Small-town boys who made it big in start-ups

Start-ups (and successful ones at that) are the playground of the city-bred and the well-heeled. Right? Well, no. Look a little further away from the metros and we come across a slew of successful start-ups founded, funded and being operated by entrepreneurs hailing from small towns.

Meet Vivek Kejriwal, Founder and CEO of Oneway.cab. Typically, cabs ferrying customers from one town to another in most places in India, charge two-way fare. That’s a most unfair practice, but is the accepted norm. But Vivek saw a business opportunity in breaking this practice.

Hailing from the small town of Bhagalpur in Bihar, Vivek currently lives and operates out of Vadodara in Gujarat. “Coming from a small town, we have a grassroots-level view of things; and our desire to grow is very high. I was looking for an opportunity. I noticed this anomaly in cab service pricing. We decided to charge less.”

So, does he charge exactly 50 per cent of the fare charged for a two-way trip? “No. Typically, our charges work out to 55-65 per cent of the two-way cost. But the response has been tremendous.”

For a company set up by an entrepreneur hailing from a town “which does not have traffic signals even now”, Oneway.cab has come a long way on the highway of success. For, within a short period of two years, it has expanded to 53 cities across India.

“We institutionalised the one-way charge,” says Vivek with pride.

Vishwavijay Singh, Co-founder of Salebhai (salebhai.com), an Ahmedabad-based online marketplace, delivers sweets, namkeens , snacks, local delicacies and even handloom products, made by well-known firms, to customers across the country.

It has zeroed in on 17 communities across the country, which it services by offering products typical to their part of the country.

Vishwavijay hails from a small town called Balia, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Since his father was in the government service, the family moved to Ahmedabad. Vishwavijay, who professes strong roots to conservative Balia (“We visit our hometown at least twice a year,” he says), started the company when he was 37-years old.

“We come from a risk-averse family background. But Ahmedabad’s entrepreneurial streak had rubbed off on me. My stints in Airtel and Nerolac gave me the worldview to know that Internet was the thing of the future, and any business that I do should be centred round it. Thus, Salebhai was born,” said Vishwavijay to BusinessLine in an interaction.

The rest, as they say, is history. Only, in Vishwavijay’s case, history (the success story) is still being written. And now the company has kicked off international delivery too. Like Vivek and Vishwavijay there are many others hailing from small towns that have made it big in the world of start-ups.

Diwakar Chittora, Founder, Intellipaat, imparts training in Cloud, Hadoop and Big Data to clients across 30 countries. The company is growing at an eye-popping 1,000 per cent per annum, according to Diwakar. With 60 clients and two offices — one in Jaipur and the other inBengaluru — and staff strength of about 90, Diwakar’s venture is expanding fast.

“I noticed the great need for skilling of IT professionals. (This fits in with the Skilling India programme too.) Players providing such services were charging very high. So, my wife and I set up this company at Jaipur and have now provided skilling to hundreds of professionals (over 600 by Diwakar himself) across many countries over the Internet. We collaborate with IBM and CompTIA. IT professionals needing new skills join our courses. Upon completion, which includes project work, and test, they are given certificates.”

And then there is Gurinder Singh Bhatti who hails from a small town named Jama Rai near Amritsar in Punjab. Bhatti is CMD of ESS Global, a consultancy firm that provides visa and allied services to students wishing to study abroad.

He took inspiration from his own experience when he wanted to pursue higher education in the UK — the lack of awareness of the nitty-gritty involved and the cumbersome and expensive processes.

ESS, set up in 2013, has helped simplify the process for students who wish to go abroad to pursue higher studies, says Bhatti. It sends students to destinations such as Australia, Canada, Europe, and New Zealand, among others.“We offer highly personalised services and are known for our expertise in dealing with student visas across Australia, Canada, and Europe,” says Bhatti.

ESS Global currently employs around 60 people and has offices in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Bathinda, Amritsar, Patiala and Chandigarh. Last year, it processed visas for around 500 students.

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