An idea that two students got while working on their college thesis, a team of two that started from a garage and a simple idea of telling stories, turned into some of the most successful startups in the country. We explored their stories and found out what made them as one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India.

List of 10 successful entrepreneurs in India:

1) Sachin Bansal & Binny Bansal

Startup: Flipkart

The story: In 2007, when Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal started Flipkart from a garage, the two would deliver books by themselves to customers. A couple of years down, they became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India.

Their secret sauce: Same thinking frequency, different skills. While Sachin’s expertise was in marketing, content, website, SEO, design combined with the ability to think ahead of time, Binny took up the supply side as it matched his core strength and looked after the technology and the backend systems.

2) Bhavish Aggarwal

Startup: Ola

Story: After a humble beginning, dedicating the initial 3 to 4 years to starting up, a phase of aggressive expansion, the startup reached a stage where it is working on building sustainability.

His secret sauce: Clarity of thought on what you want to achieve helps. If there is no clarity and focus, there’s chaos within too. He says: “I think a grounded beginning helps you build things for the long-term. Our humble beginnings helped us keep our head down and focus on the essentials: consumers and a good financial system.”

3) Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Startup: Paytm

Story: Hailing from a small village near Aligarh that has limited Internet and mobile network connectivity, Paytm’s CEO believed in dreaming big. A big factor in the success of his startup and him being one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India.

His secret sauce: “If you don’t work every day to create history and change the destiny of your country, your community, or the business world, you are really wasting your time. Do not stop with anything small and that is what matters the most,” he says.

4) Ritesh Agarwal

Startup: OYO Rooms

Story: After a couple of failed startup models, Ritesh realised that one of the biggest issues to be solved was the difficulty in finding a good and affordable hotel stay for travellers. That’s when his startup Oravel was re-launched and rechristened to OYO Rooms in 2013. 

His secret sauce: Learning from mistakes, turning learnings to growth, and add to it, a strong team for support.

5) Shradha Sharma

Startup: YourStory

Story: The need to tell the stories of entrepreneurs is what got Shraddha to launch YourStory. The startup is based on the simple idea of telling stories of entrepreneurs. Funded by a number of investors, the first decade of the startup was for laying out the foundation and the next years are for the startup to take off to profitability and expansion.

His secret sauce: The ability to transform a simple idea into a compelling startup model, the ability to evaluate the market evolution, and to be capital efficient.

6) Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety & Rahul Jaimini

Startup: Swiggy

Story: The startup, founded by Nandan Reddy, Sriharsha Majety and Rahul Jaimini, entered the food delivery market quite late, in 2014, but became one of the fastest startups to become a unicorn.

Their secret sauce: One of the most essential elements of any startup’s success: customer experience. The startup has given extra care to customer experience; add to it its focus on excellent logistics operations, which has made this trinity one of the most successful entrepreneurs in India.

7) Shashank ND

Startup: Practo

Story: The startup was founded at a time when the use of the Internet and smartphones was still nascent, while the founder was in the third year of college. The idea originated from one of the most pressing issues of the country: health.

His secret sauce: Perseverance and continuous investment in capital and talent to innovate the company’s products and services.

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8) Deepinder Goyal

Startup: Zomato

Story: Originally called Foodiebay, the startup was launched in 2008 and renamed Zomato, in 2010. The idea had sprung from a simple idea to make restaurant menus and information accessible easily.

His secret sauce: Intellectual honesty. “Intellectual honesty is the most important thing when the going gets tough. You aren’t blaming circumstances, things, or others; you are looking inwards on what needs to be solved and what you need to do differently or better.”

9) Richa Kar

Startup: Zivame

Story: Like every startup, Zivame was founded to fill a gap in the Indian market; in this case, the difficulty of availability of good lingerie for women in India. A bit of research on Victoria’s Secret’s sales numbers, led Richa to go ahead with her idea.

Her secret sauce: A strong focus, passion, and conviction.

10) Aditi Gupta

Startup: Menstrupedia

Story: The startup that has its beginnings in a thesis project at NID began as a crowd-funded initiative and soon received support and backing. The initiative provides information and spreads awareness about healthy sanitary habits for women during menstruation cycles.

Her secret sauce: Her belief that change is possible. “Keep the focus on the user need rather than the product. Product is supposed to change and adapt to the user needs.”