Bharat Entrepreneurs

Dheeraj Gupta, an MBA in Finance from Symbiosis, Pune once went to meet his friend in London who owned a franchisee of Burger King (2nd largest hamburger fast food chain after McDonald’s). This triggered the idea of an Indianized version of burger. His first venture was Manali Foods, selling Indian sweets abroad. Unfortunately, it ran out of money shortly after its launch due to low margins and short shelf life of the product. After going through various criticism and pain he started Chaat Factory near Malad Station, Mumbai in 2001. With the support of his wife, also an MBA and 4 other employee, he started selling Vada Pao. Mumbai’s most selling snack caught people’s attention with cheap, health and hygienic version of street food. Chaat factory started showing positive results on day one. He then renamed it to Jumbo King. What started from one outlet has now entered into franchise model and boasts of 40 outlets in Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Pune. Its target customers are mainly railways comuters.

Mantra
Rs. 6 vadao pao! Along with some innovative menu which Mumbaikar’s found tempting. How about “diet” vada pao? It also has supportive products (lassi, soft drinks etc.) to add to its sales and revenue.

Growth
Jumbo King holds 20% of market in Mumbai itself. With 40,000 customers every day, Dheeraj Gupta (Managing Director, Jumbo King Foods Pvt. Ltd.) says that the company earns about Rs 18 Crore as against Rs 6 Lakhs in the first year of its operations.

Future
If projections are to be believed then by 2008-2009 it will have an annual turnover of Rs 60 Crore. A highly ecstatic Dheeraj Gupta believes that there is a possibility of 5000 outlets in 8-9 Years. Moving beyond India, he expects this business to generate billion dollars with a capacity of 12-15,000 outlets all over the world.

Innovation. Hunger. Branding -> Dheeraj McDonald

What else can I say… i’m lovin’ it

Reference

• nenonline: Top start-ups of the week
• TiE Entrepreneurial Summit 2006

Popularity: 16%

Sachin Tummala was born in Ponnuru, near Guntur. His father was a Govt. employee. He completed his studies in Guntur. His schooling was in Lutharan High School, Inter in Hindu College and Engg. in RVR&JC. After completion of engg. he was in a great dilemma as to what kind of business is the best to start with. So, he started with 2 or 3 experiments. But, they all failed. So, he joined as a trainee in BDPS institution in Bangalore. They sent Sachin to Singapore on a project basis. This was a big turning point in his life as it kept him in touch with the Financial Services market, making him to know something other than IT field. So, he joined as a consultant for a project in Singapore Stock Exchange. He then went to California and joined as a consultant in Silicon Graphics. After that he worked in Lucent Technologies, Imation Corporation for 2 years, which gained him enough knowledge to start a new business. So, he started Premium Technologies and sold it after 1.5 years and made a good profit. In 1999, he started Carpus, which gives solutions to Telecom and Banking Sections. At present, his branches are situated in US, Canada and Europe in which 500 men are working. Its annual turnover is around 200 crores. He Bangalore, he bought a software company and developed it as R&D centre. He completed his MBA in Cox school of Business Executive in Dallas while he was working as a CEO at the age of 32 years. Later Sachin was appointed as an advisory board member in Cox School in which he worked as a partner for several IT projects. Achievements and Accolades:

• He was a recipient of the “Distinguished Alumnus” award given in Cox School.
• He was selected as a member in Princeton Premier Registry & CEO club.
• He received “Entrepreneur of the year” from the Indian American Friendship Council.
• His company is one of the fastest growing companies in Dallas.

Strengths: Commitment, Fast and Accurate decision making, working without any concern for the time spent. Inspiring Person: Prasad Potluri-Director of Corpus At the moment: He is trying to extend his services in Hyderabad for which he called 25 experts from Corpus, in the US to Hyderabad.

Popularity: 14%