It is befitting of a billion dollar company in the business analytics space to be named after the symbols of mean (Mu) and standard deviation (Sigma). Mu Sigma is one of the fastest growing companies in the world and has raised a gargantuan grand total of 163 million dollars in funding over its 9 years of existence. Mu Sigma also holds the unique distinction of securing the largest funding round ever by a business analytics company.

The accolades that Mu Sigma has accumulated over the years is a rapidly rising toll. But, like all great companies, the core of the company is built around the beliefs and ideas of an intrinsically curious person. Founder, Dhiraj C Rajaram, had a novel idea which bore no intentions towards entrepreneurship.

But as fate would have it, Dhiraj’s novel idea manifested itself in a hugely successful entrepreneurial venture and the rest, as they say, is history. Read on to know inside stories of one of India’s biggest entrepreneurial success story:

“Never thought of myself as an entrepreneur”

Dhiraj is very open about his reasons for starting up and entrepreneurship. He says, “I never thought of myself as an entrepreneur. I never wanted to start a company or anything like that. I was happy, doing what I was doing. There were few thoughts that led to how the company got started.”

For Dhiraj, it all started because of his unending urge to learn. His second reason to startup was to separate noise from the signals – in terms of information that comes to businesses in their day-to-day life. And the final reason was his belief that innovation in businesses was nothing but chance. And more the trial and error, the better the chance to innovate. The more experimentation, the better the chance to innovate.

With these reasons and a dream in his heart Dhiraj started MuSigma in 2004. The beginning of the company was humble, but today it is a multi-million dollar company. There were others in that space when Dhiraj entered the fray, like IBM, Accenture etc but that did not deter him.

What those companies had were different people to do programming and business analysis whereas Mu Sigma thought of it in an integrated manner and decided to get onboard people who were a applied mathematician, professional analyst and programmer – all rolled in one – called a decision scientist.

“I had told my wife that I had this brilliant idea. I told her that we would sell our home and put all our money into starting this company. She immediately said yes. I was very surprised and I asked her, ‘how did you agree so easily?’ And she said ‘there is no point in arguing with you, once you have already made the decision!’ joked Dhiraj.

The love marriage and the arranged marriage entrepreneur

Dhiraj admits that he hasn’t seen many downs during his journey with Mu Sigma. His problems were slightly different. He says, “We have been quite successful from the beginning. Having said that we had different reasons to shut the shop. Some very big companies wanted to buy us out. That was quite enticing. But that’s actually when your belief gets tested. What I felt immediately after even thinking about those offers was some sadness because I thought if I sold out, the idea might die.”

To Dhiraj, the continuum of the idea was paramount. He has no qualms in saying, “If I believe that the idea will benefit by me stopping to be an entrepreneur, I will do that. The idea will always have more importance than me. At the end of the day you are just a small part in the world.”

He signed off by drawing a relationship between the types of entrepreneurs and the two main kinds of marriages in India. He says, “ There are two kinds of entrepreneurs. One are arranged marriage entrepreneurs and the other are love marriage entrepreneurs.”

He signed off by drawing a relationship between the types of entrepreneurs and the two main kinds of marriages in India. He says, “ There are two kinds of entrepreneurs. One are arranged marriage entrepreneurs and the other are love marriage entrepreneurs.”

“The second kind of entrepreneur is the Love marriage entrepreneur. He is somebody who has found a girl and wants to live with that girl. And as part of that he is ready to get married with that girl. The girl is the idea. I became an entrepreneur because I wanted to work on that idea.”