New Delhi: Kailash Katkar used to repair calculators to earn a monthly income of Rs 400. He was a school dropout and did not possess many resources to establish a business with. Today, his company has a turnover of Rs 187 crore. Here is an inspiring story of the CEO of cyber security solutions provider company Quick Heal.

Who is Kailash Katkar?

Kailash Katkar is the CEO of Quick Heal Technologies. He was born in the year 1966 in Rahimatpur, Maharashtra. He pursued his school education till class 10 in Pune and then dropped out of school. The family needed financial assistance and so, Kailash stepped out of the house to look for job opportunities. In the year 1985, he got himself a job at a repair shop with a meagre salary of Rs 400. His father had a labour job at Philips company. 

Calculator Repair Shop in 1991

While engaged at work at the repairing shop, Kailash managed to acquire a lot of skills; he learned the basics of accounting and other similar subjects. He encouraged his younger brother to continue his studies after class 12 and paid the fees of Rs 5000 for his computer studies. 

In 1991, Kailash invested Rs 15,000 in his business and opened his own calculator repair shop in Pune. Soon, more repairing machines were installed in the shop. His first business venture picked up the pace and received a contract from an insurance company. 

New business venture

Kailash received calls from nearby offices and businesses to repair their machines and calculators. One such day, when he visited a bank for work purposes, he saw a computer for the first time in his life. He understood the need of the hour and realized the importance the computers would hold in the near future. This led him to buy a computer for Rs 50,000 to give a head start to his new venture. This was a time when people visited his shop just to have a look at the computers, something that they had never seen before.

Cyber security company

The software market was gaining momentum in India and Kailash grabbed the opportunity and went forward in the same direction. In the year 1993, he launched CAT Computer Services for the maintenance of computers. This was when he learned about the computer viruses and thought of ways to prevent such computer malfunctioning. 

Kailash urged his younger brother, Sanjay Katkar, who had been studying computer programming at his college, to focus on the antivirus computer studies. Lo and behold, in the second year of college, Sanjay developed a computer programme to fix computer viruses. Kailash installed these programmes in the computers that he repaired at his shops. 

In the year 1995, Kailash Katkar and his brother Sanjay Katkar launched their first cyber security company called Quick Heal Antivirus. They had made an initial investment of Rs 700 and today, the company generates a revenue of Rs 187 crore.