6 inspiring business tycoons who came from nothing

With just a dream of being a ‘somebody’ in this world these business tycoons started out with nothing but landed on top.

1. Dhirubhai Ambani

Formally from the Chorward, Junaghad district of Gujrat, the legendary Dhirubhai Ambani was born into the Modh Baniya family and was the son of the village school teacher.

His father, Hirachand Govardhandas Ambani and mother, Jamunaben Hirachand Ambani, were poor folk and raised Dhirubhai along with his four siblings – Trilochanaben, Ramnikbhai, Jasuben and Natubhai.

A 10th standard pass, he started work with A. Besse & Co in the early 1950s and after learning the tricks of the trade he along with his cousin brother Champaklal Damani started a yarn trading business from a small 500 sq. ft. office in Masjid Bunder, Mumbai.

Reliance Textiles Industries – the first of the Reliance conglomerate was founded in 1966.

As of 2012, the company has over 85,000 employees and was listed among top 10 Fortune 500 list of world's biggest companies by revenues.

Dhirubhai died on July 2, 2002 leaving Anil and Mukesh Ambani – his sons, in charge of the Reliance Industries thereafter.

2. Dilip Shanghvi

Also hailing from Gujarat, Dilip Shangvi was born on January 1, 1955 in a small town called Amreli.

Shanghvi also came from a modest background. His father was a wholesale drug businessman in Kolkata. After studying his high school from J J Amreli, he then completed his Bachelor of Commerce from Bhawanipur Education Society College under Calcutta University.

The former drug distributor began his career by helping his father in Kolkata which gave him inspiration to start his own drug company. In 1977, he took over loss making Caraco Pharma and turned it around. Then in 1981, he started Sun Pharmaceuticals which is now a multinational company that sells pharmaceutical formulations.

The takeover of Milmet Labs enabled Sun to venture into ophthalmology. In 1987, when the company began selling products on a national scale, it was ranked 108th, which is now ranked at sixth in the country.

He had started his business with just five people and five products but the company currently has over 30,000 employees and serves more than 2,000 markets.

Shanghvi has also received the Padma Shri award from the Government of India this year.

3. Narayana Murthy

The leader of multinational – Infosys, Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy was born on August 20, 1h946 in Sidlaghatta, Kolar District of Karnataka.

Son of a high school teacher he was raised along with his eight brothers and one sister in the home of a middle class family.

He studied electrical engineering at the National Institute of Engineering, Mysore and in 1969 completed his M. Tech at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

In 1976, Murthy started his career at IM Ahmmedabad where he joined as the chief systems. In 1981, along with six other software professionals he started Infosys, which is now a global software consulting company.

He was ranked 13th among CNBC’s 25 global business leaders who have made maximum impact on society during the last 25 years, back in 2014. And has also received the Padma Vibhushan from the Government of India.

4. Anil Agarwal

Founder and Chairman of Vedanta Resources was initially from Patna, Bihar and quit school at the age of 15 to join his father’s business making aluminium conductors.

He came to India’s city of dreams – Mummbai back in 1976 and started the trading of scrap metal in his company – Sterlite Industries, which is now a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources.

Vedanta Resources, which is listed on the London stock exchange, was founded in 1986. The metals and mining company currently has over 25,000 employees and is valued at $1.71 billion.

5. Karsanbhai Patel

Patel is the man behind washing powder Nirma and is also another inspiring rags to riches story. Hailing from a humble farmer family in Mehsana, Gujarat; Patel was born in 1945. In 1969, at the age of 25, Karsanbhai Patel started a small-scale enterprise in his backyard and started producing quality detergent powder.

But since the markets were ruled by MNCs in that segment he started door to door selling of the detergent at Rs 3 per kg.

By 1999, Nirma had created a separate niche in the domestic washing powder segment. Today the company offers a variety of consumer products like salt, soaps, dish washing soaps along with its legendary detergent powder and also sells many industrial products.

6. Shahrukh khan

Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan was born in 1965, in Rajinder Nagar, New Delhi. He was said to have stepped into Mumbai with just Rs 1,500 and today is among the top actors in the industries along with owning his own business of Red Chillies Entertainment.

Shahrukh Khan initially starred in many small time television series until he made it big with ‘Circus’ in 1989.

The Indian motion picture production, Red Chillies, was founded by him and his wife – Gauri Khan in 2002. The company has gone on to produce a plethora of movies and is currently valued at $600 million or Rs 3,752 crore.