Ankur Warikoo, featured in Fortune magazine’s ‘40 under 40’ India list of young achievers, recently spoke at IIM Ahmedabad. He has founded many start-ups in his career, some of which have been very successful. Talking about his early life, he said, “I did my bachelors in physics at Hindu College, Delhi University. Then I went to the US to do a PhD in astrophysics at Michigan State University. But something was missing in my life so I dropped out and came back to India.”
Upon returning, he did an MBA from Indian School of Business. Then, he worked as a consultant for a reputed global consulting firm. That’s when his entrepreneurial journey started.
In his words, “A friend of mine once came up to me with an idea for ‘secondshaadi.com’, which was India’s first matrimonial website for remarriages. The website took off in a really nice way and it got good media coverage. We went on to create ‘gaadi.com’, which became India’s no.1 car classifieds website. We parted ways after that.”
He started working as the CEO of Groupon India, which was the Indian arm of the US-based e-commerce marketplace. He continued there for four years. He said, “We proposed something really crazy to Groupon USA. We proposed to buy Groupon’s India operations. Initially, the proposal was dismissed. But, soon, our proposal gained traction and Groupon agreed to the proposal. We brought in Sequoia Capital for funding the transaction. This was the first instance of a 100 per cent subsidiary of a publicly-listed American company spun off after a management buy-out.” This resulted in what is known today as ‘nearbuy.com’. Paytm has made significant investment in the website.
Talking about the most important thing to remember as an aspiring entrepreneur, he said, “It is very important to know who you are and why you do what you are doing.” He stressed on constantly challenging oneself and “not getting trapped in comfort zones”. Though one can come up with some novel ideas, he cautions that one should never think that he/she is the first person to come up with it. Instead, they should think on why similar ideas have failed in the past and what can be done in the future to avoid making mistakes that others have made.
He also cautioned graduates from thinking that their educational background alone will help them in their ventures. “The market decides whether a start-up is a success story or one among the many that vanished without a trace,” Warikoo said. He stressed on the importance of market focus to look for opportunities and grab them as soon as they present themselves. He highlighted problem-solving as a crucial element of success in an entrepreneur.