So the very obvious question that would pop-up in a budding entrepreneur's mind would be - Do I need an MBA to start my own firm? How do I learn how to manage a business?
While I lack the experience to answer the latter part of the question, I will attempt to answer the former by providing the educational qualifications of the top-100 start-ups to look out for in 2018, as per SutraHR, a talent acquisition platform for startups.
This report will attempt to answer the following questions -
- Is an MBA necessary to be an entrepreneur? How many non-MBAs have been successful in setting up their own SMEs?
- Which graduation and post-graduation colleges do most entrepreneurs come from? Is there a trend around this?
- How many entrepreneurs do not possess any undergraduate or post-graduate qualifications?
Note - Complete data for only 181 out of 198 founders and co-founders was available.
Top 10 Unicorn & Decacorn Start-up Founders In India -
Amongst the top 10 companies with valuation over $1 Billion including Flipkart, Snapdeal, PayTM, Ola, ReNew Power Ventures, Hike, Shopclues, Zomato, InMobi and Quikr:
- 50% of start-up founders have done an MBA, with IIM Calcutta and Harvard Business School producing the maximum number of billionaire start-up founders.
- 70% of this list consists of IIT alumni, with most alumni from IIT Delhi.
Company |
Founders |
Under graduation |
Post-Graduation |
Flipkart |
Sachin Bansal | IIT Delhi | NA |
Binny Bansal | IIT Delhi | NA | |
Snapdeal |
Kunal Bahl | University of Pennsylvania | Kellogg School of Management |
Rohit Bansal | IIT Delhi | IIT Delhi (M.Tech) | |
PayTM |
Vijay Shekhar Sharma | Delhi College of Engineering | NA |
Olacabs |
Bhavish Aggarwal | IIT Bombay | NA |
Ankit Bhati | IIT Bombay | NA | |
ReNew Power Ventures |
Sumant Sinha | IIT Delhi | IIM Calcutta |
Hike |
Kavin Bharti Mittal | University of York | Imperial College London (EEE & Management) |
Shopclues |
Sanjay Sethi | IIT (BHU) | IIT Delhi (Software Technology) |
Sandeep Aggarwal | Kurukshetra University | Olin Business School | |
Radhika Aggarwal | Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya | Washington University St. Louis (MBA) | |
Zomato Media |
Deepinder Goyal | IIT Delhi | NA |
Pankaj Chaddah | IIT Delhi | NA | |
InMobi |
Naveen Tewari | IIT Kanpur | Harvard Business School |
Mohit Saxena | IIT Roorkee | Harvard Business School (AMP) | |
Amit Gupta | IIT Kanpur | Harvard Business School | |
Abhay Singhal | IIT Kanpur | NA | |
Quikr |
Pranay Chulet | IIT Delhi | IIM Calcutta |
Jiby Thomas | St. Berchman's College | IIM Calcutta |
Top 100 Upcoming Startups In India -
-
How many start-up founders did not pursue any post-graduation degrees, including MBA?
Out of the 198 founders (for whom data was available) of 100 start-ups, we find that 81 of the founders have not pursued any post-graduation degree at all, while 65 founders have pursued an MBA degree, and 35 have pursued specialisations in their respective fields (mostly Engineering).
Very clearly, an MBA is NOT a prerequisite to starting your own business. Perhaps in the future, founders may choose to pursue a management degree to develop technical knowledge and form a network, but it is most certainly not necessary for one to pursue an MBA or even a specialisation before setting up a company.
However, an observation that can be made is that the majority of the founders in this list have had prior work experience of a minimum of 2 years, which may have aided them in building their own company.
-
How many founders pursued an MBA locally?
Out of the 65 founders who pursued an MBA, 35 of them pursued an MBA from India, while the rest pursued their Business programmes from countries such as the United States, Canada, and England.
-
Which Indian B-Schools have produced the most number of Start-up founders in this list?
The following graph illustrates the management institutes which have produced the maximum number of founders -
IIM Ahmedabad alumni have the maximum representation across up-coming start-ups, followed by IIM Calcutta, ISB Hyderabad and IIM Lucknow. It is clear that more than half the start-up founders who DID manage to pursue an MBA hail from the elite B-Schools of the country. NMIMS alumni also appear to have an entrepreneurial streak.
