No plans to diversify: Naukri chief

KOCHI: When Sanjeev Bhikhchandani founded Naukri.com, little did he know that he was giving a new dream for the posterity- the dream of becoming an entrepreneur that was a taboo several years back. His aspirations bore fruit when Naukri.com became the first Indian internet company to be listed . Today, it has a turnover of about `400 crore.

Sanjeev says that the best kept secret of an entrepreneur is very simple, perseverance and persistence. “There is no short cut but persisting on what you believe. You will incur losses at the outset but you have to keep at it,” he says.

Hailing from a family of government officials, Sanjeev says that it was not an easy dream to pursue.  “Pure middle class aspirations which were prevalent then was to make their son or daughter an engineer or doctor. My parents too nourished this dream. Besides, my father was a doctor and he was in the government service. There were no business people in my family. Middle class India never wanted their children to be entrepreneurs and I had to cut out a new path for me.”

Sanjeev began his successful journey by starting a company called Info Edge. “It is still the company and Naukri is the brand. Prior to it, there were two companies, one was for salary surveys and the other was a database of trademarks on which we were doing searches. It later on gave way to Nauqry.com.”

The idea of starting Naukri.com struck him in a rather curious way. “I used to find people reading the very last pages of ‘ Business India’ and wondered why people are longing to read the very last pages. It was full of job offers. This kindled a spark in me. I realised that both employers and employees are in dire need of each other. Employees needed jobs while employers needed sheer talents and that’s how Naukri.com was born,” he says.

Sanjeev admits that he never thought he would make it big in the industry. “I never thought my humble venture would be a path breaking attempt. But somehow I clicked. There is no dispute over the subject that I worked hard. But there was sheer luck too,” he said with a confident smile. This confidence also made him usher into other streams which also became a huge hit. Jeevan sathi.com, shiksha.com are a few to list.
Though he had started Naukri gulf, he made it clear that currently there are no plans to diversify his venture to global markets. “The Indian market has ample potential. We want to work on it. We started Naukri.com gulf owing to the existence of Indian diaspora there,” he says.