1. Varadharaju Janardhanan is a seasoned global HR leader, and award-winning thinker, author, educationist and coach with nearly three decades of experience with budding start-ups, mid-sized companies and large multinational corporations in helping build and scale up their talent and people functions. In addition to his contributions towards building organizations for scale, Varadha is also a mentor for early-stage tech start-up founders. 2. M.H. Bala Subrahmanya is a senior professor at the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He has been serving in IISc since May 1996. He is a recipient of Commonwealth Fellowship (1999–2000), Japan Foundation Fellowship (2004–05), and Fulbright-Nehru Senior Research Fellowship (2009–2010). He has more than 200 publications to his credit comprising research papers in refereed national and international journals, among others. His field of specialization is industrial economics.
<p>This is the riveting story of Flipkart, a homegrown company that understood the power of the Internet and transformed how Indians shopped. Two college friends—Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal—gave up their jobs and started marketing and selling books online. While their decision was unfathomable to most, they saw an opportunity and grabbed it. From receiving their first order in October 2007, to joining the unicorn club in 2012, Flipkart galloped into the decacorn stratosphere in 2014. </p><p>Flipkart created a culture of ‘corporate entrepreneurship’ that led to unprecedented growth, which continues to remain unparalleled in India’s start-up ecosystem and in the history of new technology industry. India’s most successful e-commerce start-up company is a place where dreams are pursued relentlessly and where ingenuity thrives. The company acquired 22 start-ups in 15 years to accelerate growth, and, more recently, it has started nurturing start-ups directly through equity investments. </p><p>Flipkart’s overall contribution in nurturing India’s start-up ecosystem is even more astounding—former employees of Flipkart have gone on to create more than 200 start-ups. </p>