When it comes to foreign B-Schools, Harvard Business School and the London Business School have produced the maximum number of start-up founders in this list (including the unicorns and decacorns).
Under Graduate Colleges -
Apart from post-graduation degrees, we can also focus on the undergraduate colleges which these founders and co-founders belong to.
As was the case in the top 100 CEOs of Indian Fortune 500 companies, most start-up leaders hail from IITs. In this list, IITs account for over 3/10th of the total alumni (31.25%) in this list.
After the 55 IIT alumni, the maximum number of founders are alumni of NITs (6), Mumbai University (7), Delhi University (8) and Motilal Institute of Technology (4).
90% (estimated) of the start-up founders in this list are Engineers.
Also read - CEOs OF Top 100 Indian Companies - How Many Did An MBA?
Here is the complete list of founders of upcoming start-ups (as per SutraHR) and their educational qualifications:
Company |
Founders |
Undergraduation |
Post-Graduation |
9Stacks
|
Sudhir Kamath | Delhi Institute of Technology | IIM Ahmedabad |
Pratik Kumar | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Kharagpur | |
Abhinav Nigam | IIT Kharagpur | NA | |
Rishabh Mathur | IIT Kharagpur | NA | |
Active Intelligence
|
Ravi Shankar | Madras Christian College | IMDR (MBA) |
Parikshit Paspulati | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
AEON Learning
|
Karthik KS | NIT Kurukshetra | SP College of Management |
Vikalp Jain | IIT Bombay | IIT Bombay | |
Airpay
|
Kunal Jhunjhunwala | Rochester Institute of Technology | London School of Economics |
Amit Kapoor | Mumbai University | NMIMS Mumbai | |
Rohan Deshpande | Mumbai University | Mumbai University (MBA) | |
ALT Balaji | Ekta Kapoor | Mithibai College | NA |
Ask Arvi
|
Sushant Reddy | IIT Bombay | Columbia Business School |
Mandar Zope | IIT Bombay | NA | |
Ashwin Narkhede | IIT Bombay | IIT Bombay (M.Tech) | |
Avishkaar Box | Tarun Bhalla | Delhi University (Computer Science) | University of Washington |
Biryani By Kilo
|
Kaushik Roy | Hotel Management | NA |
Vishal Jindal | IIT-BHU | Martin J. Whitman School of Management | |
Blowhorn
|
Nikhil Shivaprasad | VNIT Nagpur | North Carolina State University |
Mithun Srivatsa | VNIT Nagpur | Cambridge Judge Business School | |
Boltt Sports Technologies
|
Aayushi Kishore | SRCC | Harvard Business School |
Arnav Kishore | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
Boxx.Ai
|
Ajay Kashyap | IIT Bombay | NA |
Prakhar Raj | IIT Bombay | NA | |
Shitiz Bansal | IIT Delhi | NA | |
Cash Suvidha
|
Anoop Garg | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Rajesh Gupta | Delhi University (B.Com) | NA | |
Call Health | Hari Thalapalli | Madras University | Loyola College |
Chimple Learning | Srikanth Talapadi | University of Mysore | IIM Bangalore |
Clip | Nav Agrawal | IIT Bombay | NA |
CoWrks | Sidharth Menda | Bentley University | NA |
CrediFiable | Presha Paragash | London School of Economics & Political Science | The Wharton School |
Credy
|
Harshit Vaishnav | IIT Madras | IIT Madras |
Pratish Gandhi | Chennai Mathematical Institute | Chennai Mathematical Institute | |
CureFit
|
Ankit Nagori | IIT Guwahati | NA |
Mukesh Bansal | IIT Kanpur | NA | |
Doctor Insta | Amit Munjal | Data Unavailable | Indiana University Bloomington |
Drivezy
|
Abhishek Mahajan | IIT Bombay | NA |
Amit Sahu | Motilal Institute of Technology | NA | |
Ashwarya Singh | Motilal Institute of Technology | ||
Vasant Verma | Motilal Institute of Technology | ||
