It has been a long and arduous journey, but a wonderful one: Anupam Mittal

The entrepreneurship bug bit Anupam Mittal very early on in his life when he was a teenager, the Founder and CEO of Shaadi.com and People Group said.

The first three businesses he started at the time had all failed, Mittal told a packed audience during a fireside chat at the second edition of TechSparks Mumbai. "I blamed India... Then, I went to the US and thought I'll study here and live the American dream," he said.

"That ended up happening; I became a multi-millionaire by the time I was in my early 20's through stock options and the dot-com boom."

He then founded Shaadi.com. "When you're young, you have the drive to build something... At that time, I was just determined to build a company," said Mittal, one of the 'Sharks' (an investor) on Shark Tank India.

Speaking of Shaadi.com's early days, Mittal recalls the hiring challenges. "The first product manager I hired was the journalist who came to interview me," he said.

Similarly, with his other venture, Mauj Mobile, the entrepreneur said he would visit the offices of large telecom players and be made to wait. "I would reach their offices by 10 am, and they would meet me at 5:30 pm... I would sit and look at people going in and out of the offices sitting at the reception."

"There have been many ups and many downs, but it's been a wonderful journey," he admitted.

Getting the timing right

According to Mittal, one of the key learnings from his entrepreneurial journey is to understand timing is everything. "When it comes to building companies and enterprises, timing is everything."

Citing the example of his first gaming company—Mauj Mobile—the entrepreneur said it was too early in the game. "At some point, I made new-age films that are now devoured on OTT, but it was too early for the times we were in back then."

Mittal also spoke of Makaan, which he sold in 2015, and built one of India's largest digital ad agencies. "If you think about all the D2C (direct-to-consumer) businesses built today, that would have been practically impossible without the rails that have been made by companies like Flipkart and payment structures like UPI," Mittal added.