Patna, Bihar: Time and again, we come across stories of lads who made it big by sheer luck. Either they won a jackpot or inherited a lot of capital from their distant relatives. But seldom do we hear about folks who made it big – through sheer will, dedication, and hard work.
One such story worth mentioning is of Misbah Ashraf, who originally hails from Bihar, and just reinforced his presence in the Silicon Valley (read Bangalore) post recent successful exit of his startup, “Marsplay” to Lightspeed Ventures-backed Foxy.
A community focused e-commerce platform for beauty and fashion accessories, the company raised over INR 6.3 crores capital from investors like former Youtube India head, Amit Agrawal, CEO of Bounce Vivekananda Hallekere, TPG Growth Partners’ Shailesh Rao and ICICI Ventures’ Nikhil Mohta.
Misbah Ashraf was born and brought up in a small town named BiharSharif from Bihar, and did his early education from DAV Public School, Biharsharif. Misbah’s Dad was a teacher and mother – a housewife.
At the age of 18, launched his first venture – Cibola, one of the early advocates of social payments in India. He dropped out of college to make it happen – and raised funds via angel investors for the seed round.
While his parents wanted him to be an IAS officer, he followed his guts and focused on engineering. While the resources and exposure at his hand were limited, the dreams were not. He took the path less travelled and dropped out of college, which is certainly not an easy decision for an individual from a lower middle class background.
But the plunge to drop out finally paid off as he made his first USD 100,000 while working with a couple of companies from the United States and paid all his family debts. With this, his confidence grew, and he went on to work with several global companies like Spangle Inc (US), Pulse.qa (US), Pursuit (US), Hoop.cam (Hongkong), Meed Inc (US). More recently, he was the Head of Product & Growth, Toymail – a kid-friendly WiFI toy messenger, backed by Y-Combinator, Amazon & Shark Tank.
According to Misbah, “With internet connectivity penetrating every village – the world has become a global playground. Now similar opportunities are available from San Francisco to Samastipur.”
He believes that the youth of Bihar has a strong potential to achieve great things, while the only thing holding them back is their mindset and will. Misbah plans to play a small role in harnessing the potential of the youth in Bihar and create the next wave of great entrepreneurs form the region. Entrepreneurs like Misbah are a motivation for individuals in the state which has long stuck to manufacturing civil servants until now.
