Winning forties
At an age when people start planning for their retirement, three 40-plus men from Kolkata decided to set up a company with their PF and gratuity money. Sixteen years later, two of the co-founders look back and tell their story to G Singh
Building on dreams
Somma Banerjee gives a blow-by-blow account of how V P Lobo, the son of a daily wager, who came to Mumbai from a village near Mangaluru with just Rs 50, built a business that has achieved a cumulative turnover of Rs 75 crore in six years
Good deals
A first generation entrepreneur, Yuvraj Aman Singh, who entered the refurbished mobile phone market eight years ago selling his products outside a Sony Ericsson outlet in Delhi, has now reached a turnover of Rs 150 crore, says Narendra Kaushik
A Caffeine Kick
Two friends started a coffee shop with an investment of Rs 12 lakh in the small town of Vadodara in 2008. They are now one of the fastest growing coffee chains in the country with an annual turnover of Rs 8.3 crore, says Kavita Kanan Chandra
Waste to wealth
Jaideep Sajdeh buys discarded hotel bed sheets from the US and gives them a new lease at his factory in India, where they are made into colourful shopping bags. He made a whopping Rs 4 crore from the business last year, says P C Vinoj Kumar
Flower power
As a 16-year-old Bollapally Srikanth left his hometown in Telangana and came to work in a flower farm in Bengaluru for a monthly salary of Rs 1,000. He is a leading floriculturist today with an annual turnover of Rs 70 crore, says Usha Prasad
Taste of success
An ice cream brand in Kolkata hit rock bottom and the owner’s family ran into a personal debt of Rs 30 lakh. But the family’s elder son, then just 22, rebuilt the business with tasty fruit ice-creams made from natural ingredients, says G Singh
Fortune from pens
The founder of a Rs 350 crore turnover company, the third largest pen maker in the country, Surajmal Jalan, arrived in Kolkata from his village in Rajasthan virtually penniless, riding on a third-tier general class railway coach, says G Singh
Money in chai
A young chartered accountant, Robin Jha, started a chai shop in Delhi 3 years ago with his hard-earned savings and some contributions from his friends. Today, his 21-outlet chain does Rs 50 lakh business every month, says Narendra Kaushik
New game plan
Private taxi operators in Bengaluru are having plans to launch their own company like Ola and Uber, said Renuka Aradhya, managing director of Pravasi Cabs at an award function in Vellore, where he also shared his rags-to-riches success story
Juicy Story
When school buddies Manav Shital and Niti Agrawal – founders of a fast growing juice chain - fell in love, they didn’t stop at whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears but also discussed ways to earn their money, says P C Vinoj Kumar
Getting batter daily
Circumstances were never in favour of P C Mustafa. Son of a daily wager, who grew up in a remote village in Kerala which had no electricity or proper roads, he defied all the odds to build a Rs 294 crore turnover company, says Usha Prasad
Foodie dad
A 26-year-old youth from the small town of Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, A Gopinath, is earning lakhs of rupees every month from his You Tube channel, which shows his father cooking and eating varieties of non-vegetarian dishes, says P C Vinoj Kumar
Never say die
Holding an MBA and coming from a business family, Dheeraj Gupta launched his first venture with great confidence, but lost Rs 55 lakh in under two years. Not the one to quit, he set up a vada pav shop and repaid his debts, says P C Vinoj Kumar
Reaping profit
Farmers in Rajasthan are cultivating olive and dates, with support from the state government, using drip irrigation system. Ashish Mishra spoke to the farmers and found that many are ready for their first harvest and expecting a windfall