As Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL) completed five decades, co-founder Ajai Chowdhry looked back to 1976 when the company was still an audacious idea.
Between them, they managed to raise Rs 1.87 lakh by borrowing, pooling their savings and, in one case, even selling a car.
Their first office was a small barsati (rooftop) in Delhi’s Golf Links.
Ajai Chowdhry, who has played a significant role in shaping India’s electronics industry, was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011 for his contribution to the IT and electronics sector.
advertisementAs HCL marks 50 years, his final words in the post capture the journey best: “Dream big.
As Hindustan Computers Limited (HCL) completed five decades, co-founder Ajai Chowdhry looked back to 1976 when the company was still an audacious idea.
In a nostalgic post on X, he recalled how six young men pooled Rs 1.87 lakh, set up a small office in Delhi and tried to build an Indian computer at a time when the concept was still a novelty in the country.
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“We quit our jobs,” Chowdhry wrote, recalling the six founders, Shiv Nadar, Arjun Malhotra, Yogesh Vaidya, Subhash Arora, DS Puri and himself, who decided to take the plunge at a time when startups and venture capital were virtually unheard of in India.
Computers, too, were still unfamiliar to most people. But the six founders believed the microprocessor would change the world. Between them, they managed to raise Rs 1.87 lakh by borrowing, pooling their savings and, in one case, even selling a car.
Their first office was a small barsati (rooftop) in Delhi’s Golf Links. They called themselves Microcomp and had their sights set on building an Indian computer.
There was, however, one problem: they did not have a manufacturing licence.
Their search for a solution led them to UP Electronics Corporation, which had the licence they needed. The partnership eventually resulted in the birth of Hindustan Computers Limited, or HCL.
But the founders were not going to wait for everything to be in place before they started selling.
“We started selling a computer that was still being designed,” Chowdhry reminisced. “We had a brochure and a mock-up of the machine. That was it,” he added.
Their sales teams travelled across the country, persuading businesses to invest in a technology many had never used before. The first orders came from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras.
Then came Coimbatore, where the fledgling company found itself competing with DCM DP, a much bigger and established name.
“I still remember sitting in the reception area of Premier Mills while the DCM team made its pitch. We went in second. And we won,” he wrote.
That one order led to five more, and then ten. For Chowdhry, it captured the spirit that defined HCL in its early years, finding a way despite not having the biggest resources or the easiest path.
The company continued to push boundaries, from building some of India’s earliest indigenous computers to expanding to Singapore when it was just four years old.
Read the nostalgic post here:
Fifty years on, Chowdhry looks back not at the scale HCL eventually achieved, but at where it all began: six people, a small Delhi office, a computer that existed only as a mock-up and the courage to keep knocking on doors.
“That, to me, is the real HCL story,” he wrote.
The post brought back memories for many online, who thanked the six founders for taking a bold chance on India’s technology future. Some also recalled using HCL products in the company’s early years and praised their quality.
Ajai Chowdhry, who has played a significant role in shaping India’s electronics industry, was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2011 for his contribution to the IT and electronics sector.
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As HCL marks 50 years, his final words in the post capture the journey best: “Dream big. Take the risk. And above all, Just Aspire.”
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