This sounds like an insane investment to me.
mensxp.com How Sachin And Binny Bansal Create A 20 Billion Dollar Empire
Who would have thought that a company set up just 10 years ago could fetch a cash deal of $16 billion and truly shake up the Indian startup ecosystem? Sachin and Binny Bansal's Flipkart just did that after Walmart acquired a 77% stake in the e-commerce giant. With this investment in India, Walmart will now directly compete with Amazon in what is being pegged as a $200 billion market by 2026.
But nobody could have thought it was possible and especially not Binny and Sachin Bansal who quit their jobs at Amazon in 2007 and decided to sell books online for a living. It was a simpler time in terms of how much the internet had affected our day to day lives and online shopping was a luxury not many could afford. And still, on a hunch, they started Flipkart from a small apartment in Bangalore with an initial investment of Rs. 4,00,000 ($6,500).
 © Twitter
While many dream of a start-up, only a few are willing to work for it and Sachin and Binny Bansal never shied away from hard work. During the initial days of Flipkart, they used to deliver the books themselves on a scooter all across Bangalore. As the orders started trickling in – growing from 7-8 in a week to 100's of orders in a day just one year into the game, Sachin and Binny knew that they were on the right track and now needed to scale it in order to grow.
 © Facebook
As the business grew, interest amongst investors grew too. Flipkart got its first funding from Accel partners who invested $1 million back in 2008. Flipkart, therefore, opened its first office in the same year and hired one full-time employee Ambur Iyyappa, who's also now a millionaire. Also, the investment by Accel partners eventually earned them a 400x return in just eight years.
In its short history, Flipkart faced a lot of competition from the Indian arm of world's biggest online retailer, Amazon. “After surpassing Flipkart in 2016 for the first time (in metropolitan user preference), Amazon strengthened its position as metropolitan Indian consumers' preferred online retail destination and is aggressively closing the gap with Flipkart to become the single-largest online retailer in India in terms of sales,” Forrester in a report, titled 'Online Retail Forecast (2017-2022) Asia Pacific', said.
 © Facebook
 Live: People Reading Now
Sachin and Binny Bansal, after the sale to Walmart, are now multi-billionaires. However, their incredible journey to make Flipkart successful will serve as an inspiration to the next generation of Indian entrepreneurs who are just beginning to come up.
Don't Miss
|
