.

Advent of the idea
Like many, Ashish Hemrajani too took up a job after completing his professional degree. He started working in J. Walter Thompson, an advertising firm right after getting a master’s degree in business administration. In 1999, while he was on a trip to South Africa, Hemrajani came across the idea that changed his life for good. Sitting under a tree and listening to a radio advertisement which promoted tickets of a rugby match, triggered in him, an itch to do something alike. With this business idea and with the intention of quitting his job, he came back to India and began working on the idea.

The Initial Phase
Without much dallying, Hemrajani launched his online venture under the name of “Big Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.” with all its office work done from his bedroom. As some time passed, the company got it two other co-founders, Parikshit Dar and Rajesh Balpande, who looked into the matters of technology and finance respectively. The next big step was to get investors for the company. Although things didn’t turn out to be as easy as Hemrajani expected but he was well prepared for the battle. Internet facilities were not rampant in those days and thus, they sent their proposal to their first investors, JP Morgan, through fax. That one-page fax gave them a good push as the idea convinced the investors and they agreed to fund them sum of $380000.

Their problems didn’t end with this, as the gigantic task of running the business was still to be done. The market conditions were not favorable for their business idea due to the lack of proper banking facilities like debit cards, credit cards, internet banking etc. Also poor connectivity of broadband and lack of e-ticketing software in the theaters made their task even more difficult. In the initial phase, they hired hundreds of people to deliver movie tickets to people at their doorstep after buying them in bulk. Many-a-times, they had to face huge losses because of their non scaleable business model.  However, they still managed to keep up their work and expanded their company by establishing 12 call-centers in 12 different cities. Since, internet facilities were still not widespread, most of the work was carried out offline.

bookmyshow
The Dot Com bust
Around 2001, the dot com market began blooming as well and this led their investors to sell their stake to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. However, in the year 2002, the dot com market was smashed and with its breaking down, the entire industry experienced a big jolt. Ashish Hemrajani’s company also faced severe impacts of this bust as all the investors refused to give them funds. They even had to break their deal with News Corp.. The situation grew worse as their whole business was almost shut. They reduced their employees from 150 to 6 as they couldn’t afford their salaries. They had to shut down all their call centers except the ones in Delhi and Mumbai.

The company was back to its initial phase and it worked without investors for a period of four years, from 2002 to 2006. Yet Ashish Hemrajani didn’t lose hope and confidence in his company and made sure that every penny made out from the business goes back to it. He was left with two options; either to shut down the company or head back to the point he started by taking a job in some company or stick to his passion and continue with the business. And the decision, Hemrajani took proved him a real fighter.

This time he became more firm in his determination to reach to the topmost ladder of success and invested all his energy to tie up the loose threads and mend the broken pieces. He moved further with a different outlook this time and made small changes to his business techniques.

Comeback and Rise
By the end of 2006, the market got over the effects of the dot com bust and it started blooming again. Within the span of the gone four years, there were innumerable changes observed like the coming of debit cards and credit cards, enhanced internet facilities and the establishment of multiplexes all over the country. Their company began installing e-ticketing software in the cinema halls and also began charging for the same. Call centers were opened up for clients so as to get in direct touch with the public. This time they had a proper business model which was executed smoothly and within a year, the company was doing decent business to get attention of investors.

In March 2007, Network 18 invested a sum of  $2.2 million in their business. The company name was then changed to BookMyShow which became quite popular within no time. The company began tying up with almost all the multiplexes and cinema’s which contributed a major portion in their never ending growth. In 2012, BookMyShow got a whooping investment of  $18 million from Accel Partners followed by $25 million from SAIF Partners in 2013.

After that Bookmyshow has never looked back. In India it is immensely popular for movie tickets. Today, BookmyShow is available in UAE, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh.

 

Palmer Luckey: An iPhone repair technician who built a $3 billion VR company

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Success is most often linked to age and a good experience. It is generally assumed that one could achieve success only after reaching a certain age but lately, these assumptions are breaking as today youth are coming forward to take control of entrepreneurial world in their hands. Like Oyo’s Ritesh Agarwal, Palmer Luckey, established a company, Oculus VR at the age of 21. He has established the notion that if you are truly interested and dedicated in something, nothing can take it away from you.

