Top eCommerce Founders in India

Starting a business from scratch is no joke yet there are eCommerce founders who did it and made it big. It is always inspiring and motivating to know what lay folk with a load of dedication and hard work can do.

eCommerce Founders

Moreover, this could be a good inspiration for you, you might just learn a thing or two from some of these eCommerce founders. Since these are the people that molded and paved the way in the industry. Therefore knowing the insider facts and hacks about a few inspiring eCommerce founders will put you on the right track.

Lenskart

Lenskart.com is one of India’s largest retailers for fashionable and stylish eyewear, sunglasses, and even contact lenses. It started back in 2010 and is headquartered in New Delhi. This business has around 1,00,000 customers a month via both their online and offline stores.

Founder:

Peyush Bansal

Bansal completed his initial education at Don Bosco School, New Delhi. After which he joined McGill University in Canada where he did his Bachelors of Engineering Honors. His specialization is Electrical – IT, Control, and Automation. Further after that, Bansal went ahead and completed his post-graduate diploma in entrepreneurship at IIM Bangalore. This gave him the required knowledge to start his own venture.

Peyush started off strong in building his career as he got his first job at the world renounced Microsoft Corporation in the USA. Where he worked as a program manager for almost a year. Even after acquiring the position, he wasn’t satisfied as Bansal was keen to be an entrepreneur. This is why the eCommerce founder left his job and returned to India. This was when he set his mind to have a start-up mainly to do with eCommerce.

During this period, he experimented with various ventures and contacted various people in the process. The highlight of this period was ‘searchmycampus.com’. This was a website started in January 2008 with an investment of around 25 lakhs. The main focus of this site was to deal with classified jobs, accommodations, carpools, and other services for college students. Later, in December 2008 he shut down the site since he wanted to concentrate on a better new venture business. Here is when he registered his company “Valyoo Technologies” along with 2 other partners. Under this umbrella, they launched several other portals.

Facts you didn’t know about Peyush Bansal

• Bansal is a movie bluff
• He also has an interest in basketball
• Besides this, other fields that he is interested in is human capital, organization development, and finance dealing

Vision behind Lenskart

The founder found out that India has around 15 million blind people which makes up for the 50% of blind people of the world. According to these stats, this makes India the blind capital of the world. Moreover, it was also noticed that most of these people do not have any access to opticians. Therefore to cater and provide to the large section of this community Lenskart came into being.

Lenskart, aims to reduce the aforementioned numbers and do so without too much hassle. Therefore providing you with free checkups at home and offering a stylish range of designer spectacles without shelling out too much for the same.

Pepperfry

Pepperfry is an Indian online marketplace, especially for furniture and home decor alike. It operates as an additional business to Trendsutra Platform Services Private Limited. This business was founded in 2012 in Mumbai and further has its first offline store in 2014.

Founders:

Ambareesh Murty

D.O.B: 30^th June 1970

Birthplace: Mumbai

Designation: Founder and CEO Pepperfry

Murty completed college in Delhi College of Engineering specializing in civil engineering. Followed by MBA from IIM- Calcutta. Following this, he got into a lot of companies with big names. To name some eBay as a country manager, Marketing manager at Britannia Industries, Levi Strauss India Ltd. And he also worked at ICICI Prudential. Lastly, he also worked as a brand manager at Cadbury India which was his first job.

After this eCommerce founder dropped out from eBay, he connected with Ashish Shah. Shah was a colleague of Murty at eBay at the same time. They both came together to visionize the idea behind Pepperfry.

Facts you didn’t know about Ambareesh Murty

• Murty is a trekking enthusiast
• He also is a history bluff
• This eCommerce founder also reads a lot of epic fantasies.
• Besides this, Ambareesh bought a bike which he uses to go on cross country motorbike trips
• He has put in 12-14 hours of work along with weekends for almost 5 years to ensure the success of his business.

Ashish Shah

D.O.B: 11^th September 1970

Birthplace: Delhi

Designation: Founder and COO at Pepperfry

The other half of the makers of Pepperfry. Ashish Shah has an Advanced Diploma in Materials Management from the Institute of Management Technology in Ghaziabad. Besides this, he also has a Chemical Engineering Degree from the University of Pune. He started off his career as a sales manager in Tradox Pigments & Chemicals. Followed by other various roles in C1 (Commerce One) India Private Limited as an Associate Consultant and then Baazee.com as their Manager – B2B Procurement.

