By “If you don’t build your dream someone will hire you to help build theirs.”
Well, All of us heard this quote at any point in our life. But does this quote inspire you enough to live your dreams, your passion? If not, then here are great inspirational stories of some successful & famous dropout entrepreneurs who followed their passion with all the courage. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg! Yes, we all are familiar with these two names, the two wildly successful founders of two equally revolutionary organisations. Well, Most of us know this fact that these two successful founders are college dropouts.
Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dropped out at 19.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, dropped out at 20.
But apart from them, there are many inspiring dropout stories, about which people don’t know. So we decided to figure out what exactly makes a college dropout stand out from the crowd, if at all? Is it their passion to achieve or their out-of-the box thinking which sets them on the path of success?
Here are some college dropouts turned entrepreneurs from the Indian startup ecosystem who have proved that college degree cannot decide your success.
Kailash Katkar – A man behind Quickheal technologies Pvt Ltd
Via DontGiveUpWorld
Born in a small village at Rahimatpur in Maharashtra, Kailash Katkar worked his way to the top to be chairman and CEO of INR 200 Cr business. His interest was in technical matters and to support his family, he started working at local radio and calculator repair shop and later went ahead in 1990 to start his own calculator repair business. In 1993 he started a new venture, CAT computer services where around that time his younger brother Sanjay developed a basic model of antivirus software which helped in solving the biggest problem of computer maintenance at that time. Later in 2007 it was renamed as Quick Heal Technologies. He achieved all this without any formal education.
Ritesh Agarwal- Man behind the ‘Ola’ for rooms, OYO Rooms
Via YoSuccess
Most of us are familiar with the word “OYO Rooms”. Ritesh Aggarwal, A college dropout who had one idea in his mind i.e Enabled Budget Hotels, founded Oravel when he was 18, received its share of fundings and later he re-branded it to OYO Rooms in 2012. It is backed by Lightspeed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Green Oaks Capital and has more than 700 hotels under its brand.
Kunal Shah – A man behind famous online recharge portal “Freecharge”
Via BestMediaInfo
Freecharge, the famous online recharge portal which revolutionized the online recharge system with three step recharges along with providing exciting cashback offers was the idea of Kunal Shah and Sandeep Tandon. The company was founded in 2010 and was recently acquired by Snapdeal. He did Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Wilson College and later went to Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies from which he dropped out later.
Mahesh Murthy – A man behind the leading advertising firm “Pinstorm”
Via RichestCorner
Mahesh has spent 29 years in marketing counsel and digital media. He spent 13 years helping startups with marketing counsel and funding too. He dropped out of Osmania University, sold vacuum cleaners door to door .He wrote for Unilever, The Economist, Pepsi and MTV and won notoriety and awards as Creative Director. Also shot a series of top award-winning commercials. In 2004, he founded an Pinstorm which is an ad firm offering pay-for-performance solution to companies across the world.
Rahul Yadav – The brain behind Housing.com’s rise
Via ZDNet
Rahul Yadav was one the co-founders of the Housing.com (Mumbai-based real estate search portal) and a 4th year dropout from IIT Bombay. But his dropout didn’t stop him from getting what he wanted to achieve. With his hard work and great ideas, he took the housing.com to a greater height. According to Forbes India, Housing.com sold eight million dollars worth of real estate in its first week.
And the list of such inspirational successful stories is endless. We Just tried to pick some best, real and inspirational stories for you. At the end of this article, I hope you get some inspiration from these stories to follow your dreams and passion! 😉
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