Al Haqeeqa
“Never let success get into your head and never let your failure get to your heart”. These are the wise words dominating Jazeel’s Facebook page cover photo. The 23-year-old completed an undergraduate degree in computer science and engineering from Mangalore. He and his friends failed at impressing the jury of The Startup Centre hackathon with their idea to build an app related to stock market integrating the SMS feature.
A year later, though, they floored the jury with their idea of Eventifier, which was born out of a seemingly casual observation that there was no online portal to archive the pictures and social media discussions threads that were formed while the event was on. Eventifier’s incubation at The Startup Centre hackathon was the starting point of the ride the three friends were getting onto. It was listed as one of the 7 most interesting social media startups at the Web Summit, Ireland. The startup has now been funded with USD 5,00,000 by Accel Partners and Kae Capital.
12. Mohammad Hisamuddin
While the world is busy going gaga over the internet, Mohammad and two of his friends were busy unlocking the treasures of SMS apps. Mohammad graduated from Lal Bahadur Shastri College of Engineering, Kerala. The idea of Innoz was formed in a hostel room while the startup itself was jointly incubated at IIM Ahmedabad and Technopark Trivandrum.
Quest is an Android and iOS based application that function as a search engine where people answer questions posed by other people. Innoz has been recorded the largest offline search engine, 2013, in the Limca Book of Records. It has also has won a number of awards, including Nasscom top 8 emerging technology companies in India 2010, top 10 mobile application developers in India 2010, and top 10 emerging product companies 2011. In addition, they won MIT-TR35 for 2010 and were shortlisted for the GSMA global mobile Awards 2012. Mohammad Hisamuddin follows football, cricket, and tennis and likes to read non-fictions books. With so many things on his plate, we wonder where this gets all the time for it.
13. Navaj Sharief
What’s better than a traditional, homemade biryani? A traditional homemade biryani packed in a box and delivered to you! Meet the guy who brought this about – Navaj Sharief. He completed his schooling from Baldwin Boy’s School and moved on to pursue his BBA and MBA from the Banglore University. Navaj left the comfort of a well-established, family owned business to start Ammi’s Biryani in 2008.
He believes in building the city before building the fort. It comes as no surprise, then, that he single-handedly built the company from scratch first, transcending from one role to another whenever required. The building of a strong management and HR team around it came later, with stabilization. This strategy has worked wonders for him. Today, Ammi’s Biryani has over 30 outlets spread across Bangalore and Chennai. It has been applauded for its flawless packaging and its appealing quality of food on various blogs. Navaj bagged the Best Entrepreneur Award at the Maeeshat Awards ceremony, 2013.
14. Shahnaz Husain
If sheer grit and independence could be a woman, it would be Shahnaz Husain. She was schooled at La Martiniere, Lucknow, and was married by the tender age of 15. Shahnaz accompanied her husband to his posting in Tehran. There, beauty treatments intrigued her more than ever and she made up her mind to study cosmetology. Driven by her will to be independent, she supported her education by writing articles for the Iran Tribune. She worked with some of the leading institutions in the world, like Swarzkopf, Helena Rubinstein, Lancome, Christine Valmy, and Lean of Copenhagen. The occurrences of chemical damage due to beauty treatments inspired her to look for a safer, more dependable alternative.
She found Ayurveda, and there has been no looking back ever since. Now a mother, she started her business in the comfort of her home, with an initial investment of INR 35,000 from her father. Soon, she was elected Chairman of the I.T.E.C. International Beauty Congress in 1981 and later in the year represented India at the Cosmetics Fair at Brighton, UK. The sale of her products broke the cosmetics sales record at Selfridge, and there was no looking back after. As of today, Shahnaz Husain has expanded her business to over 100 countries, branching into various segments like salons, spas, and shops.
15. Syed Mohammed Beary
Syed Mohammed Beary started off as a real estate consultant in 1981. Within three decades, Beary’s Group has grown into a giant empire, offering solutions for everything, from design, development, construction, management, coordination to marketing and advisory services. Today, Beary’s is involved in total reality, property development, and turnkey solutions, infrastructure and construction engineering, shariah as well as education. Syed spent his childhood in the picturesque hilly region of Chikmagalur.
His love for nature forms an integral part of all the projects his group takes up. The entire Beary Group is supported on three pillars – Entrepreneurship, Environment, and Education. The BGRT is India’s first sustainable green building research park. They have as many as 16 educational institutes across the coastal towns of Karnataka. The group has won multiple awards over the years.
