From scratch to finish

This is no ordinary story. Not a Bollywood-bred imagination running wild with staid old scripts of little boys' making it big in the bad bad world. But the true story of a man who made it from scratch to finish: on him own! 

Akthar Hussain, who runs the Rs 48 crore Challenger Computers at Ritchie Street, had a humble beginning.

"I was hardly 11 years old when I went to work. Education is always a distant dream for poor families like me and the only option left out for survival then was going to work. I joined as a helper in a readymade showroom in Moore Market," said Akthar Hussain, who makes no bones about the fact that he started off work for a measly monthly salary of Rs 90.

Born in 1968 as a third son to his father who was employed in tailoring business, Akthar admits that he was never good at studies. "I studied only upto third standard. Even before completing third standard, I reached 10 years of age and I studied in various schools and in different mediums (English, Urdu, Tamil) which ruined my education," he remembers. But Akthar Hussain had that spark. To strive for a better life.

In 1979, Akthar took his neighbor's help to find a job in the readymade showroom where he served for the next eight years. "I was the only young person there and had to do all kind of jobs right from cleaning to helping to closing the deals. I was very active on the floor and my personal interest in business had elevated me to the post of key salesman there," says Akthar
Hussain.

Akthar earned incentives for working hard and kept it as a pocket money to manage food bills and travelling expenses. "The life in this readymade shop has taught me so many lessons. I used to attend customers who are from Kashmir, Gujarat, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Maharastra and all parts of India, as our shop was located very close to the Central Railway Station. Managing different people and convincing them to buy the products is sure a tough job and I was successful in doing it," he claims.

But Akthar Hussian was made for greater things and soon began to look beyond life at the showroom. He sold his prized possessions: his bicycle and gold ring. He managed to mobilize a sum of Rs 1,500 and invested the same for dealing with electronic items at Burma Bazaar in 1986. "I operated more as a middleman between the end-customers and shopkeepers," he said.

Through sheer grit and determination, Akthar developed the business to a stage where he himself managed to set up shop and manage the show. "Only in 1990, I got a shop of my own and started dealing with walkmans, calculators, torch lights and other imported electronic items," said Akthar. 

Akthar's stint in IT started when one of his friends in business gave him an IT peripheral product (1.2 floppy drive) saying it is a PC. "I really believed it to be a PC and in fact, my career in IT started here," he says.

Quickly realizing the opportunities in IT and margins in business, Akthar started Challenger Computers in 1991 to exclusively deal with IT products. Till 1997, Challenger Computers had its operations in the Burma Bazaar before moving in to the IT hub Ritchie Street market. "We started in a small way in Ritchie Street and now we operate from a big showroom displaying multiple brands and products," he said.

Today, Akthar is a successful business man. Happily married and blessed with two children, Akthar ensures that his kids get the education he could not. And while he ensures the security of his family, Akthar works doubly hard to make his business more fruitful. Needless to say he spends most of his time in business. And with what's remaining of his time, he spends it all with his family, especially his children.