The greatest entrepreneurs are those who are an exceptional mix of humble beginnings and insurmountable courage. Go ahead, look around. Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, none of them come from privilege yet their unfettered conviction in their respective pursuits has seen them tipping the scales of the greatest challenges any entrepreneur could have faced. 

The world is brimming with examples of these unicorns. And In our hunt for the next promising entrepreneurial story, we came across the affable Rohit Khanna, who is quite the aberration to the straight-laced, hard-faced world of business. There is absolutely no air of entitlement about the man and he greets everyone with a down-to-earth-warmth that is easy to get drawn in to. 

For starters, Rohit doesn’t come from a business background. He has climbed his way up beating one challenge after another. He clearly admits, that even today, no job is too small and he respects even the very last rung of the ladder who are doing their bit dutifully and with diligence. From whatever we could observe, the respect is reciprocated manifold. 

Each member of his team recognises not only his regard for them but also his astute ability to recognize and act on trends that seem like mere blips or a small possibility in the distant future. He has a knack for betting on the right punts and has seen this ability applied to many facets of the Bhutani business, where he has expanded the Bhutani business to the GCC, growing the presence and sales of the organization in tier 2 cities in India by 400 per cent.

For Rohit business and art are one and the same thing. A skilled negotiator and a masterful strategist, his insights are legend through the industry. He has engineered the meteoric rise of Bhutani through the introduction of stringent SOPs and processes that have changed the dynamic not just the organisation but the industry as a whole. Rohit today has many, Industry-first innovations to his name and is rapidly building on greater ideas to continuously keep the organisation ahead of the game.

 He is now looking at broadening the horizon of the brand into education, sports and many other sectors that serve both the business and society.“As I mentioned, I have a great dissatisfaction for status quo and a passionate desire to redefine some fundamental segments of society. What I realised was that the only way to do that is to jump in and get your hands dirty. Fight with the troops while being their commander. Showing them the way by personal demonstration. Changes you can only effect as an entrepreneur. From where I stand, I didn’t even see a choice, it was something I had to do, something I was born to do.”, he comments.

Bhutani International Expansion

Rohit spearheaded the international expansion markets for Bhutani through Asia, Europe and the Americas. After a sequence of successes he saw an undeniable pattern - the Middle East was hankering for a reliable Indian real estate brand to invest in back home. That is when Bhutani entered the market with its base in Dubai as a method of outreach to the entire MENA region. Starting with a basic operation of 6 people in 2020, Rohit has successfully managed to chart the growth of the venture to 135 people and an bottomline of INR 100 crore. With the goodwill that he has created with the Bhutani name, he is now facilitating access to the India market for expats through multi-brand endeavors as well.

Bhutani India Expansion

Rohit’s modest beginnings give him an incredible insight into tier 2 and 3 markets. Armed with this special skill set he ventured to expand the Bhutani operation to the various heartlands of India and opened offices in Bihar, Lucknow and Chandigarh with barely a 5 member team in 2019. In less than two years the tier two teams now touch a combined revenue of 180 crores annually. This has been possible in large part because of Rohit’s restructuring of the business to create what he likes to call a parallel-linear model that is devoid of any bottlenecks. Each on-ground representative has a separate line up-the-chain of command for approval and resolution leading to a record registry and resolution time of 24 hours for all new lead-to-sale programs.

So, what does success mean to a man of so many different facets? In his own words, “Success to me is a combination of different factors. There can be no single definition of success and I also believe that this definition keeps evolving as we grow in life. So, to me, today, success would mean to create an enterprise of curiosity. Where each individual seeks out different ways to make life better and then dedicate themselves to achieving that goal. Imagine an army of people with great ideas up their sleeve and driving hard and relentless to implement that being their own project manager and best employee. That, to me is the spirit that drives innovation and progress.”