Dunzo
|
Ankur Aggarwal | Hansraj College (Computer Science) | IIT Roorkee (Computer Science) |
Dalvir Suri | Sardar Patel Institute of Technology | NA | |
Kabeer Biswas | Mumbai University | NMIMS Mumbai | |
Mukund Jha | Motilal Institute of Technology | Columbia Engineering | |
Eatigo
|
Judy Tan | Nanyang Technological University | Imperial College London |
Michael Cluzel | California State University | Heidelberg University | |
Pumin Yuvacharuskul | Data Unavailable | UCL | |
Siddhanta Kothari | ICAI | NA | |
ECom Express
|
K. Satyanarayana | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Manju Dhawan | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
Sanjeev Saxena | RDV University (B.Com) | NA | |
T.A. Krishnan | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
East India Comedy | Sorabh Pant | Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics | Mumbai University |
ERA
|
Karmaditya Bagga | Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University | NA |
Priyansha Jain | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
Ajay Vishnu | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
Fella Homes
|
Amit Gupta | IIT Roorkee | NA |
Digendra Singh Rathore | IIT Roorkee | NA | |
Kunal Singh | Purdue University | Stanford University | |
Virender Pratap Singh | IIT Roorkee | NA | |
Yadwinder Paul Singh | IIT Roorkee | NA | |
FilmyGyan | Aftab Khan | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
FingerLix | Shree Bharambe | College of Engineering, Pune | IIM Bangalore |
FlintoBox
|
Arunprasad Durairaj | Madurai Kamaraj University | The Tuck School of Business |
Shreenidhi Srirangam | PES College of Engineering | NA | |
Vijay Gandhi | Anna University | NA | |
Flochat
|
Aahana Mulla | St. Xavier's College | Aston University |
Yuvraj Bhalla | National College | Frameboxx Animation Institute | |
Prateek Lal | Data Unavailable | Welingkar Institute of Management | |
Flock | Bhavin Turakhia | Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics | NA |
ftcash
|
Deepak Kothari | SRCC | NA |
Sanjeev Chandak | IIT Kharagpur | The Wharton School | |
Vaibhav Lodha | NIT Trichy | IIM Calcutta | |
Fynd
|
Farooq Adam | IIT Bombay | IIT Bombay |
Harsh Shah | IIT Bombay | NA | |
Sreeraman Mohan Girija | University of Kerala | IIT Bombay | |
GamingMonk
|
Abhay Sharma | Amity Institute of Technology | NA |
Ashwin Haryani | Amity Institute of Technology | NA | |
Get My Parking
|
Chirag Jain | Galgotias College of Engineering & Technology | IIT Madras |
Rasik Pansare | Pune Institute of Computer Technology | FMS Delhi | |
GoCoop | Siva Devireddy | Data Unavailable | Arizona State University |
GoFro | Amitabh Misra | IIT Kanpur | Walter A. Haas School of Business |
Gold Farm | Abhilash Thirupathy | Meenakshi Ammal Dental College | IIM Lucknow |
Graphic India
|
Gotham Chopra | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Sharad Devarajan | Syracuse University | Columbia University | |
Suresh Seetharaman | School of Visual Arts | NA | |
HalaPlay | Swapnil Saurav | BITS Pilani | NA |
HandyTrain | Devadas Krishnan | Mahatma Gandhi University | IIM Ahmedabad |
Hansel.io
|
Mudit Krishna Mathur | NIT Warangal | NA |
Parminder Singh | IIIT | NA | |
Varun Ramamurthy Dinakar | Anna University | IIM Calcutta | |
HexOctane | Jhenkar Dixit | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
HipCask | Aneesh Bhasin | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Homergize | Vinod R. Kaushik | BMS College of Engineering | University of Maryland (MBA) |
icanstay
|
