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Bengaluru founder recalls quitting Infosys to start business: ‘Family was so disappointed’
A Bengaluru-based entrepreneur has recalled his family’s reservations about him quitting his Infosys job to start a business in 2010.
A Bengaluru-based entrepreneur has recalled his family’s reservations about him quitting his Infosys job to start a business in 2010. Nearly sixteen years later, Ujjawal Asthana is a successful founder twice over, and currently serves as the CEO of TruFlo. His decision to quit Infosys may have paid rich dividends, but Asthana is convinced that his family still remains a little disappointed that he does not have an Infosys job.
Asthana is best known as the co-founder of Zymrat, a Bengaluru-based D2C performance apparel brand that he started with his wife, Ankita Riva, in 2018. It was acquired by fast-fashion brand Styched in 2023. Before Zymrat, he ran a software development and consulting firm called ThoughtNirvana that he launched in early 2011.
Quitting Infosys
In his X post this afternoon, Ujjawal Asthana recalled his family’s disappointment when he resigned from Infosys to launch his first business.
“Three years into my job, I quit Infosys in 2010 to start my first business - my entire family was so disappointed,” he wrote.
Asthana claimed that even though the business was a roaring success, his family did not fully understand why he quit his stable job.
“An year later we were charging $50-100 per hour to build software for companies in US sitting from India - big deal for us and the market in general that a team from India could charge so much,” he recalled. “I tried explaining this to the family. But I am certain they remain disappointed till date.”
Asthana was responding to a post from Raise founder Pravin Jadhav, who sparked an online conversation earlier this week when he spoke about the troubles that entrepreneurs face.
Jadhav revealed that despite being the founder of a startup valued at $1.2 billion, his home loan application was denied because banks consider founders to be a “high risk category”.
“They can give loan to team members our company employs, but not me - because as founder I'm high risk category,” he had written.
(Also read: Indian founder of $1.2 billion startup says bank rejected home loan application: ‘Just because I am a founder’)
