In a world which is increasingly getting invested in the realms of digitization, the name making the biggest waves right now is Mr. Dinesh Agarwal, the founder, and CEO of IndiaMART.
IndiaMart – India’s largest e-commerce company that provides B2C, B2B, and customer to customer sales services via its web portal.
How did it start?
While people usually associate online business to be run by the young Turks, make no mistake, Mr. Agarwal is a veteran. Like any successful businessman worth his salt, Mr. Agarwal foresaw the dot com boom and the whole trend of SEO(Search Engine Optimization) long before it became commonplace.
It was way back in 1996 that Dinesh along with his brother Brijesh, after multiple stints abroad came back to India to set up an online B2B marketplace for business products and services, connecting buyers with suppliers.
The ladder of Success!
And they have never looked back ever since. What started with an initial seed investment of INR 40,000, now boasts of nearly 6 crore registered customers with a catalog of over five crore products, supplied by over 47 lakh suppliers.
What was the magic formula to its success?
While B2B businesses don’t attract the glamour or the attention of B2C businesses, it is this that played in favor of the meteoric rise of IndiaMART. They stuck to their basics and slogged away for years and the obvious attention and public scrutiny off their backs certainly helped their case.
Staying true to his roots, Mr. Agarwal doesn’t forget to remember all those of his colleagues who stuck around and backed him as he worked tirelessly to turn his vision with this firm into a reality at a time of jubilation.
Current Situation
On June 24th, 2019, IndiaMART went public with it’s Initial Public Offer (IPO) at a price band of Rs 970-973 to raise over Rs 474 crore. The company has offered 48,87,862 equity shares in the issue, which closes on June 26.
On being quizzed on his take now that his company has gone public, Mr. Agarwal, visibly elated, was quick to point out his concerns as well now that he will be overseeing a public limited company and the responsibilities that come with it.
The Role Model to Many!
A vocal supporter of the start-up culture, Mr. Agarwal is a regular at the various seminars for would-be entrepreneurs in Delhi, where he currently resides. Moreover, as an angel investor, he has already financially backed close to 45 projects including healthcare and cloud telephony.
Armed with a sense of humor and hands-on experience in this domain for more than two decades, he’s the go-to guy for a chunk of youngsters for advice, and if lucky, financial backing as well.
While wishes poured in from every quarter as he took his company public, nearly everyone touched upon the fact that how he had managed to hold his sway for such a long time with the respect and integrity that people can only aspire to achieve.
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From an engineer living far away in the west to coming back to India to set up one of the biggest and oldest players in the e-marketing industry, he is an inspiration for one and all.
