Why Stop at One Entrepreneurial Venture When You Can Have Two? – Story of MGB Alumnus, Taksh Gupta
Everyone has an aspiration as a child. Some dream of being astronauts, some doctors, some sportsmen and much more. My dream was much more boring than this. Since childhood, I always wanted to study management and then start my own company. Mind you, this was not a parent-infused dream – but something I genuinely wanted to do.
One of life’s general principles is that it never turns out the way you expect it to. I did become an entrepreneur. But not after MBA, much before it. At the age of 19, I started a matrimonial company called IITIIMShaadi.com, which is a niche matrimonial portal – only for alumni of premier institutions.
Throughout this time, I was always very aware that to learn true management skills, only books are not enough. Learnings derived from professors and peers are a greater contributor. Keeping in mind that I would also have to remotely manage my firm, I looked for a short-cut way to learn management skills and that is when I came across SP Jain School of Global Management’s 1-year MBA programs.
People feel that an MBA is overrated, I always politely disagree. At SP Jain Global, I drew learnings which would have been hard to derive otherwise in life. I learnt how important it was to manage resources. And I am not talking about money here, but time.
On a usual day of the MGB program, we had to attend classes, finish SBRs, participate in group discussions, work on individual projects, arrange for food, sometimes do household chores, try to have social life, and attempt to sleep in between all this. One year of this taught me to implement the economic concept of unlimited needs vs. scarce resources into my life. I was also able to test the limit of my own capacity. During a certain project, me and my teammate had worked 40 hours straight, with little food and no sleep. Today, this gives me immense confidence that if such a need arises in future, I can stand up to it.
While doing MGB, I had chosen to do an entrepreneurship project. It is in this project that I developed the idea of xCars – a used car buying and selling portal for executives. Executives face a variety of problems while buying/selling used cars, like odometer tampering, lack of authenticity, replacement of original parts with fake ones, abusive language used by dealers etc. During the year I spent on this project, I could create an ecosystem for executives which would shield them away from these problems. Courtesy, the support from SP Jain Staff, I could launch it into the real world. This is my second venture and is now called officerkicar.com
Post my MBA, I returned to India and focused on IITIIMShaadi. It has been doing well and growing steadily. Since inception, we have had an average 10% monthly growth rate. We have about 10,000 active members and have been featured in all major media houses like Wall Street Journal, Hindustan Times, Economic Times, Business Standard, and Deccan Chronicle. There have been learnings which I can directly contribute to MGB. Firstly, I learnt P&L management, which is probably the most critical aspect of a business. After MBA, I have learnt to re-invest 90% of my revenue and take only 10%. Before MBA, this was almost the opposite, which can be detrimental for growth. Secondly, I have learnt some great marketing techniques from the veterans of that field – techniques like pricing based on attachment of customer emotions. In fact, I am tying up with one of my marketing professors for a sub-project in IITIIMShaadi.
As for officerkicar.com, as recent as May 2017, my team has finished working on all preparations and we are open for registrations. We have about 25 sellers already registered on the portal. The buyer section will be opened soon.
Overall, I would proudly say that SP Jain School of Global Management and its MGB program have contributed to who I am today.
About the Author
Taksh Gupta is a management graduate from 
SP Jain School of Global Management. With a graduation in Commerce (B.com Honors) from SGTB Khalsa, Delhi University, Taksh is the Founder-CEO of two ventures, IITIIMShaadi.com and officerkicar.com
Taksh’s favorite pastime is writing. He has two published novels: Love @ 365 Kmph and Hiraeth: First Love. First Contact. His third novel, a crime mystery, is under progress. Taksh has been an all-round performer since childhood with a distinction in academics, Olympiads, sports, abacus and extra-curricular activities. He is also a graduate in classical music, with music playing an extremely important role in his life.