Lastly, he joined eBay Motors India as their Sales and Operations head. This was the turning point for his business as he met with Ambreesh Murty with whom he later went ahead and came up with the idea of Pepperfry.

Facts you didn’t know about Ashish Shah

• Ashish Shah is an extrovert who loves mingling around family and friends
• Moreover, he is an early riser and likes to hit the gym for some light workout and does yoga
• Besides this, he also prefers to go on walks especially with his family.
• Moreover, he believes in the term “solvitur ambulando” which is a Latin phrase for “it is solved by walking.”
• Lastly, but not least Shah is a foodie.

Vision behind Pepperfry

The name “pepper” was first narrowed down which felt very Indian to the eCommerce founders. Since Indians are well known for their spices. Further to add a little fun element to that they went about adding fry. This gave birth to the name “Pepperfry”. They wanted furniture shopping to be fun and have that reflected in their quirky name. Further, their goal was to ensure that their customers were happy with all their products and services.

FirstCry

FirstCry, an Indian eCommerce company that deals with baby and kids products. This company was founded in 2010 is headquartered in Pune. By 2020, this eCommerce business had more than 380 stores all across the country. And further launching support and guidance for new parents. Turning this into a community of parents.

Founders:

Supam Maheshwari

D.O.B: 1974

Residence: Pune

Designation: CEO and Co-Founder at FirstCry

Supam Maheshwari started off his education at Apeejay School. After which he did his Bachelors in Engineering specializing in Mechanical at  Delhi College of Engineering. Following that, a management course PGDM in the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. 

Unlike other eCommerce founders, he had a goal and mind set on starting his own venture which is why he directly jumped into the journey of entrepreneurship. As he worked on and launched Brainvisa Technologies. This was an eLearning platform for more specialized skills like management, banking, telecom, and more. Furthermore, he started BrainBees Solutions in 2009 which was a baby care manufacturing company. Later, this idea was developed to bring FirstCry to life along with the Co-Founder Amitava Saha. Besides this, he also is the co-founder of XpressBees, India’s largest logistics company.

Facts you didn’t know about Supam Maheshwari

• Maheshwari is an avid reader
• He loves to play squash
• Besides this, he is a tough taskmaster and likes a challenge.

Vision Behind FristCry

The idea of venturing into the business world with babycare products came from when the 2 eCommerce founders themselves turned into parents for the first time. They found it a challenge to find the right products of good quality. Therefore aiming to help parents especially new parents with their parenting journey. Being the first of its kind in the country this start-up grew to be a success.

Meesho

Meesho is a popular Indian social eCommerce company. This provides smaller businesses with a platform to sell their products online. Established in 2015 and is headquartered in Bangalore.

Founders:

Vidit Aatrey

D.O.B: 1991

Birthplace: Bangalore

Designation: Founder and CEO of Meesho

Aatrey’s only known formal education is that he graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and has a degree in electrical engineering. Besides this, he has training from Y Combinator. Which is an American technology startup accelerator for individuals.

His early career wasn’t full of big names. Some early workplaces that he is associated with are ITC Limited as a supply chain manager, InMobi as a senior associate in Global Strategy and Operations; from here, in 6 months he got promoted to the post of Sales Manager. Before this post, he also was the founder of ‘Pledge’ in New Delhi. Which was a platform that provided placements for underprivileged youth that were taking vocational courses in NGOs. After all this Meesho came into being.

Facts you didn’t know about Vidit Aatrey

• Having no prior influence or experience, Aatrey climbed up the career ladder with hard work and dedication.
• He is a cricket enthusiast
• Aatrey is a problem solver by nature.
• In his college years, he won several awards. Some of which include:  IIT Delhi Director’s Merit Award, silver medal for Inter Hostel Cricket Championship, winner in Game Design Contest at Techfest, Best Team in Annual Inter-College Debate at Miranda House.
• He was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 list for his Meesho success. 

Sanjeev Barnwal

D.O.B: 1990

Birthplace: Jharkhand 

Designation: Founder and CTO of Meesho

Barnwal has had his primary education in Jharkhand itself – till class X. After which he shifted to Ranchi where he did his higher education at DAV JVM Shyamali. Followed by, joining the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, where he acquired his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.

