Mahesh Murthy

Mahesh Murthy
Mahesh Murthy
Mahesh Murthy in February 2015
Born (1965-09-11) September 11, 1965
Occupation Investor, Marketer, Writer, Speaker, Entrepreneur, columnist
Notable work Columns in WSJ,[1] Businessworld, Business Today[2]
Television Business Baazigar,[3] The Pitch[4]

Mahesh Murthy is an Indian marketer and investor specialising in early-stage startups.

He is the founder and Chief executive officer of digital agency Pinstorm, and managing partner of early-stage fund Seedfund.

Early life and education

Murthy was born and raised in a Tamil Brahmin family. His father was a Colonel in the Indian Army.[5][6] He attended school at Kendriya Vidyalaya Picket, Secunderabad,[7] and was accepted into Osmania University[8] to study chemical engineering,[9] from where he dropped out at age 17.[10]

Career and notable Work

After dropping out of college, he worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman for Eureka Forbes and subsequently founded his first company, a cleaning service called Vaclean.[9]

He worked for FCB (advertising agency) (then FCB/Ulka) and Grey Advertising (then Trikaya Grey) in India, where he won awards for work done on clients including Network copiers.[11] He then moved to Ogilvy & Mather, Hong Kong where he worked for clients like Unilever, The Economist, HP, Microsoft, Pepsi, and MTV.[12]

In 1994, he directed a set of six films for MTV with Shashanka Ghosh,[13] for which they won the New Directors Showcase award at the Cannes Lions.[14][15]

He then moved to CKS Partners, Portland[16] where he most notably worked on Yahoo!,[12] and on Amazon's 'Earth's Biggest Bookstore' campaign.[17]

He then went on to work in the e-commerce domain, as vice president of marketing for iCat,[18] a publisher of e-commerce software that was acquired by Intel.[19]

Murthy then ran an Indian music television channel- Channel V - as acting GM for India, and was instrumental in repositioning it as a youth channel, and in launching its website, vindia.com.[20]

In 2000, Murthy founded angel fund Passionfund[10] which funded companies such as Compassbox, Tulleeho, WebDunia, Geodesic, EBSDirect [21]

He founded digital marketing firm Pinstorm in 2004, and in 2006 co-founded early-stage fund Seedfund with Pravin Gandhi and Bharti Jacob which funded and advised companies such as Carwale, Voonik, RedBus (where Murthy helped redesign the website),[22] Chumbak, Done By None, MyDentist, Heckyl, and Edusports.[23]

Murthy was one of the Top Writers on Quora in 2014[24]

Opinions

Murthy has been an advocate for net neutrality in India,[25] and also clashed with Marc Andreessen on the subject.[26][27]

Murthy has attacked the high salaries paid to executives of Indian online companies such as Flipkart, arguing that such practices encourage economic protectionism.[28]

In late 2017, the Mumbai police registered a case of sexual harassment against Murthy after India's National Commission of Women wrote to them about complaints they received from various women. Murthy has denied the allegations.[29]

References

  1. ↑ . Wall Street Journal https://blogs.wsj.com/india-chief-mentor/tag/mahesh-murthy/. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  2. ↑ . Business Today https://books.google.co.in/books?id=EJ9aAAAAYAAJ&q=%22mahesh+murth%22&dq=%22mahesh+murth%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFsqbWwqLXAhVI1GMKHe_yBIUQ6AEIJzAA. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  3. ↑ . Hindustan Times http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/city-youth-in-zee-s-business-baazigar/story-jrQ9Q5tSRW43xyaewXDiMP.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  4. ↑ . Bloomberg TV http://www.btvin.com/thepitch. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  5. ↑ "Is Mahesh Murthy a self-made millionaire? Does he come from a millionaire family background? Which startups did he found? - Quora". www.quora.com. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  6. ↑ Naidu, Viren (2006-08-01). "35 and burnt-out? Retire and re-retire". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  7. ↑ "Hall of Fame". www.picketian.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  8. ↑ "These 13 Successful Indian College Dropout Entrepreneurs Prove That College Is Not Necessary For Success - Inc42 Media". inc42.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  9. 1 2 "Mahesh Murthy - Pin Drop Storm". CrazyEngineers. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  10. 1 2 Dubey, Tanya. "Exclusive: Mahesh Murthy's Unique Art of Survival- From Being a Vacuum Salesman to an Ace Investor". Business Insider. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  11. ↑ Goyal; Sandeep (2004). The Dum Dum Bullet. Popular Prakashan. ISBN 9788179915837.
  12. 1 2 Communication Arts: Advertising annual. Coyne & Blanchard. 1995.
  13. ↑ "Shashanka Ghosh Alumni of Air Force Bal Bharati School, New Delhi Alumni - Bafians". www.bafians.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  14. ↑ "25 years of Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase". Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  15. ↑ "New Directors' Showcase : Saatchi & Saatchi". Saatchi & Saatchi. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  16. ↑ Communication Arts. Coyne & Blanchard. September 1995.
  17. ↑ Saunders, Rebecca (2001-12-31). Business the Amazon.com way: secrets of the world's most astonishing Web business. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781841121550.
  18. ↑ "Speed: The E-Commerce Mantra". WIRED. 29 April 1998.
  19. ↑ "Intel To Acquire iCat".
  20. ↑ Inc, Nielsen Business Media (1999-08-07). Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.
  21. ↑ "'If you do a typical MBA, you'll never be a successful entrepreneur'". Rediff. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  22. ↑ "It's Not About The Money".
  23. ↑ Nadhe, Shivani Shinde (2014-02-05). "Seedfund: India's 'desi' fund plans a third offering". Business Standard India. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  24. ↑ "The most followed Top Writers - Quorabot - Quora". quorabot.quora.com. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  25. ↑ . Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.in/mahesh-murthy/how-indias-telecom-compan_b_7009934.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ↑ "How Facebook Lost Face in India - Knowledge@Wharton". upenn.edu. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
  27. ↑ Cellan-Jones, Rory (2016-02-12). "Tech Tent - Silicon Valley arrogance, connected toy safety, and AI that can read". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-11-03.
  28. ↑ Sehgal, Kritika. "Indian VC Mahesh Murthy rips apart 'hollow arguments' of Vani Kola on 'capital dumping'". Techseen. Retrieved 17 October 2017.
  29. ↑ https://www.hindustantimes.com/business-news/vc-investor-mahesh-murthy-arrested-in-mumbai-on-charge-of-sexual-harassment/story-4CPwI7guzRdJECBowXLi9K.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
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