The Founder of BharatPe – Ashneer Grover had it all until it came toppling down when he faced some controversies in his company. Ashneer Grover became a household name after his debut as a Shark Tank India judge. Life was quite pleasantly scaling for him until a couple of setbacks forced him to resign from his founding company. But while most know that he has had a topsy-turvy life for the last few years, only some know how he made it so big. Here is a sneak peek into Ashneer Grover’s life.
Early Childhood and Education
Born, brought up, and educated in Delhi, Ashneer Grover feels that he is a typical Delhi boy. He hails from a middle-class family where his mom was a school teacher and his dad was a chartered accountant. Growing up, he had seen all members of his family employed in some kind of service or job. There was no business background. He completed his schooling at APJ school in Delhi. After completing his 12th, one thing was clear to him that he could never become a chartered accountant like his dad and sit like him in his office. He had to find a different career path for himself.
He decided to become an engineer then and got admission to IIT Delhi. He graduated from IIT Delhi in 2004. In 2003, he was selected for an exchange program in France, where he was awarded a scholarship as well. After completing his engineering from IIT Delhi, he was selected in IIM Ahmedabad. He earned his MBA degree from here in 2006.
Early Career
He landed his first job in Kotak Investment Banking in 2006. He spent 7 successful years as an investment banker in Kotak Bank and cracked 10 valuable deals amounting to 3 Billion dollars. He then decided to change his career path and try doing something different.
He then bagged a job at American Express India, where he had a role in investing in other payment companies. While there, he had a closer look at Mobikwik, Pine Labs, and Paytm. While there, he analyzed the functioning of more than 100 payment companies and understood their processes in depth.
He got his first opportunity at entrepreneurship in 2015 via a friend Albinder, who was from IIT. He joined Grofers Company as the CEO at the request of his friend. He scaled the startup to a point where it was getting 30,000 INR worth of orders per day. He dedicated all his passion and time to Grofers until 2017 when he had to leave the company mid-way due to some problems. He recalls those issues today as a major life lesson. Today, he gives the entire credit of his entrepreneurship knowledge to his Grofers days and lessons from his friend Albinder.
At this point in his life, he realized that he has always worked in banks and major corporate companies as he hails from a formal education background. He had no experience in doing business directly with customers. He then decided to join PC Jewelers, whom he had previous acquaintances with. While there, he was trying to set up their business on gold loans and was not involved with their jewelry business at all.
Career
Ashneer Grover got his major breakthrough in 2018 when he met two of his co-founders, Bhavik and Shashwat, both from IIT Delhi. They explained to him how they had figured out a unique technology through which they could use UPI technology and QR code. He realized that these guys were quite young but had great technology in hand. He then decided to merge his experience and their technology to make a great company. Ashneer started his career by founding BharatPe in 2018. Since then, there has been no looking back.
Their company showcased massive growth month after month only because they had cracked an important method through which shopkeepers could accept payments for free by using BharatPe’s QR code. Today, BharatPe is one of the highest-grossing companies in India, even larger than Paytm. They get done more than 50 lakh transactions per day. Per year, more than 1 lakh crore payments flow from their systems.
After reaching this milestone, they did not stop there and began providing loans to small shop owners based on their QR code transactions. Within 3 years, BharatPe became quite a big brand. Ashneer Grover feels that it scaled to such heights because they could win the trust of everyone by making payments always on time.
Their main mission was to continue their association with small businesses and give them loans so that they could compete with their online competitors.
Important Lessons on Entrepreneurship by Ashneer Grover
- Ashneer feels that today most startups feel that all they need to do is to come up with a new technology or product, do a bit of marketing, set up digital selling, and hire a few people and their business will do well. But, entrepreneurship is much more than that. He feels that one needs a lot of perseverance and dedication to make a business succeed.
- He feels that to become a founder or to get a founder’s tag is no rocket science. Today, it has become a fashion that everyone wants to get involved in a startup. But he feels that to become a founder is no qualification or expertise. He advises that only those can become founders if they want to do business for the right reason and not just to appear cool.
- He advises entrepreneurs that markets will never pay for your inefficiencies or extravagance. The day you take this as your vision and get that discipline in your business, you can scale to great heights.
Personal Life of Ashneer Grover
He got married to Madhuri Jain Grover in 2006 and the couple has a son and a daughter.
Ashneer Grover had to resign as the CEO and MD of BharatPe due to some issues with the management. But the man has a never-give-up attitude. Currently, he is on the brink of starting something new soon.
