Raj Darji an IT Entrepreneur from the Farmland. Raj Darji is a techie who draws entrepreneurial lessons from farmland.
“Entrepreneurship is the same thing as (done) by my father. I came from a farming background. I have seen my father going to the fields every day and taking care of the crops and that helped me to understand that if I need to grow, I need to do things in a similar way.
It means I have to take care of people, give a service, and (have) the perseverance to take things forward.” These are the words of Raj Darji, Founder & CEO of Aarav Solutions, global product engineering and IT consulting firm.
Hailing from a small village Ablauva, near Mehsana of Gujarat, Darji is the epitome of grit and determination. His humble background has not held him back but shaped his life philosophy of giving back to society through collective wealth creation.
His incredible entrepreneurial journey is filled with interesting anecdotes that can inspire a generation entrepreneurs who are taking the baby steps to fulfill their dreams. Starting Aarav Solutions in 2012-2013, Darji has proved that his wisdom and life experience both from the farmland and multinational corporations are very much
replicable in the business world.
No wonder, Aarav Solutions today has topline running into multi-million dollars without a single penny of external funding. The company in many ways is the reflection of his life philosophy. At a time, when the start-up space is replete with stories turning into unicorn through a series of fundraising activities, Darji still sticks to the old-world
wisdom of frugality.
Despite clocking multimillion-dollar revenue within a span of less than a decade, ‘Aarav Solutions’ has no funding rounds, and remains bootstrapped to date. “When we started the business, the idea of profitability was whether I make myself billable. Initially, we didn’t have many funds and to date, we are bootstrapped.
Its solutions have empowered sectors like telecommunications, banking & finance, government bodies, power, and utilities among others. Darji, who has graduated from the Sankalchand Patel College of Engineering, Visnagar, Gujarat in B.E. (Information and Technology) in 2003, draws ample experience from his previous job roles in Oracle,
Hyundai Motors America, Siemens, Sirius XM, and more.
Especially, his work experience in the US from 2007-2011 has a lot of bearings in shaping the vision for the company. When he returned to India and started his company in 2012, he knew the global IT industry inside out. Darji, who headed back to the US for scouting for customers just after setting up the entity, also realized that customer
acquisitions require local presence and eventually led to the US centre.
While setting up a company and growing to a certain level are considered the easy parts of an entrepreneurial journey, scaling up tests the mettle of the entrepreneur. Darji also faced the same issue in 2015-16 when his team was around 25-30 odd people but business was growing at a faster pace. That was the time when he again drew his
learnings from his father’s farming operations.
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