We are more than aware of the state of our roads in India. Name any town or city, big or small, the number of wheels speeding on an already brimming road at any given point in time is truly testing on many levels. No, we aren't just thinking 'time', we're talking more along the lines of keeping our equilibrium together and reining our wayward tongue in such moments of civilian weakness when the roads threaten to get the better of us.

Since that seems pretty relatable on an everyday basis and we hear some unanimous muttering of “been there, done that”, we may all come to agree upon the fact that cab-hailing services may (and have, on multiple occasions) come to our rescue during such testing times. One such platform that's an absolute hit across the Indian subcontinent is Ola and every Indian must take pride in this homegrown cab-hailing giant that's made everyday commute easy and a LOT less aggressive, to say the least.

News hit the wire last afternoon with Ola Co-founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal's announcement that the ride-hailing service is all set to launch in the United Kingdom very soon. The news comes after just a few months of Ola's successful operations in Australia since February earlier this year. Now with its impending launch in the UK, which also happens to be the company's second major global launch, things are looking up for the company like never before.

Spearheading the company's globalisation spree is Bhavish Aggarwal, the brain we're all set to anatomize today.

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Born to a pair of doctors and hailing from the small town of Ludhiana in Punjab, Bhavish is a 2008 IIT-Bombay graduate in Computer Science and Engineering, who ranked #23 in his entrance examinations (little to his parents' disappointment, we know right?!) and went on to work with Microsoft as an Assistant Researcher for the next two years post graduating from college.

IIT-B was also to be the place where he was destined to meet the future Co-founder of Ola, Ankit Bhati - the two shared dorms in college and were the first friend either of them made on campus. Though the rest is history but to cut the story short, that first introduction led to innumerable escapades together and exchange of ideas which culminated into the fathering of what was to be known as Ola Trips. At a raw age 24, Bhavish along with Ankit, co-founded an online weekend trip-booking portal in early 2010 with a personal pain point they sought a solution to.

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In his own words, he was 24 when he started, had a girlfriend but wasn't married and had no money so that eliminated the risk of huge losses - and this here folks, formed the basis of his first startup. That's some way to look at it, right? However, while all might seem up and pumping to an onlooker, Bhavish often admits to having lived through numerous hiccups at the initial stages of Ola's inception. Back in the day in 2010, the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India wasn't as hot and bothered as recent times which posed as a struggle for them to breakthrough.

After being in operation for 6 months, Ola Trips metamorphosed into Ola Cabs harnessing on the need of the hour. Built with an aim to build urban mobility in India, Bhavish stood by his belief that startups should be established to solve big, important problems and that's how Ola Cabs came into being. Then came the funding which was slow to come by but was it worth the wait? Sure as hell! Tiger Global came onboard as their first major investor and they have never looked back since. Fast forward to 8 years, and what started as India's very own ride-hailing service has now already travelled overseas after successfully catering to the needs of Indians over the past few years!

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2018 marked a new phase for the company, one that came as a welcome change, mind blowing enough to leave any founder elated! Starting with the launch of their services Down Under in Australia at the beginning of this year, Bhavish is now all set to ride over to the UK and target “one of the most sophisticated transportation markets” in the world for its new challenge. 

As the company spreads its wings and continues to soar high, we wonder what continues to fuel Bhavish's vision everyday. Right from expanding to newer markets and exploring ways to contribute to the government's Vision 2030 by planning to introduce EVs across major towns and cities in India, to launching Ola Play and relaunching Ola Cafe, there's no backing down for the budding entrepreneur.

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Bhavish lives by ideology that their company must always be about the consumer and partner satisfaction first and we have no trouble taking his word for it because he continues to give us major reasons to place our trust on him.

For every other aspiring entrepreneur, he has one advice - “don't wait for the perfect time, the perfect team or even the money - just jump into the fire”, perhaps much like how he started.