Early Interest in Electronics and Technology
Getting success in any field is not an overnight thing. One has to start building up for it from a very early age. Passion for technology was deep seated in Luckey right from his childhood. Although he was home schooled by his mother when he was a child, yet the drift towards electronics and technical world was initiated by then. At the age of 14 he founded a forum called ModRetro which concentrates on modifying vintage game consoles. This forum was made for all the electronic enthusiasts. Despite not gaining any formal training in electronics, he kept on experimenting with various complex electronic objects like lasers, coil guns, Tesla coils etc. His passion for electronics grew more with age and this could be marked by his success in stepping into the gaming world when he made a PC gaming ‘rig’. It costed him a lot of money but he took it as a challenge and went ahead to develop the game with a six-monitor setup.

As he began stepping out of teenage, he found himself very passionate about Virtual Reality. Trying new projects is a costly affair and need a good amount of funding. Luckey, being a self-dependent boy didn’t turn to his parents, friends or relatives for financial help. Rather, his own talent got him all the funding for his new experiments and projects. He repaired and resold damaged iPhones from which he received around $36,000. He also worked as groundskeeper, computer repair technician and youth sailing coach in his free time. His dedication and passion for his work made him build a private collection of more than 50 head-mounted displays.

palmer_luckey_at_svvr_2014
Image Credit: Wikipedia

His Enthusiasm for VR Led Him to Build Oculus VR
He enrolled himself at California State University and joined a degree course in journalism. However, his love for technical filed did not fade even for a moment. As a result of which he had to drop the course and dedicate his whole time to Virtual Reality. His motive behind establishing the company was to develop a unique head-mounted display which would be highly efficient, low cost, light weight and easily portable. The first prototype of his model was designed by him at the age of 17 in his parents’ garage. This gave a 90 degree featured view and also proved to be a push for his company. From then on he developed a series of such prototypes and kept modifying them as per the need. He intended to sell one of his prototypes which he named as ‘Rift’ on Kickstarter crowdfunding website and for the launch of Rift’s Kickstarter campaign he officially started Oculus VR.

With the establishment of his company, more responsibility piled upon him as he was the sole worker and owner of the company. He did all the paperwork, model making, and client dealings all by himself. But not for a single moment he tried to escape from the hard work and stood up all alone to take his company further in the entrepreneurial world. With time his company got more members and soon he was joined by Brendan Iribe and Michael Antonov. Luckey’s prototypes greatly interested Iribe and he agreed to invest a few hundred thousand dollars in the Rift Kickstarter Campaign and later joined in as the CEO of Oculus VR. Anatonov left his job in a company named Scaleform and joined in as chief software architect of the company. The Kickstarter Campaign turned out to be a huge success as its value raised to $2.5 million with an additional funding of $16 million.

Oculus VR Acquisition by Facebook
Facebook never fails to get hold of any great product. When the popularity and success of Oculus VR reached Zuckerberg’s ears, his interest grew more in it. In March 2014 Facebook acquired the company for $3 billion. But Luckey still works at Oculus VR on the technology he developed.

In September 2016, Luckey in support for Trump donated $10,000 to Nimble America, a group against the then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. There was a hate post on Reddit from Luckey’s user id in the name of Hillary Clinton. This brought down his image and also posed much loss for Oculus VR as many clients turned down their deals with the company. Palmer Luckey has been named as most richest entrepreneur (22th) under 40 in America. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth around $700 million.

Infosys Story: From A Small Room Office To $11 Billion Multinational Company

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After seeing the success of startups like Whatsapp, SlideShare, Uber, Snapdeal, the thirst of becoming entrepreneur among today’s youth is increasing at a rapid pace. However, after two or three failed attempts, most of them step back in despair. One thing everyone should keep in mind that nobody or no venture becomes successful without tasting failures. Setting a high aim is perfectly fine but one should also be prepared for the challenges that will come on the way. Worldwide acclaimed and India’s top software company, Infosys too has tasted failures before it became software giant. The huge empire we see today also started from a speck of dust. The only thing that made this company a huge success is firm determination of Narayana Murthy, one of the founders of the company.

The Foundation
The fire to get success in entrepreneurial world was ignited in Narayana Murthy in the early 70’s, when he founded his first venture, Softronics. But unfortunately, the company couldn’t stand the demands of the business world and Murthy had to shut it down. Murthy went back to job and joined Patni Computer Systems as General Manager. However, the urge to go back to entrepreneurship didn’t let him settle down in job. The wait for the right time was finally over when on one morning of January 1981, he sat with his six software engineer friends, N S Raghavan, S Gopalakrishnan, Nandan Nilekani, S D Shibulal, K Dinesh and Ashok Arora to talk about opening a company to develop software.

infosyslogoThe spark and passion to establish the company was then brimmed in all of them but the biggest hurdle was funds required for setting up a company. None of them had the required capital to invest in the business. This is when Sudha, Narayana Murthy’s wife helped them with $250 (Rs.10,000), her savings of three years, to lay the foundation of the company. The first milestone was crossed after 6 months and  they registered their company on 2nd July 1981 as Infosys Consultants Private Limited.

