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| Binny Bansal & Sachin Bansal: An Inspirational Story |
Binny Bansal & Sachin Bansal, who is famous as Jai-Veeru in the world of Indian startups, became colleagues and then business partners from collegemates in a few years.
Today, I have brought for you a short motivational story of both of them.
Jai-Veeru Of Indian Startups:
Binny Bansal hails from Chandigarh. His father has been a chief manager of a bank and his mother is also in a government job. He studied computer science at IIT, Delhi. Like any young man who came out of college, he wanted a unique job that could make education ‘successful’.
He also tried for a job at Google but was not successful. He had to return from Google twice disappointed.
Nevertheless, his efforts came in handy and he got a job at a big online retailer company, Amazon. It was in Amazon that he met his old friend Sachin Bansal.
It is important to note here that Binny and Sachin are friends, not brothers.
Sachin Bansal has also been a student of Computer Science at IIT, Delhi and he took admission from Binny a batch ago. While working together at Amazon, both of them got the idea of their own startup. Neither of them had any business experience but they definitely had an idea.
Both have decided to left the job. Sachin Bansal first and then Binny Bansal split from Amazon after some time. Binny only worked at Amazon for nine months.
Both had experience of online retail but this idea could not fully spread in India. Online retailing was in its early stages and other companies were also working in this area.
Owners As Well As Employees At The Same Time:
Binny and Sachin Bansal started Flipkart in the year 2007 and decided to sell only books first. Both started the company with a capital of 4 lakh rupees. The initial work was the home delivery of books. Those owners were also themselves and employees as well.
Binny and Sachin Bansal used to buy their own books and deliver them with their scooters to the visitors on the website. The company didn’t have any special means of publicity, so both used to go to the book stores and give their company’s leaflets.
Gradually, the company started making strides. After some time, they have opened their office in Bangalore in 2008 with a flat and two computer systems. Now they started getting around 100 orders every day.
Now, Flipkart bought the social book discovery service ‘Veerid’ and ‘Lulu Dotcom’ in Bengaluru. In 2011, Flipkart bought some other companies, including the digital content library of Bollywood portal Chakpak.
Started Cash On Delivery For The Frist Time In India:
While taking the goods online, many people had many doubts in their minds. From the quality of the goods to the timing of its delivery. Considering all this, people instead of making an online payment, opt for cash on delivery.
However, Flipkart turned this difficulty into an opportunity. Binny and Sachin Bansal brought cash on delivery options in India for the first time. This made people feel safe and their trust in the company also increased.
In the year 2008-09, Flipkart sold 4 crore rupees. After this, investors were also ready to invest in this company.
Binny and Sachin Bansal believe that customer service is a big factor in online retail.
In an interview given to senior journalist Shekhar Gupta, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had said that they spend a couple of days with the Computer Service team and work on their suggestions and complaints.
At the same time, the company also worked on search engine optimization. This means that when someone put his name in a search engine to buy a book, the name of Flipkart would come at the top. Due to this the company also started getting advertisements.
Binny & Sachin Bansal Faced Challenges:
Investment is a big need for every new company. The initial round was also difficult for Flipkart. Later, in the year 2009, Essel India invested $ 1 million in the company, which reached 10 million dollars in the year 2010.
Then in 2011, Flipkart got another big investor, Tiger Globe, which invested $ 20 million. Essel India and Tiger Globe were constantly associated with Flipkart.
When the website started running, in addition to books, items like furniture, clothes, accessories, electronics, and gadgets started being sold.
As the e-commerce market grew, Flipkart was challenged by other companies. In view of this, they bought some online retail websites.
Flipkart bought Myntra in 2014 and Jabong in 2015. The company also wanted to buy Snapdeal but could not make it happen.
However, in March 2018, Walmart bought a 77 percent stake in Flipkart for $ 16 billion. Actually, the company started getting a challenge with the arrival of Amazon in India. They had to invest a lot in this competition.
However, Amazon was also involved in the race to buy Flipkart along with Walmart, but Walmart remained ahead.
In the financial year ended in March 2018, the company had sales of $ 7.5 billion. There was a 50 percent increase in sales compared to last year.
Binny Bansal Resignation From Flipkart:
Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal would hardly have thought that he would ever have to leave his company like this.
Binny Bansal and Flipkart, these two names were a brilliant story of success so far, but now a dark aspect of allegations and resignation has been added to it.
In November 2018, Binny Bansal, CEO, and co-founder of India’s largest online retailer Flipkart had resigned over allegations of ‘personal misconduct.
Flipkart was purchased by Walmart in the year 2017. Company co-founder Sachin Bansal had already resigned after selling his stake, but 39-year-old Bini remained in the post.
The company said that the internal investigation of the complaint against Binny had not found evidence in favor of the allegations, but Binny Bansal had not shown transparency on this matter.
However, Binny Bansal had denied these allegations in a mail to the employees of the company.
He wrote, “I am surprised by these allegations and strongly reject them. This is a challenging time for my family and me. Given these circumstances, I think it is right to resign from the post of Chairman and Group CEO of the company.”
At present, both Bansal brothers are now separated from Flipkart. However, the story is no less surprising when Binny and Sachin Bansal started Flipkart by starting from zero.
This is an amazing success story and teaches us that you just start and everything will happen gradually.
Friends, how did you like this inspiring story? Tell me in the comment box.
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