Bangalore:
Building a business takes patience and also a heavy toll on
entrepreneurs. We might have come across many startups and their initial
success stories. Now, let us look at the 10 entrepreneurs having
immigrant roots in Asia and India who have taken their ventures to
greater heights in US. As compiled by ET.
Founder & CEO, EngagePoint
Founded in 2007, EngagePoint is dedicated in providing healthcare software and IT services to governments and to commercial and administrative insurance payers. Pradeep Goel's consumer health technologies strives to help employees manage their own health benefits and to make consumers active buyers of insurance policies rather than passive recipients.
The company had revenue of $13.2 million in the year 2011, and had a 3 year growth rate of 5,855 percent.
Founder & CEO, Wireless Communication
Krish Patel’s Wireless Communication was founded in 2008. The company is dedicated in providing critical communication solutions and technical services to organizations such as hospitals, industrial and commercial customers, federal governments and much more. It operates in 32 Verizon Wireless retail locations in Georgia, South Carolina, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
The company had revenue of $22.9 million in 2011. In 3 years, the company had a growth rate of 6,581 percent.
Founder & CEO, Zantech IT Services
After being inspired by his brother's success of building his own company, Zia Islam founded Zantech IT Services in 2007. The company offers enterprise technology systems to the federal government agencies by providing them with the solutions and expertise to improve customer services and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
"The customer is always our No. 1 priority," says Islam.
The company had revenue of $17.8 million in 2011, and had 7,331 percent growth in 3years
Co-Founders, FlexPro Group
The specialty consulting firm, FlexPro Group was started in the year 2008. Identical twins, Rose and Lynn Cook, took a big risk and started their venture during the time of great recession. The company is engaged in providing supply chain consultants to the pharmaceutical industry.
FlexPro Group had revenue of $3.7 million in the year 2011, and had a 3 year growth rate of 2,958 percent.
Founder & CEO, NextWorth Solutions
David Chen started NextWorth in 2005. The company is engaged in more diversified e- recycling such as iPods, iPhones, Laptops, Video Game Consoles, Digital Cameras, Cell Phones, GPS devices and much more.
"I remember selling floppy discs to prep school kids when I was in 8th grade," recalls Chen. The company dedicates itself in helping consumers and big retailers recycle old electronics.
NextWorth Solutions had revenue of $20.4 million in the year 2011, and experienced a growth rate of 3,154 percent, in 3 years.
Founder & CEO, Credit Karma
Disappointed about the fact, that he had to pay and find out his credit score. Lin in the year 2007 started Credit Karma, an online portal, which allows consumers to check their credit scores online for free. The portal also contains various other tools to save money and informs users on various credit cards, loans, insurance and much more.
The company had revenue of $5.7 million in 2011. In 3 years, the company had a growth rate of 5,279 percent.
Founder & CEO, Xenon Project Int'l
Hsu founded Xenon Project, a high tech toy making company in 2008. Initially, it sold remote controlled cars in eBay. Now, the company distributes remote control and nitro-fueled toys along with other goods such as kitchenware and sports equipment.
The company had $4.4 million revenue in 2011, and had a 3 year growth rate of 3,586 percent.
Founder & CEO, Crunchy Logistics
Crunchy Logistics, a tech firm, was established in 2008. After getting a good start the company expanded rapidly. The company focuses on developing and supporting business critical and entertainment driven technology systems. It deploys highly secure control systems for commercial, medical and industrial purposes. It also supports content distribution networks and natural user interface advancements.
The company had revenue of $2.1 million in the year 2011, and had a 3 year growth rate of 1,881 percent.
Founder & CEO, IT Source
Andy Kim comes from an engineering background and founded IT Source in 2002. The company offers technology support for all kinds of business of any sizes. It provides Innovative IT solutions and business tools for various companies with 24 /7 help and support.
IT Source had revenue of $24.8 million in the year 2011, and experienced a growth rate of 4,756 percent, in 3years.
David Tam, Founder & CEO, RateSpecial Interactive
David Tam was prepping for law school, but after working in an online ad agency, he changed his plan and founded RateSpecial, an interactive advertising and marketing agency. The company specializes in traffic acquisition, monetization and product strategy.
RateSpecial Interactive had revenue of $15.5 million in the year 2011,
and in a span of 3 years it experienced a growth rate of 8,593 percent.

