Entrepreneurial Power Play

THE NINTH EDITION of Fortune India 40Under40 Awards to celebrate the rising power of India’s young business leaders was organised in Mumbai on August 30 — be it scions of legacy companies or first-time entrepreneurs.

One of India’s iconic business leaders and Padma Bhushan K.V. Kamath, chairperson, National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development, felicitated the winners in a glittering ceremony as the chief guest.

As the world goes digital, Indian entrepreneurs and business leaders have launched products and services across a host of industries, including drones, swappable batteries, aerospace, communications, education and sustainable hospitality. Of the 40 winners, 12 were business leaders from legacy firms who made a difference in FY24.

The star-studded evening had two panel discussions and a fireside chat with Kamath, moderated by Shashwat Goenka, vice chairman, RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group. Kamath said everything is going right for India now, and it is a great opportunity for young entrepreneurs. “India is an opportunity centre, so concentrate on Indian opportunities. There may be constraints, but look at India as the primary focus area. I don’t think you will find any better opportunity anywhere else in the world at this point of time, said Kamath, in the chat with Shashwat Goenka.

The first panel discussion, Challenges of Legacy Nexgen vs. First-Timers, brought alive nuances of entrepreneurship, covering the challenges and opportunities faced by both kinds of entrepreneurs — be it young Indians setting up new companies or those reinventing firms that are part of their family face as opposed to what first-timers have to tackle when trying to implement new ideas.

Right from the business idea to the way they execute, it’s always a clean slate for new-age founders. Delhivery began as a food delivery company since most restaurants weren’t delivering food, says Suraj Saharan, co-founder, Delhivery. “We quickly realised there was much spare capacity in terms of bandwidth with the riders between lunch and dinner because lunch and dinner were busy orders for food and this is when e-commerce was just taking off,” says Saharan.

While one tends to believe that legacy entrepreneurs are born with a silver spoon and everything comes easy for them, the reality is that they have to unlearn. They take over businesses which have been around for generations. “In our business we are working on reinventing ourselves every generation. In my grandfather’s era, it was about the practice of law. We think of ourselves as a professionally run family business. We have around 200 partners, of whom four-five are family,” says Rishabh Shroff, partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.

Failure is essential for anybody to grow, believes Pranav Kapoor, founder and creative director, Pkapo Fragrances. “If you don’t fail, how do you even learn? In D2C there is constant failure, something which B2B doesn’t have where money comes first and everything else starts later.”

Abhishek Chakraborty, a second-generation entrepreneur and CEO of DTDC Express, says start-up was a bad word when DTDC was founded. “Banks would not give you capital, let alone VCs. India was a fragmented market. We were able to create premiumisation in our business and that allowed us to step away from the crowd,” he adds.

For start-ups, the biggest challenge is to make sure they stay afloat. “We started with Faasos on high street, and then realised people don’t know where our store is. So, we started dark kitchens which were new. My parents said no one is going to order from a place which is not visible,” says Ankush Grover, co-founder, Rebel Foods.

The second panel discussion, Starting Up Again, examined how for many of the 40Under40 today, India’s earliest start-up founders have been an inspiration, and successful exits from first start-ups have been a testament to the country’s growth story.

Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, co-founder, Wakefit, says the two takeaways from his previous start-ups were relationships and learning along the way. “Relations are built not because you want something out of them, but because it’s the right thing to do.”

Anmol Singh Jaggi, co-founder and CEO, Gensol Engineering, says the key as a founder is to have a complementary team. “If I am a great zero to one guy, I want more people who think 1-10. If I have good fundraising capabilities, I want people stronger with operations.”

Vivek Biyani, nephew of Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani, says: “The journey from being a part of the Future Group to the journey in Covid and then insolvency could have yielded in only two ways for me — one where you could have yielded in your thoughts of why it happened, or create a new business that gives you energy. That energy is what takes you ahead.”

GVK Group family scion Keshav Reddy, who is also the founder of Equal, a privacy focused platform, sees himself at both ends of the spectrum — as a new-age entrepreneur and someone starting up again. “Building something of scale was super exciting for me. After I came back (from MIT), we transitioned GVK from a family business to Reddy Ventures as a family office. And now I have jumped into one of our businesses, which is called Equal and building it from scratch.”

Sakshi Chopra, MD, Peak XV Partners, says: “In our business, failure teaches you multiple lessons, and hence we are extremely excited to meet the second-time founders, irrespective of how the first one went.”

Kamath also unveiled Fortune India’s September issue, India’s Richest 2024.

The event culminated in awards being presented to the 40Under40 winners by Kamath.