Everyone wishes to do their dream job. There is no one who wants to do a job in which they are not interested in. Though we all dream of getting a job in a reputed company, very few of us actually get the offer because they push themselves beyond boundaries to accomplish their mission. Their ability to look at life with a fresh and positive perspective makes them a class apart.
Getting a job at Microsoft is no small feat for most of the aspiring IT geeks. Life is settled when you get a job in this elite company. The company offers a handsome paycheck. You can take pride in being part of the multi-national giant company. However, there are smart brains who don’t consider Microsoft as the final destination as there are several other paths to become much more successful and the story of Peyush Bansal is one that needs to be told to inspire the youths of the nation.
Peyush Bansal had the vision to establish the online optical store Lenskart in 2010. Today, he is currently on the list of the most successful startup entrepreneurs in the country. Just like every other entrepreneur, his journey in becoming the most successful person was quite tough with many challenges.
Peyush’s father who was a chartered accountant always wanted his son to have a secured job and gave absolutely everything to provide him with a good education. Peyush studied hard day and night and then finally obtained an engineering degree from Canada.
Peyush was placed with Microsoft, USA. He then had a staggering salary package. However, he got bored after working for a few years.
In the year 2007, Peyush decided to return to India and his parents were unhappy with his decision. Peyush invested plenty of time in planning his own business venture. At that time, E-commerce was a whole new concept and it was then Peyush started a search portal named “MyCampus.com” which offered information to students about accommodations, carpool services, books and part-time job opportunities and so on,
Peyush operated the portal for about three years and in 2010, India witnessed the fast growth of online businesses.
He wanted to achieve great success in life and so he decided to launch four new websites namely lenskart.com, Jewelry.com, Bags.com, and Watchkart.com for selling eyewear, watches, bags, and jewellery online.
Over the years, Peyush concentrated only on Lenskart and eventually, he was able to make it India’s biggest online optical store.
Lenskart has offline stores opened now across all major cities in India with advanced facilities. Currently, Lenskart provides eyewear to around 1000 people each day in more than 1500 cities in India. The company also provides daily eye checkup facilities to over 500 at their home.
As of September 2019, Lenskart had over 500 stores across 70 cities in India. The company had an overall valuation of $1.5 billion by December 2019 after Softbank invested around $275 million.
Financial backers of Lenskart are TPG Growth, International Finance Corp and Adveq Management. Ratan Tata (of Tata Sons) and S Gopalakrishnan (of Infosys) have also invested in Lenskart. In March 2018 Wipro Chairman Azim Premji invested 400 crores in the group taking the valuation of the firm to 3000 Crore.
By the year 2016, Lenskart had become one of the two top optical chains in the country along with Titan Eye Plus. Its manufacturing facility in Delhi manufactures 300,000 glasses a month.
Apart from India, Lenskart also has a factory in Zhengzhou (China) which manufactures about 50% of the production. Lenskart had launched the eyewear brand John Jacobs in the year 2017 and for that brand aimed to touch a staggering Rs 500 crore in revenue in two years. In, 2018 the company became profitable.
The ‘Eyewear Retailer’ is in advanced talks with Japanese group SoftBank including the private equity firm Kedaara Capital for investment.
It should be noted that in October 2017, Lenskart’s first brand ambassador was Katrina Kaif. In March 2019, the company roped in Bhuvan Bam as their first male brand ambassador.
Lenskart Solutions posted annual revenue of Rs 486.2 crore in FY19, which is up by 56.3 per cent from its reported revenue of Rs 310.9 crore in the previous fiscal, documents filed by the company with Registrar of Companies (RoC) revealed.