Sanjeev Bikchandani – Story of the man behind India's first internet company

With a net worth of Rs 18,750 crore, today, Sanjeev Bikchandani is one of India’s top richest persons.

Sanjeev Bikchandani was raised in a regular middle-class family. His father was a doctor at a government hospital with minimum income and his mother was a housewife. After finishing his Bachelor of Arts with specialization in Economics, he joined Lintas as an Accounts Executive in 1984.

Sanjeev worked there for three years, following which he moved to Ahmedabad to pursue his PGDM from the Indian Institute of Management in 1987. Later, he was recruited by Hindustan Milk Food Manufacturers (HMM)- GlaxoSmithKline (at present) as their Product Executive in 1989. He was posted there to manage the marketing of Horlicks.

It all began in 1990, Sanjeev had quit his lucrative management job at Glaxo Smithkline which used to pay him a salary of Rs 8,000 a month (which was great back then). According to him, the first 10 years since he left the job was the most difficult phase.

During his days at HMM, Sanjeev had noticed that his colleagues (and companies too) used to regularly flip through Business India, a leading business magazine of that time, to check out the 35 to 40 pages of appointment ads that the magazine displayed. Not because they were unhappy about their jobs, but just to keep their guns loaded. They literally used to read the magazine back to front. That is when he realised that people had no one source for job ads.

In 1997, they launched Naukri.com with 1,000 ads taken out of various magazines. It was a database of resumes, jobs and recruitment consultants. It was envisioned to be a platform where job seekers and hiring managers searched met.

In 2004, the company started to increase to a sensational lift as it earned Rs 45 crore from fresh ads and booked profits worth Rs 8.4 crore. In 2012, Naukri stole the spotlight as it entered the Mobile world and launched its first Mobile App for Smartphone users.

With a net worth of Rs 18,750 crore, today, he is one of India’s top richest persons.

Awards

1. Sanjeev won the “Ernst and Young – Entrepreneur of the Year” award (2008).

2. He was given the Padma Shri Award, the fourth highest civilian award in India, in January 2020.