These successful entrepreneurs switched industries to pursue their business dreams: top SMBStories this week
For these three entrepreneurs, a strong passion for the business has become an unwavering purpose and also their profession. Here are their stories.
In the search for revenues, profits, high valuations and fundraises, it is easy for entrepreneurs to lose sight of the reason they started their business. Tough times for the business could make them second guess their decision to bet everything on their company.
But for some entrepreneurs, a strong passion for the business has become an unwavering purpose and also their profession. They have switched roles and industries, placed faith in their business, and forged ahead.
Here are this week’s top SMBStories of successful entrepreneurs who switched industries and professions to follow their business dreams:
Galalite
Yusuf S Galabhaiwala, Galalite
In the 1950s, Yusuf A Galabhaiwala was working as a part-time accountant. However, his love and passion for cinemas made him cling to theatre screens. Not only did he love watching movies but was also fascinated by the manufacturing process of the screens.
In 1959, when a business partner offered Yusuf A to manufacture screens, he couldn’t reject it as this was where his passion lay. He started Galalite, but he didn’t have any degree and knowhow about screen manufacturing. And, getting samples was not easy.
After a lot of effort and toil to set up the first screen, Yusuf A completely stepped into the business and rented out a small space for manufacturing. Taking lessons from around, he started innovation in the projection screens.
In 10 years from 1959, Galalite had installed a manual perforation machine that was useful to place speakers behind the screens. By 1979, it had installed about 3,500 screens all over India.
Today, Galalite has captured 65 percent of the Indian projection screen market share with screens installed in multiplexes including PVR, Carnival, Satyam, Mirage, and more, mainly dominating the Chennai and Mumbai market. It clocks a turnover of Rs 17 crore a year.
RV Enterprises
RV Enterprises founders Vickram Singh (left) and Ramesh Rao (right)
Artwork and handicrafts were a big part of Vickram Singh’s life in Bera, a village in Rajasthan. But he saw profits largely went to traders and other middlemen who the villagers relied on to take the products to market.
“I saw a potential opportunity for creating an international B2B marketplace -one where small-time manufacturers, factory owners, and MSMEs could sell globally without going through middlemen,” Vickram says.
He went on to work in a range of corporate and startup roles before he quit his job and took the entrepreneurial plunge. Ramesh Rao, a banking expert and also an MBA graduate from Rajasthan, joined Vickram in taking the leap. In 2016, the duo started RV Enterprises in Bengaluru with their savings of Rs 25 lakh.
Vickram and Ramesh decided to test the idea by piloting one material: granite. They sourced granite from suppliers based in local quarries, processed it into slabs and blocks, and exported them. The granite business alone fetches RV Enterprises a turnover of Rs 7.9 crore, Vickram says.
The company call the granite business phase 1, and it has phases 2 and 3 lined up in 2020. These phases will see all kinds of handicrafts, artwork, dry fruits and other MSME products be sold on a multi-category website which RV enterprises is building. It is thus looking to onboard more MSMEs and help them compete in global markets.
Netsurf Network
Sujit Jain, Founder, Chairman & Managing Director, Netsurf Network
After graduating from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies in 2000, Sujit Jain wasn’t interested in cracking any on-campus placements like his peers. He could have followed the management path and become an executive at a company.
Instead, he looked away from the corporate management life and aspired to open a small computer training institute in Pune. Setting off on his entrepreneurial journey with Netsurf Network, he developed a product that allowed a person with basic knowledge of computers to develop their own website.
Sujit implemented the strategy of direct selling by informing people about the software. After his family friend joined him in the business, the duo went beyond just selling software products.
They accumulated Rs 25 lakh and acquired Ajay Bio-Tech Ltd, which was into manufacturing and research of organic farming products. Netsurf started distributing those products under the brand name Biofit through their direct selling network.
After launching ranges of new products, the company in 2015 crossed the Rs 100 crore turnover mark. Today, its product portfolio consists of 57 FMCG products in five distinct categories that are natural, organic, or herbal in nature.
The company records an annual turnover of Rs 250 crore and is present in 25 states across India and delivering to around 10,000 pin codes.
