Born as a poor in India isn’t very amusing but only some of us know the hardships one has to go through just to make it big in life and when someone achieve that feat, they become inspirational idols for many. Such a character is Ramesh Babu, a barber who overcame adversity to become one of only 140 Billionaires of India.
Now famous, Ramesh Babu once was very poor and with his hard work and dedication he climbed up the ladder. Now owns more than 400 cars including luxury cars like BMW, Mercedes and even Rolls Royce.
About our Billionaire Barber, Ramesh Babu
Ramesh was born in Bangalore in a family of five. His father, P. Gopal was a barber and had a shop on Bridged road, Bangalore. When Ramesh was only 7 years old his father died of heart attack and they got left with only a shop and a no savings. His mother used to work as a domestic help to help feed the children.
Things went so bad for them that in some days they survived only on a single meal. As his mother couldn’t run the barber shop by herself, she rented the shop for RS 5/day to his uncle.
In early days Ramesh Babu tried many odd jobs to make some extra bucks like delivering newspaper, supplying milk bottles with this he also continued his studies and completed his 10th standard. After completing his 10th, he started to run the shop full-time and turned the shop into trendy styling hub and named it “Inner Space”.
The breakthrough idea: Entrepreneurial journey
From the very beginning he started working with absolute dedication, opening his shop at 6 o’ clock at 10 o’ clock he used to go to college and again came back at evening till 12 of midnight.
Although having a good business earning well enough to support his own studies and his family. He was always very keen about owning his own car someday. In 1993 he bought an omni van with little savings he made so far. But the EMI was a lot a whopping amount of around RS 7000 which was hard to pay off as a barber.
That time Nandini, a woman Ramesh’s mother used to work for gave him a piece of advice to start renting the van instead of letting it sit and collecting dust. That advice changed Ramesh’s whole life.
Ramesh rented the car to intel where Nandini used to work. This is how he started his car rental business and at the same time used to work as a barber as well. By 2004 he added 6 more cars to the business and gaining a stable customer base he started to scale up his business with the help of Karnataka State Finance Corporation.
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Risk Taking
Being an entrepreneur is all about taking a risk but a calculative one. In early 2000s Ramesh babu got proposal from Mercedes to buy a car.
When everyone he knew advised him against it but, he saw an opportunity to increase his brand value by adding a luxury car in his business.
In 2004 he bought Mercedes Benz E-class luxury sedan for an amount of RS 38 lakh by putting together all his savings and rest by taking a loan from Karnataka State Finance Corporation Bank.
That decision definitely paid off.
In 2011 Ramesh Babu bought another luxury car, Rolls Royce his well-wishers again warned him about the scope of failure.
But like before he trusted his instincts and bought it with all his savings and almost went bankrupt it took him almost 4 years to recover from it and succeed again.
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Vehicles he owns
As for today his fleet over 400+ vehicles in his company including Rolls Royce, Mercedes Maybach, Benz C, E and E class, imported Toyota vans, mini-bus, Audi, Jaguar, Land Rover, BMW 5,6,7 series. He also has Mercedes vans.
He is the only 3rd person in Bangalore to own a Mercedes Maybach s600 and keeps it in company garage.
He also owns a high-end bike SUZUKI intruder worth RS 16 lakh.
He still has his first Maruti Omni van but he doesn’t rent it anymore.
How he earned the title “Billionaire Barber”
In spite of being a billionaire, he took professional hair cutting and styling course in Singapore and from Toni and Guy to improve his hair cutting skill that he inherited naturally.
Even to this day he spends quarter of a day in hi salon and cuts hair for a mere amount of RS 150 on weekends at his salon.
He is also teaching his kids hairstyling skills; he hardly takes any offs. He takes off only if there’s family trip.
Inspiration
Ramesh Babu’s journey to become billionaire barber is an inspiration to all of those entrepreneurs who started from the bottom and wants to achieve big in their life.
The success story of Ramesh Babu, an ordinary barber and an entrepreneur will motivate many upcoming youngsters to dream and achieve big.
Banner Image: ScoopWhoop & WN.com
