Mr. Ashish Hemrajani - Learn to survive and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves, and be grateful for them!

On 26th September 2018, Mr. Ashish Hemrajani, CEO and co-Founder of Bigtree Entertainment Private Limited, the operator of BookMyShow: India’s largest online entertainment ticketing platform, addressed the DAIS student body.

Mr Hemrajani completed his MBA in 1997, after which he worked at a marketing firm. To escape the monotony of this routine, he along with 2 of his friends embarked on a backpacking trip through South Africa. While he was under a big tree, he heard a radio commercial for rugby tickets. Suddenly Mr. Hemrajani who grew up waiting hours on end for cricket tickets, only to be greeted with the smug indifference of a “sold out” sign at the box office, was exposed to a world where customers who bought tickets online had shorter wait times, and were truly “treated like paying customers.” Armed with this idea, he returned to India in 1999, and founded Bigtree Entertainment. “Lesson 1: true entrepreneurs don’t wait to go to business school to fulfil their dreams. They go all in.”

Initially, Mr. Hemrajani’s business was slow and his profit margins were low for 2 reasons. The first was because he was “road-building” rather than “outsourcing”, creating from scratch the infrastructure to launch an online ticketing business. The second was because India was not ready for online ticketing. Mr. Hemrajani’s corporation had to buy tickets in person. On the weekends, they had a shortage of tickets and on the weekdays, they had a surplus; in both cases he was losing business. “Lesson number 2: Bigtree Entertainment was launched before its time. In the business world, timing is everything.”

Soon after, there was a horrible downturn and the business suffered tremendously. “I have never had sleepless nights, but they day I had to lay off 140 employees, I couldn’t sleep.” Even in the wake of this crushing defeat, Mr. Hemrajani tried to do right by his employees. He found some of them alternative employment, and negotiated a 6-month severance package for a few others. “Those employees now hold high-posts in entertainment-related companies and bring business back to us. Lesson number 3: universal forces act in mysterious ways. Try to do the right thing, because Karma is everything.”

By 2007, with the help of a 50-lakh loan borrowed in part from his mother, Mr. Hemrajani launched BookMyShow. Soon after its inception Mr. Hemrajani’s business took off, and he brought on investors such as Stripes Group, Network 18, Accel Partners, and SAIF Partners. He said that he would pay back his debts in a few years; he paid his mother back in 18 months. “Lesson number 4: learn to be a mongrel. If someone offers you food eat it, if you find shade rest in it. Learn to survive and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves, and be grateful for them.”

Now, BookMyShow is a household name, expanding its operations beyond India to New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. But there is a social responsibility that comes with success, which Mr. Hemrajani is acutely aware of. Mr. Hemrajani believes that India is 3 different countries. “The top section of Indian society is the UK, where people can afford private schools and expensive iPhones. The 400 million middle-class Indians are like Brazil, they get by. And besides, every year or so, 50 million Indians move from Brazil to the UK. The remaining 700 million Indians, however, live like the average African. They can’t afford basic necessities and decent meals. This need to give back is first prioritised within BookMyShow’s operations, where employees have subsidised meals every day, amongst other benefits. The company also runs a fund which fuels BookASmile, its charity initiative, through which BookMyShow has positively impacted millions of lives across the country within lesser fortunate sections of the society.

Not only did Mr Hemrajani’s talk leave us in splits, showing us that he truly was destined for the entertainment business, but his frank attitude left us with invaluable life lessons, making his talk one of the most memorable yet.