Avneet Soni | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Puneet Gupta | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
InnerChef | Rajesh Sawhney | Delhi College of Engineering | Harvard Business School |
Innov8 Coworking
|
Ritesh Malik | MGR Medical University | Harvard University |
Shailesh Gupta | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Kharagpur | |
Sumit Ranka | Dwarkadas J Sanghvi College of Engineering | NA | |
iNurture
|
Ashwin Ajila | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
R Lakshminarayanan | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable | |
Josh Talks
|
Shobhit Banga | Lancaster University | NA |
Supriya Paul | Sri Venkateswara College | NA | |
Koinex
|
Aditya Naik | BITS Pilani | BITS Pilani |
Rahul Raj | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Kharagpur | |
Rakesh Yadav | IIT Delhi | NA | |
KrazyBee
|
Karthikeyan K | National University of Singapore | National University of Singapore |
Madhusudhan E | NIT Surathkal | University of Toronto | |
Wan Hong | Wuhan University | Edith Cowan University | |
LetsTransport
|
Pushkar Singh | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Kharagpur |
Sudarshan Ravi | IIT Kharagpur | IIT Kharagpur | |
LBB | Suchita Salwan | Hindu College, DU | NA |
m.Paani | Akanksha Hazari | Princeton University | University of Cambridge |
Meesho
|
Sanjeev Barnwal | IIT Delhi | NA |
Vidit Aatrey | IIT Delhi | NA | |
Mobie Fit | Gul Panag | Punjabi University | Panjab University |
Money View
|
Puneet Agarwal | IIT Delhi | Krannert School of Management |
Sanjay Aggarwal | IIT Delhi | NA | |
Mr Button | Deepak Khetan | Delhi University | Birmingham Institute of Art and Design |
NanoNets
|
Prathamesh Juvatkar | IIT Gandhinagar | NA |
Sarthak Jain | IIT Gandhinagar | NA | |
Netmeds.com | Pradeep Dadha | Loyola College | NA |
NiYo Solutions
|
Virender Bisht | NIT Kurukshetra | NA |
Vinay Bagri | IIRM, Hyderabad | IIM Calcutta | |
Noticeboard
|
Sarath Chandran | IIT Kharagpur | NA |
Vishal Gahlaut | Punjab Engineering College | IIM Ahmedabad | |
Vishesh Dahinwal | IIT Delhi | IIM Ahmedabad | |
Numberz
|
Aditya Tulsian | Savitribai Phule College of Engineering | ISB, Hyderabad |
Baskar Ganapathy | University of Madras | California State University | |
Rajeev Chari | SGSITS, Indore | ISB, Hyderabad | |
OncoStem Diagnostics | Manjiri Bakre | University of Mumbai | University of Baroda |
OpenOut | Arun Rafi | G.R. Damodaran College of Science | SIBM, Bangalore |
Play Shifu
|
Dinesh Advani | IIT Kharagpur | NA |
Vivek Goyal | IIT Kharagpur | Stanford University Graduate Business School | |
Propstory
|
Ashish Mahajan | IIT Bombay | ISB, Hyderabad |
Bhagwandas Paliwal | IIT Bombay | NA | |
Qbera | Aditya Kumar | University of Warwick | Cass Business School |
RenewBuy | Balachander Sekhar | IIT Bombay | IIM Calcutta |
Rentickle
|
Amit Sodhi | Delhi College of Engineering | ISB, Hyderabad |
Vineet Chawla | Delhi University | Mumbai University (MBA) | |
Sendd | Sumeet Wadhwa | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Sensibol Audio Technologies
|
Sujeet Kini | Mumbai University | IIT Bombay |
Nagesh Nayak | Thakur College of Engineering | IIT Bombay | |
Vishweshwara Rao | Mumbai University | Miami University | |
Preeti Rao | IIT Bombay | NA | |
Sachin Pant | Vishwakarma Institute of Technology | IIT Bombay | |
Sequretek
|
Anand Naik | KIT College of Engineering | NA |
Pankit Desai | SS Engineering College | BK School of Business Management | |
SigTuple
|
Apurv Anand | IIT Delhi | NA |