Burning mid night oil
Although they had registered N S Raghavan’s house in Dadar, Mumbai as the company’s office but there was no company office as such. But in 1982, when Murthy and his wife moved to Pune and bought a small house there, the front room of the house was then used as the office of the company.

In 1983 Infosys got its first client, Data Basics Corporation, a U.S based company. They had to move their company to Bangalore to make the dealings with their client easier. Murthy alone moved to Bangalore to manage the company. The environment around was not at all business friendly and this is why Murthy and the other company founders had to face difficulties at every step. Due to insufficiency of money, he could not make a separate office for the company and worked from home. As time passed, the whole team shifted to Bangalore and devoted themselves to the work. The financial status of the company didn’t allow them to recruit employees and thus all the founders along with Murthy’s wife toiled themselves day and night to write codes.

On the verge of breakdown
Around three years later, the company moved into a joint venture with Kurt Salmon Associates. But the venture couldn’t last long and collapsed in 1989. This dissolution of the joint venture gave them a big jolt. The little bit of hope left to take to company few steps ahead was also gone. Even after 8 years, they found themselves stagnated at the same place without any success while their class fellows were all leading a luxurious life. This failure got them into a situation of crisis as the company was about to collapse. Seeing the present condition, one of the founders, Ashok Arora decided to sell his shares and quit as he could not see any hope left in this company.

A new beginning
While other partners were left bewildered from this failure, Narayana Murthy stood firm in his determination and decided to continue trying. The others too got inspired from his optimism and soon they returned to work with the same passion and vigor as they started eight years ago. This time they made up some plans and strategies to move ahead. They divided the work among themselves where Murthy took the responsibility of a manager, Nilekani handled sales department, Krishnan and Shibulal overtook the technical end, Rhaghavan was given the responsibility to deal with people and Dinesh looked in the matters of quality.

With their dedicated efforts, talent and efficiency the company began gaining the momentum. The light of success was visible now as their hard work started paying off. The company began expanding with more employees and offices. In no time they established their first international office in Boston city of U.S.

Infosys established itself as an top software company in India by mid of 90’s. Narayana Murthy now looked forward to build up a good image of the company in the country as well as overseas. He began investing in building huge campuses to seep deeper into the global market. But the stupor of success could not infect him as he always followed the principles he made for his business. For him ethics in business were more important than gaining profit and this is the reason that took his company to become India’s second biggest software company.

By 1995, Infosys opened global development centers including an office in U.K. In the year 1999, the company with a worth of $100 million got listed in NASDAQ. Though there was some troubling time in 2012-13 which forced Narayan Murti to come back to Infosys. Now under Vishal Sikka’s leadership Infosys is again on growth path. Today, Infosys has offices in various countries and its present worth is around $11 billion.

Alexis Ohanian’s journey from a waiter at Pizza hut to running Reddit

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Alexis Ohanian is a popular name in the entrepreneurial world as he co-founded one of the biggest content sharing sites, Reddit. Ohanian was born in the year 1983 in New York and had his schooling in Maryland. He completed his graduation in Commerce and History from the University of Virginia in 2005. Although he had no formal education in technical field and was not much aware of the business world that time yet the desire to achieve something big in life kept enlightening his hopes. And his persistent efforts and hard work to get what he wanted turned out to be fruitful. His journey to success had not been a cakewalk. He considered every failure as a stepping stone in his path and accepted the challenges to secure the desired aim.

Ohanian’s first job as a waiter at Pizza Hut played an important role in making him a successful entrepreneur. He has set a very inspiring example for all those who wish t o reach at the pedestal of success that no job is big or small in itself and every task has its own importance. Waiting at the tables for customers gave him much experience to deal in customer service which is a crucial part of every business.

While Alexis Ohanian was studying in the University of Virginia, he shared his room with Steve Huffman who was a student of Computer Science. The beginning of the journey towards the business world could be traced from the room they lived in. It is after befriending Huffman that Alexis got some idea of programming and technology. Steve Huffman discussed his dream idea of opening a food app with Alexis and got positive response from him. This encouraged Steve’s spirit and he insisted Alexis to take the idea further and discuss it with the programming expert Paul Graham.

Although Graham rejected the idea of food app but the talent and spark in the duo made him welcome both Alexis and Steve to work with him and their working together gave birth to the idea of Reddit. Surprisingly the site took only 3 months to be built and from then on Alexis Ohanian and his partners never looked back. Movement is the basic mantra of life, all you have to keep yourself away from is stagnation.

