IIT graduates are known for their vision, hard work, and out-of-the-box thinking. Often hired by big players at high-paying positions, they are currently leading some of the biggest tech companies in the world. While most IITians accept job offers with high salaries, a few go on to start their own companies. One such IIT graduate who had a vision to run his own business is Ankush Sachdeva. An IIT Kanpur alumnus, Sachdeva started his own company after completing his graduation. The company failed to make it big, but Sachdeva did not give up. With an aim to go high, he founded another firm, which also failed. Eventually, he started 17 startups, but they all failed. However, luck turned in his favor during his 18th attempt, and now he had made a successful Rs 40,000 crore firm.
Ankush Sachdeva is the founder of ShareChat. For those who are unaware, ShareChat is a social networking platform for Indian audiences. The platform, as of now, is available in 15 languages including Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Telugu, Tamil, Bengali, Odia, Kannada, Assamese, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, Bhojpuri, and English. The company’s success came as Sachdeva recognized the need for a vernacular social media platform that would help connect users from smaller towns and cities in India.
Sachdeva did his schooling from Somerville School and joined IIT Kanpur for Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) in Computer Science. He graduated in 2015 and also interned at Microsoft from May to July 2014. After failing to run a successful startup 17 times, he joined hands with his two IIT-ian friends, Farid Ahsan and Bhanu Singh, and collaborated on the Sharechat app, which was launched in October 2015. ShareChat, as of now, is valued at around 5 billion dollars, which is more than Rs 40,000 crores (as of June 2022).