If
you don’t know who Mark Zuckerberg is already, you really must have
been living under a rock. Mark is an American entrepreneur who
co-founded and is currently the CEO of the social networking behemoth we
know as Facebook. Hailing from White Plains, New York, Mark started his
programming at a very early age back in “Middle School” and it looks
like that really paid off. Currently owning approximately 24% of
Facebook, Mark is now a Multi-Billionaire, with a fortune of roughly
$6.9bn and growing. So why is he top of the list? Well, I can think of a
few reasons, 6.9 billion reasons in fact!
Now
Dustin may be a little less familiar to you than Mark (above) but he’s
definitely someone who has struck lucky. In fact Dustin was one of the
co-founders of Facebook along with Mark. Dustin has since left Facebook
(back in 2008) and has now set up his own business, Asana a company that
apparently tackles the problems of workplace collaborations. Still in
it’s early development stages, Asana is currently in Beta mode if you
are interested? So how much did he make? A little over $1.4bn.
Andrew
Mason is the founder and CEO of the online business Groupon. A site you
have all more than likely heard about or used before. Andrew Now just
29 years old is worth an estimated $600 million due to the sites huge
success. Founded in 2008 Groupon has been steadily increasing it’s
traffic and it’s income for the grateful founder. The aim of the website
is to offer out daily deals to people all over the world via an online
coupon service. Each and everyday Groupon releases new “Groupons” to its
customers allowing them to receive discounts on anything from subway
meals to laptops and much more. Andrew was given $1 million dollars by
his previous employer in order to start this venture which has now made
them both a lot of money in the 2 short years it has been up and
running. I’m sure we can expect more from them in the near future.
Its
nice to have one of our own on the list, and I’m pretty sure we all
know who this young chap is. Matthew Mullenweg is the founding developer
of WordPress, a resource a lot of us use on a daily basis. Funnily
enough his background is anything but technical, he went to a performing
arts school, learned to play the Jazz Saxophone, and then he went on to
created one of the best website and blog programs in the world. In 2005
he started the company Automatic, which became the backing force behind
WordPress and Akismet. Well done Ma.tt – You see what I did there?
Blake
Ross is an American software developer, known best for his work with
Mozilla Firefox. That’s right at the age of 25yrs he has been able to
accumulate a total fortune worth $150 million. In 2005 he was nominated
for the Wired Magazines top “Rave Award” opposite some very popular
names including Larry Page and Jon Stewart. Blake also co-founded the
company Parakey which was eventually bought out by, yes you’ve guessed
it, Facebook.
Gurbaksh
Chahalis an American author and entrepreneur that has managed to
create, build and grow two businesses into a massive empire worth $340
million, and all that before he is even 30yrs! Born in India, his family
finally settled in California, by the time he was 16yrs old he had
dropped out of school and decided to embark on a career in business.
Gurbaksh is now the CEO and founder of gWallet.Inc. What an
awe-inspiring story.
You
may not have heard about Naveen but rest assured he is definitely a big
hitter. He made most of his money through a joint venture that you may
have heard of, Foursquare anyone? However before co-founding Foursquare
he had worked extensively with some very well known brands, Nokia, Sun
Microsystems and Sony to name a few. $80 million, yes please!
Angelo,
is someone a lot of you graphic designers, photographers, and web
developers may know very well. He is the pioneering brain behind
DeviantArt, The website was co-founded back in 2000 with Scott Jarkoff
and Matt Stephens and is bigger than ever today. It really is the
Facebook of the art/digital art world. The community is very strong and
it’s a really intriguing and inspirational website. Still $75 million
for creating a website back in 2000, I think I could wait 10 years for
$75mil, how about you?
Nat
Turner is one lucky entrepreneur, but lets not be harsh on him, he
worked extremely hard in order to get lucky. What I mean is that he was
lucky enough to build a brilliant company, Invitemedia, which is a
“universal buying platform” for display media according to their
website. Where he got “lucky” is when the global giant that is Google,
decided to buy him and his co-founders (Zach Weinberg and Scott Becker –
both aged 23yrs) out for a nice round figure of $70 million. Good job
Nat.
Peter
Cashmore is is the CEO and founder of the unique media website
Mashable.com which he started back in 2005. Pete has been lucky enough
to appear in the Forbes Magazine’s 30 under 30 as well as getting a
mention in the top 25 web-celebrities. There have been so many great
reviews by so many large publishing brands and the brand itself seems to
just getter better with time. The site now has over 10 million readers
monthly, and is set to have even more by the end of the year.