Image Credit: Wikiepedia
Image Credit: Wikipedia

The world fell in the awe of Reddit
The foundation of Reddit in June 2005 created a storm in the techno world as it was one of the earliest websites that offered social news, discussion and web content rating. Alexis Ohanian managed to get the initial funding from Y Combinator. However, later in the year 2006 when the website gained much of popularity, Conde Naste proposed to acquire the company while Ohanian still being one of the members of Reddit’s Boards of Directors.

Alexis Ohanian’s exit from Reddit
After serving the company for about four years, Alexis Ohanian took an exit from the company in 2009. After leaving the company Alexis didn’t just simply sit back at his home rather he looked out for opportunities wherever he found better prospects.

After deciding to leave Reddit, Alexis worked as a fellow in a micro finance company for three months where he gained more knowledge about technology, marketing and business.

Never ending quest for stability
Ohanian’s journey with technology and computers began with Reddit and such was its seduction upon him that he clung to it even after. In the mid of 2010 he established another company aiming to deal with startups, consulting and advising. The company he named as Das Kapital Capital focused on helping the new youths who wish to turn stones in the entrepreneurial field but possess less knowledge and experience. He also opened many other websites like Hipmunk and Breadpig to keep himself constantly in touch with the techno world.

Alexis Ohanian is also a wonderful speaker and internet activist. He stood against Congress’s protests against online piracy and spoke so confidently that he is known as one of the best speakers in the field of internet and technology. In October 2012, Ohanian worked in collaboration with Erik Martin, the General Manager of Reddit to support the open internet during the debates of President and Vice President.

Alexis was mentioned as important figure in the technology industry by Forbes magazine in 2012. In 2015, Alexis was accused to have played an important role in the firing of Reddit’s communications director Victoria Taylor. Ohanian is supposed to be in a relationship with Serena Williams.

How an IIT dropout became the ‘Bad Boy’ of Indian Startups

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Every idea is not meant to be successful in long run but what matters is your intention and focus. The story of the founder of Housing.com, Rahul Yadav speaks the same. Like most of the youngsters who belong to a middle class family, Yadav too had a target to settle down with a decent college and then a good job. But life had different plans for Yadav and this is why even after joining IIT Bombay in the year 2007 he could not fit in there.

Love for Programming

Although Yadav enrolled himself to study metallurgy but he figured out that this department was not his final destination. He carried on with his thirst for the right place unless he found the well of computers and programming to quench it. While in college he built an online question bank with the name Exambaba.com, for the students of engineering which provided them with the old question papers of IIT Bombay. His interest towards computers led him to drop his college and enter into the world of entrepreneurship. Life changing ideas always involve sincere effort, risk and out of the box thinking and Rahul Yadav was all game for it.

Rahul Yadav
Image Credit: Wikipedia

Foundation of Housing.com

The biggest problem faced by anyone  coming to a metropolitan city is of finding a proper accommodation. Rahul Yadav after coming to Bombay dealt with the same issue and this left a deep imprint on his mind. Therefore, after dropping out from college to start a venture the first and foremost thought that came to his mind was of creating an online market from where people can easily look out for houses to rent or buy. This startup was founded by Yadav with 11 of his classmates and was launched in 2012 with Yadav holding the responsibility of CEO of the company. The company started off well and acquired much attention both from the investors and the public. Many renowned and well-known investors like Haresh Chawla, Nexus Venture Partners, Softbank Cpital and Qualcomm Ventures came forward to invest in the company. Housing.com amassed the funding more than $150 million in the year 2014 and set itself as one of the established firm in the market.

Falling off the position

The first 2 years of the company turned out to be splendid ones with a good amount of funding as well as popularity among the mass. With the great success of the company more and more members began adding up to maintain the pace of company’s progress. Everything seemed to be at its place and it seemed as if the graph of their success would continue to grow. But the wheel of time never waits for anyone to turn its direction.

Right from the beginning of 2015 things turned out to grow worse in the business and within no time the company’s graph faced a steep downfall. It is believed that this was the outcome of Yadav’s rash and impulsive actions. His indulgence in controversies seemed to be more than his focus on the business. He was very vocal  against his competitors than taking his own company and plans forward. And as a result of his consistent involvement in controversies he was fired from the company in June 2015.

Rahul Yadav came into the spotlight for a number of controversial statements he made against his competitors including the founder of Zomato, the CEO of Infosys and the founder of Ola. Also his bold announcement of distributing his company shares worth $30 million among the employees created a tumult in the business world. He also sent some controversial mails to the company’s investors which resulted in further soaring his relationship with the board.