Rohit Pandey | IIIT, Bangalore | NA | |
Tathagato Dastidar | IIT Kharagpur | NA | |
SlicePay
|
Deepak Malhotra | BITS Pilani | NA |
Rajan Bajaj | IIT Kharagpur | NA | |
Smaash Entertainment | Shripal Morakhia | University of Pune | NA |
Stanza Living
|
Anindya Dutta | IIT Kharagpur | IIM Ahmedabad |
Sandeep Dalmiya | Delhi College of Engineering | IIM Ahmedabad | |
StoreKing
|
Govardhan K | VV Puram Science College | Adarsha Jain College |
Sridhar Gundaiah | Visvesaraya Technological University | University of Greenwich (MS) | |
StyleCracker | Dhimaan Shah | Northwestern University | NA |
Sumeru | Harish Ramachandran | IIT Bombay | NA |
ten3T
|
Rahul Shingrani | Thadomal Shahani Engineering College | Drexel University |
Prasad Bhat | Visvesaraya Technological University | NA | |
Terribly Tiny Tales
|
Anuj Gosalia | Narsee Monjee College of Economics & Commerce | Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India |
Chintan Ruparel | SIES College | NA | |
TAOAutomation
|
Jawahar Bekay | St. Xavier's College | SPJIMR |
Arjun Vaznaik | St. Xavier's College | Asian Institute of Management | |
The Bohri Kitchen
|
Nafisa Kapadia | Data Unavailable | Data Unavailable |
Munaf Kapadia | Data Unavailable | NMIMS Mumbai | |
The Moms Co
|
Malika Datt Sadani | Savitribai Phule, Pune University | Welingkar Institute of Management |
Mohit Sadaani | Thadomal Shahani Engineering College | IIM Ahmedabad | |
The Office Pass | Aditya Verma | Harcourt Butler Technological Institute, Kanpur | IMI, New Delhi |
ThirdWatch
|
Adarsh Jain | IIT BHU | NA |
Shashank Agarwal | Rajasthan Technical University | NA | |
Touchkin
|
Jo Aggarwal | IIT Delhi | IIM Lucknow |
Ramakant Vempati | IIT Kanpur | IIM Lucknow, London Business School | |
Vahdam Teas | Bala Sarda | Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies | NA |
WeDoSky | Jaspreet Makkar | Jaypee Institute of Information Technology | NA |
WishBerry
|
Anshulika Dubey | Miranda House, Delhi University | NA |
Priyanka Agarwal | The Wharton School | School of Engineering & Applied Sciences | |
WittyFeed
|
Parveen Singhal | SRM University | NA |
Shashank Vaishnav | SRM University | NA | |
Vinay Singhal | SRM University | NA | |
Wydr | Devesh Rai | Delhi University | IIM Calcutta |
Yaantra
|
Ankit Saraf | Data Unavailable | Bundelkhand University |
Anmol Gupta | IPS Academy | NA | |
Jayant Jha | Delhi University | NA | |
YourQuote
|
Ashish Singh | IIT Delhi | NA |
Harsh Snehanshu | IIT Delhi | NA | |
ZestMoney
|
Ashish Anantharaman | Mumbai University | NA |
Lizzie Chapman | The University of Edinburgh | NA | |
Priya Sharma | IIT BHU | London Business School | |
ZiffyHomes
|
Salil Agarwal | Uttar Pradesh Technical University | NA |
Sanchal Ranjan | NIT Surathkal | NA | |
Saurabh Kumar | Marine Engineering & Research Institute | IIT Kanpur (MBA) | |
ZipLoan
|
Kshitij Puri | Delhi University | UCLA Anderson School of Management |
Shalabh Singhal | IIT BHU | NA |
If you have any suggestions to improve this report, let me know in the comments below.
Also read - Is An MBA A Plus Or A Minus In The Start-up World?
Comments
Priyanka Raj
retard
Hi Chirag, I follow your articles very actively, you write some really good things, I've some doubts is there somewhere you can connect with?
22 Aug 2018, 06.39 PM
+Read Replies (1)
Priyanka Raj
retard
A fellow aspirant here
22 Aug 2018, 06.40 PM |
SUMIT PATKAR
you working hard to give us helpful content.Thanks a lot
23 Jul 2021, 09.55 AM
SUMIT PATKAR
you working hard to give us helpful content.Thanks a lot
23 Jul 2021, 09.56 AM