Business
Ashutosh Kumar knew that he wanted to become an entrepreneur, but he didn't have a problem to solve. Then, one day, he was talking to his dad, who has been in the construction business for 25 years, when he realized that there was a huge opportunity to disrupt the cement industry by bringing cement online. This is Ashutosh's story.Everyone around Ashutosh Kumar was telling him that he should try to get a government job or work in the IT sector, but Ashutosh wanted more from life. He wasn't interested in taking the path of least resistance, even if it was safer and less risky. While his fellow students were playing games or watching TV shows, Ashutosh was preparing himself for entrepreneurship. He was learning English and watching shows like Shark Tank. This all payed off when, in his third year, he was accepted into an entrepreneurship school program put on by the European Innovation Academy in Shenzhen, China. This experience was a turning point in his life. He came back to India after the program and decided to start something of his own. Ashutosh decided to start an entrepreneurship community back in India with one of the people that he met in China. He launched Knockstarter's first chapter in Kolkata, and the community eventually expanded to New Delhi. The community gained a lot of good traction, but Ashutosh realized that the startup had become an event management company when he went to Harvard for a business school program. He expected the community to manage itself while he was away, but instead, he was forced to run behind people from the United States. This wasn't what he wanted, and so he decided to shut Knockstarter down.After Harvard, Ashutosh returned to Bihar. One day, while he was there, he was talking to his dad, who has been in the construction business for 25 years. It was during this conversation that he realized that there was a huge opportunity to disrupt the cement industry by bringing cement online. In order to validate his solution to the problem that he was seeing, he spoke with approximately 50 people. These conversations made him realize that there was a need for cheaper, online cement, and so he started building his startup, cemX.Soon after registering cemX as a company, Ashutosh had a meeting with a friend, who ended up becoming his co-founder and cemX's CBO. Together, they started oboarding interns and employees, and the cement startup began to grow. This growth, along with a bit of publicity, led to investor attention. This attention surprised Ashutosh, as did all of the orders they they have received on their website. Somehow, cemX has managed to generate Rs. 1,000,000 (10 lakhs) in the last two months, and growth isn't slowing down.cemX is expanding, both in other small cities in Bihar, as well as into tier 1 cities like Kolkata and Mumbai. They are looking to enter into hundreds of cities in India over the next few years. However, they are expecting pushback from the people who control the cement industry in India, but they aren't going to let that slow them down.We hope that you enjoyed Ashutosh Kumar talking about how cemX is going to turn India's cement industry upside down. If you want to know more about him or his startup, please make use of the links below:Ashutosh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashutoshjhaacemX's website: www.cemx.incemX's Facebook: www.facebook.com/cemxgroupcemX's Twitter: www.twitter.com/hexfordventurescemX's Instagram: www.instagram.com/cemx5cemX's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/cemx