By Kartikaye Gilra:
A privilege last earned by Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata (Tatanagar), and Gujarmal Modi (Modinagar) has been extended to snapdeal.com. A distant village in Uttar Pradesh is now known by the name of “Snapdeal.com Nagar” earlier known as Shiv Nagar. The tiny town had good reason to, because SnapDeal, India’s version of Groupon, provided it with fresh water.
Snapdeal’s founder Kunal Bahl wanted to do something with his company’s growing profit. The 28 year old CEO found the opportunity in water. He found this for a fact that a mere $5000 would install 15 hand pumps that would relieve the villagers from walking nearly 2 miles just to get clean water. The villagers were grateful for the generosity shown by the company and decided to rename the village.
Kunal Bahl hints at more such philanthropy in the works by his New Delhi business. When he was being asked whether this is a publicity gimmick following was his reply: “All we can say is that time will show our commitment to this project and even the things we do in the future. You need not be a multibillionaire company to make a change in society around you. This project was not about the power of money but the intent and efforts which our team took to give this dream alive. Even if one small company takes inspiration from this, we will feel our efforts have borne fruit.”
Previously, Kunal co-founded a detergent company in the US while at college which now sells products in 3000 stores in the US. He has also worked at companies such as Deloitte Consulting and Microsoft in the US. Kunal is an engineer from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a business degree from The Wharton School. The company was started with a seed capital of 40 lakhs. Following is what the founder had to say: “While I was studying and working in the US between 2002 and 2006, I realized that the retail landscape in India had changed. Buyers were becoming more sophisticated and small retailers had turned professional. So, while consumers still liked a good bargain, they weren’t interested in petty haggling. It struck me that starting a business that provided discount coupons would succeed in India and so I returned to Delhi in November 2007.”
The company is source of motivation for a lot of youth in this country as it gives them a hope to make it big and do something for the society which lot of us wishes to do but lack the means to. It instills a faith that numerous opportunities exist in the world and everybody can DREAM!