Around the world: Byju founder to take his top performing employees for 2019 Cricket World Cup

Cofounder, MD, Scootsy

“We were a month into the launch of Scootsy and not many people had heard of us. So we had a promotion on Friendship Day where for every order, we would give away an order free. Within hours it went viral. Understaffed and overwhelmed, we all took on the task at hand and started answering calls. We also had to figure a way to increase our delivery capacity — fast. It was a mad shuffle as we cut deals with temporary staffing agencies, and, at some point, we had to stop taking orders. The next few hours went in responding to irate customers. We finally wrapped up all deliveries by 1 am and managed to deliver on our promise for most of them, but barely hung on by a thread. The night didn’t stop there, we spent hours figuring out how to automate what we had done. By morning, our tech teams had detailed product documents and they got to work on building most of what we have today.”

Cofounder, MobiKwik

“I clearly remember the longest day(s) in my life. It was the time when we were planning to launch our own payment gateway in 2010. We started working by late 2010 and by New Year’s, we were very close to the launch. However, due to some urgent work, the key person who was working on the payment gateway’s code had to leave. And, in the rush, we couldn’t get our hands on the code. So my [now husband] co-founder Bipin and I decided to personally work on the whole code again, along with a couple of others. In fact, we missed the build-up to our wedding because we were engrossed deeply in getting this up and running. On the day of my sangeet, our payment gateway work got over in the afternoon and then I was in a meeting till 4:30 pm. My mother was furious because the function was supposed to start at 6 pm and my wedding was the next morning.

After putting many days of long hours of effort into the launch, we thankfully made it happen.”

Founder, Matrimony.com

“I worked non-stop for 36 hours when I was working for Polaris. We were working on a project launch for an MNC bank. We launched the product but had to go back to the older version; it wasn’t a successful launch. We had to rework it. But today, when I look at people working for twothree days non-stop and our engineers working for some of our launches for 48 hours, I feel my situation was better.”

CEO, Honda Cars India

“It was during a recent thunderstorm. We were sitting in a Gurugram hotel meeting room till 11 pm, having a discussion and listening to all the sounds outside. The meeting was on long-term strategy for India. We started at 9 am on Sunday, with key guys from the factory, purchasing, marketing, etc, as all their schedules would not match easily. The meeting room had glass windows and a balcony outside. That was my first experience of the Indian rain and it was amazing.”

Group product manager, Google

“The field research days [while testing a product] are the longest. For our new product recently, we started at 6 am at a park to talk to people. This was followed by visiting about 10 living rooms, a quick dinner and then again on the field. The day ended at midnight. But I loved it, even though it was physically taxing.”

India country manager, EYAP

“I was in Turkey and came back to India at about 7 am. I went directly to the office as there was work to be completed before a prestigious event in the evening. We had invited top architects and interior decorators from across the country. The food was specially curated with Turkish dishes. The evening ended at 10:30 pm, but it was so enjoyable and exciting that I didn’t notice the time go by.”

I had just moved back to India from the US. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I had just graduated from MBA (Wharton School). I didn’t know, specifically, what I wanted to do but I knew that the journey would begin by moving back to India. It was where my friends and family were. I had been away for 12 years, so it was time to come back. I moved back in 2006 and in 2009, I co-founded Faering Capital and the rest is history.

I was sitting at home, planning my next idea. I had quit my job at ICICI Bank and was pondering my next move. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and try something of my own. I was, literally, at home for a year. That’s how I came up with the idea for Citrus Pay (acquired by PayU). There were dull, depressing moments, but I persevered.

It was close to the London Olympics. I was with the Olympic Gold Quest and preparing for our first Olympics. It turned out to be fantastic. I never think too much ahead and have never been someone who thinks too much. If you do good things, good things come.

At 30, I was still discovering myself a bit. I don’t want to sound cliched, but at 30, one has just had kids and is trying to settle down and figure out ways to move forward. Now I’m way more secure, at peace. Steve Jobs once said, “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown your own inner voice.” That comes true as you turn 40. Turning 40 is a beautiful, beautiful feeling and I hope to feel even better when I’m 50.

I was just about setting up IIFL. I was at Kotak Mahindra Wealth Management and had put in my papers. There were eight of us who decided to start IIFL. We wanted to do something entrepreneurial. It was a time for new beginnings. I was very adventurous and got lot of support from my wife Shilpa. She was keen that I do something on my own and it worked out extremely well. If I think about it now, it seems much more adventurous than it seemed at 30.

I was two years into BankBazaar. We started when I was 28. I was in Chennai, after having moved back from the US. The first few years were tough because I went from being in a well-paid job in New York City to being back in my parents’ house in Chennai. It was a big change and also a very stressful time because you are worried about so many different things. How is the company going to grow, will customers accept it, will banks be happy about it, will government regulators support it? It was very stressful at 30.