How Bollywood Film 'Guru' Inspired This Ex-Tata Employee To Build A Rs 20 Crore Business

At the age of just 24, a young engineer at Tata Motors once had a chance to leave his job and relocate to South Korea to work on a joint venture truck project with auto giant Daewoo. But the former Tata group employee declined that opportunity and instead, went on to start his own business. But the reason behind that decision turned out to be a bollywood movie.

Bollywood Film 'Guru' Inspires Ex-Tata Employee To Build Rs 20 Crore Business

guru movie/IMDb

Looking back, almost 17 years later, Anshuman Agrawal once recalled that watching the Abhishek Bachchan-starring movie "Guru" that year inspired him to start his own business.

¡°During those days, the movie Guru, which was about a man who took risks and started his own venture was playing at a theatre and I happened to watch it. I was very inspired by the film, and resigned the very next day,¡± he said, as per TheWeekendLeader report.

¡°I realized that if Tata Motors could trust me to handle an international business, then I could certainly trust myself to start something new of my own.¡± Anshuman had completed his B Tech in Mining Machinery from IIT Dhanbad in 2005.

How He Built A Rs 20 Crore Turnover Business

Anshuman Agrawal minimac/theweekendleader

Anshuman is the founder of Minimac Systems Pvt. Ltd., situated in Pune. Minimac Systems is an oil purification equipment manufacturer that cleans the oil used in major industries' machinery, such as power plants and steel mills.

In 2007, at the age of 24, Anshuman made the decision to start his own business. He had worked for Tata Motors from 2005-2007.

¡°I had bought a 2 BHK house on EMI, and did not have much savings, and did not want to ask my parents for money. I hardly had Rs 2000 in my bank account, and I was banking upon my PF fund to start my business,¡± he says.

¡°An amount of Rs 50,000 was released after three months. I almost started with negligible capital.¡± With just a table and a computer, he opened Minimac Solution, a sole proprietorship, from his two-bedroom home. Anshuman explains, "I chose the trading business because it required low capital and it was easy to get credit from the supplier." Minimac's revenue in 2019¨C20 was Rs 13 crore, but the pandemic caused it to drop to Rs 7 crore the following year. They have since recovered to reach a record-breaking turnover of Rs 20 crore.

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What Was His Salary At Tata Motors?

ex tata employee biollywood movie business/theweekendleader

At Tata Motors, Anshuman¡¯s salary was Rs 35,000. ¡°But after the deductions and my expenses I could hardly save Rs 10,000. I wanted to buy a bike, and thought that the salary should suffice, but I was able to buy one on EMI only.¡±

¡°Tata Motors was working on Prima Truck, which was a joint venture with South Korean company Daewoo,¡± says Anshuman. ¡°Tata Motors needed someone to be in Korea to oversee the project there, and my name was shortlisted. ¡°I was already handling all the work related to this JV in India, so they wanted me to go.¡± Anshuman had been inducted into the company based on his skills in car design, as per the report.

Previously, he had reportedly won a futuristic car design contest organized by IIT Kharagpur in the year 2003.

¡°Our team bagged the best car design award from Venkat Sumantran, who was the Executive Director of Tata Motors then. I was leading a three-member team, and we had envisioned a futuristic car for 2025.¡±

His team had envisioned cars running on Lithium ion battery, puncture free tyres and virtual reality augmented windows.

¡°Today, all of this has become a reality,¡± says Anshuman. He was working in the New Product Innovation division at Tata Motors when he made the decision to leave the company and start Minimac Solutions, a trading company for industrial machinery lubrication products.