Sunil Bharti Mittal

At 18, just out of college, a young Sunil Bharti Mittal from Ludhiana took a loan of Rs.20, 000/- from his father and started his own business, making cycle crankshafts. In 1980, he sold his bicycle parts and yarn factories and moved to Mumbai. He believed that in order to achieve heights of success, it was imperative that he moves away from bicycle parts manufacturing and starts out something new in bigger towns like Delhi or Mumbai. A year later, he bought importing licenses from exporting companies in Punjab. He was highly successful here and in a short time was importing thousands of Suzuki Motor’s portable electric-power generators. However, luck wasn’t on his side and soon Govt. banned importing of generators.

Sunil Bharti Mittal lost the means of his livelihood and soon had to think of other avenues to branch out to. By early 1990’2 he was involved in manufacturing everything from fax machines, cordless phones and other electronic equipments under the brand name Beetel. This company went on to become a huge success in India and still churns out good products.

In 1993, he got the license of cellular phones in Delhi region in collaboration with a French company. Within three years, he had set up Bharti Cellular Limited (BCL) under the name Airtel. In his own words, “The period 1976 to 1985 was “a period of great struggle, of great pain but one of great learning”. In 2000, he was ranked among the top entrepreneurs of the world. He was also conferred the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award, a great achievement for such a young entrepreneur. Today, he runs a very successful empire worth $2 billion which employs more than 5000 people.

He says, “I picked up on the streets. I learnt my lessons on the streets and at every opportunity, tried to assimilate, gather, and absorb some of the practices that were required to create an enterprise.” Despite facing grave challenges, Sunil Bharti Mittal stopped@nothing to become a successful entrepreneur, making a place for himself in a highly competitive field.