Two brothers engineered their way to put Ninety One Cycles on a high-growth and profitable track
Sachin Chopra got up at 3 in the morning. “How can my mother be wrong?” he asked himself. It was 2016. For the first time in his life, Chopra was having sleepless nights. “She has never been wrong,” he reasoned, as he gulped a glass of water. It was pitch dark outside, and the former managing director at Everstone Capital was having a hard time battling the haunting thoughts buried somewhere in his subconscious. “Cycle mat bana beta [Don’t make cycle],” was a pointed advice by his mother when Chopra, an engineer and a private equity (PE) top dog with stints at Warburg and General Atlantic, decided to turn entrepreneur at 40.
Friends and colleagues too pedalled their opinion, and concern. “Bechara kya ho gaya isko. Wharton ka padha hua cycle bana raha hai [Pity, what has happened to him. He studied at Wharton and now he’s making cycles],” was the shock and disbelief among many when they got to know about Chopra’s move to start Ninety One Cycles along with his engineer brother Vishal in 2015.