What's In A Name? A Business, It Turns Out

No.274

Darpan Munjal

SQUADHELP.COM

Three-year growth 1,600.8% | 2018 revenue $3M

Hoffman Estates, Illinois | Founded in 2011

- Coeli Carr

Darpan Munjal came to Chicago from India in 1997 to work for a startup and, later, Sears. By 2010, he was about done with corporate America and began planning his own e-commerce business. That venture wouldn’t survive. But his difficult search for a name for the firm would lead him in a more fruitful direction.

As a teenager in India, I became passionate about computers. I used the limited amount of time we were allowed on them in school to learn programming and build simple games. In 1994, I got my degree in computer engineering, and then spent three years at a technology consulting company in New Delhi. But I was aware of how quickly interest in the internet was growing, especially in the U.S. I wanted to be there.