135 | Dhruva Talwalkar | Lessons From My Entrepreneurial Journey

In today’s show, Chris interviews Dhruva Talwalkar, Managing Director, Universal Power Transformer Private Limite. Dhruva shares how he managed to grow his business from $300,000 to $90 million in just 10 years before an adverse economic climate forced him to downsize operations. He talks about his many successes, his failures, and some of the most important takeaways that he has picked up along the way.

Growing up in Canada, Dhruva always had an entrepreneurial bend of mind. In the first segment of the show, he reminisces how he used to run a newspaper delivery business as a young boy. He goes on to share that his biggest frustration was his lack of business knowledge and how it prevented him from realizing his aspirations.

In the next segment of the show, Dhruva goes on to reveal some interesting anecdotes from his Student Works stint. He shares how he lost a bunch of money due to a wrong estimation on his very first job. After this drubbing, Dhruva never looked back and had a very successful second year at Student Works.

After Student Works, Dhruva worked as a store salesman at Moore’s. Putting his Student Works experience to good use, Dhruva quickly became the highest-grossing salesman at the store grossing nearly $70,000 in commissions in the late ’80s. While the going was great for him, Dhruva was keen to venture into a field with better long-term potential. This is when he got the opportunity to work in his cousin’s manufacturing business in India.

The next segment of the show will be particularly fascinating to listeners as Dhruva shares how he rose from being a management trainee to the head of the power equipment business at his cousin’s company in India. Notwithstanding his rather spectacular success, Dhruva had some serious disagreements with the senior management.  He finally quit in the year 2000 to venture out on his own.

After this bittersweet experience, Dhruva decided to try his luck with an eCommerce venture. Using a digital platform, Dhruva intended to streamline the purchase process and pass on the savings to buyers. On the face of it, his business idea was great. However, Dhruva quickly realized that this business was not scalable and wound up operations in 3 years.

2003 was a turning point in Dhruva’s professional career as he bought out his friend’s transformer business. A small operation clocking just $300,000 in revenues, Dhruva shares how he managed to scale up this business to a $90 million company in just ten years. Particularly, he credits his success to his team and the fact that he got great people in key areas. However, this growth came at a cost.

To chase growth, Dhruva acquired a transformer business in Canada. Apart from the cultural and logistical challenges of managing a multi-national organization, Dhruva shares how his business was majorly impacted by the 2008 economic crisis. Reeling under the impact of these negative developments, Dhruva was left with no option but to downsize operations. Currently, Dhruva is in the midst of consolidating his business.

We wrap up this show by sharing some crucial attributes that truly define a leader of tomorrow. Tune in for some excellent nuggets!

Resources:

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