The culture of entrepreneurship has flourished in India post the launch of the Startup India initiative on January 16, 2016. Now India is home to 1, 17,254 startups recognised by the DPIIT as of December 31, 2023. These startups have collectively created over 12.42 lakh direct jobs. However, the culture of startups started taking shape before the launch of Startup India. Policybazaar and Eruditus/Emeritus are examples that successfully established themselves in the market. Yashish Dahiya, chairman & CEO, of PB Fintech and INSEAD alumnus started insurance aggregator company Policybazaar.com in 2008, which leads Indian digital insurance sales with over 1.3Bn USD of premiums, and over a million customers per month and Emeritus,part of the Eruditus Group, was launched by INSEAD alumnus Chaitanya Kalipatnapu in 2015.

In a fireside chat on “Growing an Enduring Business” both Yashish and Chaitanya talked about their journey, inflection points along the way, the role of family, and importantly purpose in building the business. The event was part of the INSEAD Global Alumni Forum in India organised for the first time in India from March 1- 2. The session was moderated by Nancy Hsieh,Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship at INSEAD.

They reflected on the path to entrepreneurship and emphasised that it wasn't an innate trait but rather a culmination of experiences and opportunities.

Yashish and Chaitanya highlighted the importance of identifying problems and finding solutions as a driving force for entrepreneurship. Emphasizing purpose and passion, they underlined the need to address real-world challenges rather than merely chasing romanticised notions of entrepreneurship.

The purpose is the core

Narrating his entrepreneurial journey, Yashish said that it was his romantic desire to be an entrepreneur. However, he experienced failure in two of his earlier attempts to start his journey.

Before starting his entrepreneurial journey with Policybazaar, Yashish was the Managing Director of ebookers.com, a leading pan-European online travel distributor, and worked as a strategy consultant with Bain & Co. in their London Office.

According to Yashish, he zeroed in on purpose before starting Policybazaar.com. “The middle-class families in India need financial support to take care of their needs in case of death, disease, and disability. Through our business, the idea was to help people, which was our purpose,” said Yashish, who belongs to a middle-class family.

Reflecting on challenges and inflection points, he spoke about the significance of adaptability and resilience in overcoming obstacles. From early struggles with funding to navigating regulatory challenges, he emphasised the need for perseverance and a focus on long-term goals.

Entrepreneurship skills can be developed

For Chaitanya, it was a series of challenging events and experiences gained that propelled him into entrepreneurship. “One cannot get up one fine day and decide to become an entrepreneur. This skill is developed through experiences and not automatically in DNA,” said Chaitanya.

He had never thought of being an entrepreneur until he graduated. Then a significant moment came when he traveled to Dubai for an interview. “Everything went seamlessly, but I could not make it over the typical fitment issue. That forced me to think over it and inspired me to be innovative to solve the real problems around making higher education affordable and accessible,” said Chaitanya who by then got exposure and understood the impact of management education.

“Students take loans and go to other places for an MBA. Instead of students going to the universities, can we take the university to the students in various geographies? Hence combining my experiences and my pain points contributed to kick start my entrepreneurial journey.”