Meet man whose 5 businesses failed, left with just Rs 4000, later won Nikhil Kamath's backing, now earns Rs...

Success couldn't be achieved easily. One has to work tooth and nail for it. Several entrepreneurs, who are successful today, failed many times before finally achieving it. Businesses of some entrepreneurs failed not just once or twice, but 5-6 times. One such person who is now the CEO of a successful platform is Vikram Pai. The Bengaluru-based entrepreneur runs an e-commerce referral sales platform called ReferRush.

The young entrepreneur recently opened up about his past business failures, financial setbacks, and health struggles. He also expressed his appreciation for Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, whose WTFund, a grant initiative, selected ReferRush for the funding program.

Pai revealed he had five failed businesses in six years with a loss of Rs 2 crore. He was left with just Rs 4,000 after sending 36,000 to his co-founders. In a tweet, he wrote, "They called me Elon Musk. Half my body got paralyzed. I went down to my last 4k and couldn’t pay co-founders salary. Here’s the screenshot before I sent him 36k for the month. He had responsibilities. Everyone told me to quit. Even my grandma questioned me. I was called delusional. Dad said I was ‘playing business’. Aunties gossiping about my career. My mom lost belief."

READ | Bad news for Anil Ambani, his company's loss widens to Rs 3298 crore in 3 months, its business is...

In the same post, he added that his ReferRush has been selected as one of 9 out of 2400+ companies for the WTFund grant led by Nikhil Kamath. "It took us 4 months to generate a lakh for our customers. Today we’re generating 1.5 lakhs a day. We’re profitable," he said. Check out his tweet here:

6 years. 5 failed businesses. 2 crores earned and lost.

They called me Elon Musk. Half my body got paralyzed.

I went down to my last 4k and couldn’t pay co-founders salary. Here’s the screenshot before I sent him 36k for the month. He had responsibilities.

Everyone told me to… pic.twitter.com/umaZQ0QBaw

— Vikram Pai (@vpai100) February 13, 2025