Harvard MBA graduate who built three companies worth more than $1 billion says grandfather didn't talk to her for 3 months when she returned to India

Entrepreneur Naiyya Saggi has revealed that her grandfather stopped speaking to her for three months after she chose to return to India following her studies at Harvard instead of building a career in the US.

Speaking to content creator Viraj Ala in a recent vox pop-style interview, Saggi said her grandfather believed she had given up a major opportunity by returning to India. Saggi, who founded BabyChakra and later became a co-founder of The Good Glamm Group, is now building a new consumer-tech company called EDT.

Naiyya Saggi's full scholarship to Harvard

When Ala asked Saggi about her education, she revealed that she received a full scholarship to Harvard.


According to her LinkedIn profile, Saggi first studied BA LLB (Hons) at the National Law School of India University before pursuing an MBA at Harvard Business School. She was a Fulbright and JN Tata scholar during her time at Harvard.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Viraj Ala (@viraj.ala)

After completing her MBA, Saggi worked for a year as a consultant with The Bridgespan Group. She then returned to India in 2015 with the stated aim of “change the world”.

Why Saggi returned to India after Harvard

Saggi told Ala that she came back to India in 2015 and started her first company there.

“I came back to change the world. I came back to India in 2015. Built my first company out of India and now I'm on building my third company,” she said.

She founded BabyChakra in 2015 after seeing her sister struggle to find reliable information during pregnancy. In 2021, BabyChakra merged with MyGlamm, after which Saggi became a co-founder of The Good Glamm Group alongside Priyanka Gill and Darpan Sanghvi.

Grandfather questioned decision to leave US

Saggi said her decision to return to India was not welcomed by everyone in her family. She revealed that her grandfather was particularly unhappy because he believed she had walked away from a rare opportunity in the US.

“When I moved back to India in 2015, my granddad didn't talk to me for 3 months. He was like, ‘You had the opportunity of a lifetime to be in the US, job offers, full scholarship, why do you come back to India to build?’” Saggi said.

She also addressed perceptions about her family background, saying she did not come from generational wealth.

“My parents were in the government, they were government servants. I don't come from money, actually,” she said.

Saggi says Indian founders can build globally

Saggi is best known for founding BabyChakra and co-founding The Good Glamm Group. She is currently working on EDT, her new consumer-tech company.

In the interview she stated that her three companies are now worth upward of $1 billion. Saggi says that you need only one yes, to make it.

Concluding the conversation, Saggi encouraged Indian entrepreneurs to build companies from the country with a global focus.

“Indian founders and Indian teams can build globally-defining companies from India to the world,” she said.