While he was still studying in college he interned with Samsung as an android application development Intern. Also around this time, in college, he created an app that was specifically designed for visually impaired people to recognize the denomination of Indian currency. Officially he started his career with Sony in Japan where he was a part of the tech team and also helped develop the company’s DSLR camera, and Sony’s Cyber-shot cameras.

Even after having a good career at Sony he still wished to have something of his own. But the start-up environment wasn’t feasible back in India. Later in 2015, he received a few intimidations to join a few Indian startups this is when he came back to India and met up with Vidit Aatrey to start Meesho.

Facts you didn’t know about Sanjeev Barnwal

• He is fluent in the Japanese language. 
• He along with his partner was featured in Forbes 30 under 30 list for his Meesho success.
• To date, he is still very active in building new technology applications.

Vision Behind Meesho

The main goal behind Meesho was to empower women and help them acquire financial independence. Besides this, they also liked the whole idea of catering to help build MSMEs (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) as well as local businesses a platform. They had an idea and wanted to do something like what Swiggy and Grofers were doing with food and groceries respectively. The name Meesho came from a mix and match of abbreviations which includes “meri e-shop”.

Pickrr

Pickrr is India’s largest B2B & B2C virtual Logistic Courier Aggregator. They cater to international brands, SMEs, and online sellers. This aggregator is based in New Delhi and was founded in 2015.

Founders:

Gaurav Mangla

Birthplace: Faridabad, Haryana

Designation: Co-Founder & CTO of Pickrr

Mangla was born and brought up in Faridabad, he pursued a bachelor’s in Maths and Computing from IIT Guwahati. Since childhood, he was keen on maths and solving problems and this was the key factor that functioned towards his programming.

He started off as a consultant in IP consulting with iRunway after which he ventured out to be the Co-Founder and CEO of OptimizedBits. Which is a business that provides users with programming, algorithm, and interview questions. After this, he took up a post as a product Manager at TalentPad. Lastly, he along with a few others began the Pickrr business.

Facts you didn’t know about Gaurav Mangla

• He is very enthusiastic about coding and programming
• Mangal loves to learn new things and dealing with problems
• Besides this, he is a positive and always motivated personnel

Vision Behind Pickrr

While working at iRunway,  Ankit Kaushik and Rhitiman Majumder were also colleagues at the same time each having different roles. They started off their business as a simple pick and pack delivery service hence the name Pickrr. While they were in the pick and pack business they realized the scope to further widen their horizon in this business.

Nykaa

Nykaa is an eCommerce site that sells beauty, wellness, and fashion products via its websites, mobile apps, and even offline stores. It was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Mumbai. Moreover, this is the first unicorn startup which was headed by a woman in India.

Founder:

Falguni Nayar

D.O.B: 19^th February 1963

Birthplace: Mumbai 

Designation: Founder and CEO for Nykaa

The truly inspiring one of all the eCommerce founders is Falguni Nayar. Nayar was born to a Gujarati family and was raised in Mumbai. She did her bachelors in Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics and then postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Her first job was as a manager at A. F. Ferguson & Co. Followed by when she had multiple roles in Kotak Securities. She was a part of Kotak for almost 18 long years. She notice the opportunity in the online market growth and gave it a shot. The niche of beauty products was selected from her love for make-up and the potential it had. Therefore, this gave rise to Nykaa as we know it.

Facts you didn’t know about Falguni Nayar

• Nayar has a business background with her parents running small-bearing businesses.
• Having a business background, her growing years revolved around conversations of stock markets and trade.
• She loves the risk and calls herself an adventurer
• Besides this, is she passes her time reading

Vision behind Nykaa

Falguni Nayar had the vision to break all the stereotypes and have a business of her own at the age of 50. And during that time the online market was on a rise and she saw the opportunity and took it. Fashion and makeup had always been something of her interest or passion as you would say. She is one of the eCommerce founders that made it a well-calculated risk towards the start-up. The name Nykaa is derived from Sanskrit, from the word ‘nayaka’ which has dual meaning actress or “one in the spotlight”. Which sounds quite apt for this beauty and fashion business.

Conclusion

No doubt, the landscape of eCommerce is probably as fast as light. Which makes it difficult to keep a track of all the trends and market shifts. But for every one of these eCommerce founders, the market was in their favor. But it was also the mindset and determination of every single one of these eCommerce founders. We would like to wish these founders luck of their businesses in the future.