Infra.market and CarDekho focused on basics, then scale

Both companies began their journey slowly before sprinting to the Unicorn flag

- Rwit Ghosh

Startups need to focus on building a strong foundation even if it means they grow slowly, said Amit Jain, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of the CarDekho Group, an online marketplace for buying vehicles.

"It took us eight years to reach the first ₹100 crore. And it was a bootstrapped company, so we never raised funds till 2014. That's when we were actually funded. So, as a bootstrapped company we had kind of hit the ₹100 crore scale without actually utilizing any cash, and it was profitable everywhere," he said, speaking at the Mint India Investment Summit in Mumbai.

"Since we did not have money, we had to build a strategy to get traffic free of cost, and I think because of that a lot of innovation happened," Jain said.

Infra.market's trajectory was similar. The building materials platform was started in 2016, and it wasn't until 2020 that the company got to its first ₹100 crore sales landmark. That said, the company founders knew their market.