Shachin Bhardwaj was your typical IT engineer, a bachelor who stayed back late to enjoy dinner on company account. The atypicality was in applying his IT skills to structure the offerings of all the delivery and take-away joints in Pune. What started off as an Excel sheet which was shared on mail with colleagues morphed … Read more

Satish Magar grew up in a farmer’s family – in the city of Pune. Their village (now Magarpatta) was a very unique geographical island. Bounded on three sides by roads – and on the last by a railway line, the families have stayed together – and in harmony. Satish’s own family is a joint one … Read more

After his education at St Joseph’s, Khadki, Samuel Abraham went on to do his BSc in Chemistry at Nowrosjee Wadia College. Those days there was a one year PG course in petroleum which Sam enrolled for. Almost immediately after the completion of that course, Sam got a contract job with ONGC on their rig. If … Read more

TiE talk by Roby John, Tap 2 learn, Oct 2013 Roby John is a mechanical engineer from COEP, batch of 1999. He was the gold medalist in college – moved on to a higher education program, but did not like it and dropped out. He has a flair for teaching, and he has taught for … Read more

Ranga Bodavala was born into an agricultural family in Guntur. Wanted to be an engineer, but his farmer-dad, who is also a trained cost accountant, made the young Ranga do his B.Com. An MBA from Andhra University followed, where Ranga got both his naukri and chokri. He met his better half here. He joined Administrative … Read more

Rajeev’s dad was in the army and mom was a university professor. Rajeev did his MBA from Symbiosis and landed up with a job in Canada. Found that quite boring, so came back to India with the specific intention of becoming an entrepreneur. One thing he was sure of – the field would be off-beat. … Read more

Tikaram Jagannath became a Colgate Palmolive distributor way back in 1949. And for the next 55 years, the family continued its long association with FMCG distribution: adding Britannia, Reckitt and Colman, Ciba Geigy, Amul – and finally the icing on the cake, Hindustan Lever in 1996. In 2005, after having worked full time for 15 … Read more

We started by meeting with Pravin’s better half, who also works with him. She did her schooling from Jnyan Prabhodini. Then went on to do her law and also her MBA. She looks after legal complainces and HR at the company. With 250 people in the team, I asked her what her biggest challenge was. … Read more

Prakash Bhalerao is a Serial entrepreneur and Venture Capitalist. He grew up in Indore, where he did his schooling and college education. He shared two memories of his Indore days: He grew up in a school which produced a fair number of politicians: 2 MPs, 4 MLAs and a dozen corporators. Most of these politicians … Read more

Robert Kiyosaki, of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame, says that to be successful ou have to have a clear societal goal, where you end up doing either of two things: Improve the quality of life or Right some wrong. Pradeep Lokhande grew up in a village near Wai, where his father worked as a peon. … Read more