The Mind of a Visionary
Meet our founder - Bikky Khosla. He is power house and force behind TradeIndia, an online B2B marketplace that connects buyers and suppliers globally. TradeIndia is one of India's largest B2B portals, with over 10 million registered users and more than 3 million products listed on its platform.
Bikky Khosla founded TradeIndia in 1996, with the vision of creating an online platform that could help Indian small and medium-sized businesses reach global markets. He started the company with just three employees, but over the years, it has grown to become a leading player in the Indian e-commerce space.
Under his leadership, TradeIndia has won several awards and accolades, including the Red Herring Asia 100 award and the Best Online Classified Website award at the India Digital Awards.
He is recognized as one of the pioneers of the Indian e-commerce industry and has been featured in several publications, including Forbes India, Economic Times, and Business Today.
Isn’t this inspiring? Listen to the fascinating journey of Bikky Khosla as the founder of TradeIndia.
Here is a quick excerpt
During this episode, Bikky Khosla takes a stroll down memory lane and shares how he first came up with a solution for small and medium entrepreneurs in India while walking the streets of LA in the mid-1980s. He recounts the early days of TradeIndia, when traditional media was used to promote the internet-based platform designed to empower SMEs.
Today, TradeIndia has over 10 million registered MSMEs who leverage the platform's web and mobile app to remain in business, grow, and contribute to India's Make in India initiative.
The journey of TradeIndia showcases its evolution from the early days of the internet to becoming a robust platform for SMEs. When reflecting on the challenges he faced in launching TradeIndia.com, Bikky acknowledges that obstacles are inevitable, but he finds them to be enjoyable learning experiences. He takes pride in having created 2,500 jobs through the successful establishment of a vast internet-based business marketplace.
However, Bikky admits that educating potential customers about the internet and TradeIndia.com was a significant challenge in the early days, requiring the use of costly one-on-one meetings to explain the platform's benefits to SMEs. To this day, Bikky and his team, led by CEO Sandip Chhettri, continue to focus on strengthening the platform's three pillars: Marketing, Finance, and Software as a Service.
Bikky's commitment to nurturing and mentoring startups is evident, having invested in over 100 of them. He considers the entrepreneur's potential and problem-solving skills, the size of the opportunity, and the entrepreneur's coachability and willingness to pivot when evaluating new investment opportunities. According to Bikky, every business must be willing to pivot to succeed.