With all these controversies, the board of directors of the Housing.com made a unanimous decision of firing Rahul Yadav for he was too straightforward to do the business.

His New Venture: The return of Rahul Yadav

Yadav was never among those who would be thrashed by a failure or a defeat. He had much experience in standing again on his legs even after falling down 100 times. In about 2 and half months, Yadav again made a sensational entry in the market with his new venture, Intelligent Interfaces in September 2015. This start-up is all about data analysis and visualization in e-commerce. The company reportedly was said to have acquired funding from Paytm, YouWeCan, Flipkart and Micromax. However, so far there is no news of of his new venture except rumors of its failure and shutting down in months. It seems that Industry has to wait for “the return of Rahul Yadav”.

 

WhatsApp founder, Jan Koum: Journey from a cleaner to billionaire

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Building up dreams takes not much effort but turning them into life sometimes require more than an age. But if you firmly decide to follow your dreams until they become a reality, no power in this world can hinder your way.  Jan Koum, the co-founder and CEO of the most popular mobile app, WhatsApp, once worked as a cleaner. It was his hard work, commitment and passion that Facebook who rejected him once for job acquired WhatsApp for whopping $19 billion.

Jan Koum

Jan Koum was not born in riches; his father was a construction manager and mother, a housewife. Despite the financial crisis, the family lived in peace in a small village of Ukraine. But the uprisings brewing in Ukraine disrupted even their little happiness and he had to move to California along with his grandmother and mother when he was 16. However, his father could never make it to meet them after. The life for him changed to worse. Although they got a small apartment there but their daily needs remained unfulfilled. He had to wait in long queues to collect food stamps. He had to take up a job as a cleaner in a grocery shop to support his family while his mother took the job of babysitting to meet their ends. In all Koum then was leading a miserable life with little hope and scope for the betterment of their situation.

Love for computers and professional journey

Despite all these troubles Jan didn’t compromise with his studies and while studying in his high school he began developing love for computers and programming. By the time he completed his schooling he had already mastered in computer networking and was no less than a self-taught engineer. He then got himself admitted in San Jose State University to complete his education and at the same time took up a job successfully at Ernst & Young to meet up the expenses on his education. There he worked as a security tester which further intensified his passion for computers. Because of his love for programming and networking he finally managed to buy a computer at the age of 19. While working on an assignment of Ernst & Young where he had to test the security level in Yahoo’s advertising system, he met Brian Acton who then worked at Yahoo and later became the co-founder of WhatsApp.

Later Koum got a job at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer while still pursuing his studies. But then came a time when he had to choose between two, either to continue his college or to secure his job at Yahoo. Although the decision was quite a risky one as his whole life depended upon this decision yet without much dallying he chose Yahoo. He worked for about 9 years there and developed close bonds with Brian Acton who held same interests as Koum.

Rejection by Facebook

After serving 9 years in Yahoo Koum found him getting clogged at the same place as the company did not offer him much scope to work in the field of social media which always allured him. And then again he took one of the most difficult and important decisions of quitting his job in 2007. Brian Acton too left the company at the same time to follow their interests in social media. Both then applied in Facebook and Twitter for jobs but got rejected. Yes! Jan Koum was not welcomed by Facebook and Twitter.

In 2009, he bought an iPhone and this is where sprouted the idea of WhatsApp. On looking at Apple app store, Koum felt the need and possibility for an application that could facilitate easy and cheap communication. He approached Acton with his idea and the duo then got themselves engrossed in the making of this app. They named it as WhatsApp Inc. in February 2009 and finally launched it in 2010.

WhatsApp

Today, WhatsApp is most popular app in 109 countries with more than one billion users. However, everything didn’t work as planned after the app was launched as it kept crashing in the initial phase and also the duo were finding it hard to promote the application. Their relentless efforts failed and after few months Koum decided to call off the whole project. But then Brian Acton came forward as a support system and infused hope in him and then the slope of their success never face a downfall. In October 2009, WhatsApp Inc raised $250,000 in seed funding. WhatsApp gained much popularity and the number of downloads kept increasing with 200 million users in February 2013 and crossed 1 billion in February 2016. Witnessing the rapid growth and increasing popularity of the app, Facebook acquired the app for $19 billion in the year 2014. As per the records, WhatsApp has become the most popular application for messaging and is used by one billion people today.

WhatsApp

Image Credit: Wikimedia.org, Jan image Credit: Flickr: Dan Taylor