Bhavin turakhia

Bhavin Turakhia (born December 21, 1979) is a successful serial entrepreneur from India and is the founding CEO at Directi - a global web products company, developing innovative mass-market Web Products. He established Directi in 1998, at the age of 19. He has since, led the company’s expansion in more than 200 countries globally with 6 businesses, 20+ products, 1200+ employees serving millions of customers worldwide.

In February 2014, Directi’s web business was acquired by NASDAQ listed Endurance group for an undisclosed amount. Bhavin will continue to be an advisor to these businesses.

In the meanwhile Bhavin, along with brother Divyank, has also set up Radix a domain registry that has an active play in ICANN’s new gTLD regime. Radix has already won the right to operate .space, .website, .press and .host with 18 more applications pending final decisions from ICANN.

Bhavin’s most recent venture is Ringo a mobile app that delivers high quality international calls, at a fraction of the cost minus the internet. The Ringo app routes calls much like a regular carrier, without using the internet, and the origination number continues to appear as the caller ID. This means calls are not affected by fluctuations in internet connectivity that often lead to audio delays, loss of quality and dropped calls. At launch, Ringo will be available to users in 16 countries.

Early life

Bhavin was born in Mumbai which is where he has lived all his life. He is one of two siblings- him and his brother Divyank Turakhia has been an active founder and partner in the business of Directi. Bhavin schooled at Arya Vidya Mandir until the 10th grade which is also where he had an early introduction to computers. His first exposure to PCs was in 1986 when he was in the sixth grade and by grade nine, he was spending countless hours post school exploring computing languages like BASIC on his own.

As a young boy, Bhavin was primarily influenced by his father who encouraged him to read extensively, thus stroking his intellect and discovering his zest for entrepreneurship. In 1996 he enrolled into a Bachelors of Commerce course from Sydenham College, Mumbai.

Career

While at college, Bhavin set up two businesses – computer hardware sales and The Web Spinners (neither of which succeeded). The mid 90s witnessed the upcoming of the first home Internet connection, TCP/IP connectivity. By 1996 Bhavin started taking up consulting assignments and in a year’s time Directi was a registered domain name. Headquartered in an Osia Friendship apartment in Bombay; it was a one-man company.

One of Directi’s first products was a job site engine, programmed independently by Bhavin with sophisticated AI algorithm and search engine features. His focus soon shifted to building products that redressed immediate customer dissatisfaction and needs. With web solutions soon becoming the need of the hour, Bhavin was able to expand his client base across the country and soon Directi was profitable.

Directi weathered the 2004 dotcom bust with a focus on engaging a diverse client base and offering a repertoire of web based services, hedging its risk in the volatile market. Bhavin stuck to his views of bootstrapping his venture and refrained from external funding from venture capitalists by pumping back monthly revenues into the business.

Today Directi has grown into a group of six different companies and its businesses have been ranked in the Deloitte’s technology fast 50 list for three consecutive years. The company has also made the jump from being India’s only ICANN accredited company in 2001 to becoming the fastest growing registrar in Asia in 2002 and crossing 100,000 customers in 2003.

Under Bhavin, ResellerClub and LogicBoxes have become industry leaders in their respective verticals, and Directi has consistently featured amongst the fastest growing tech companies in Asia by Deloitte and Touche.

Awards and recognition

An early internet technocrat, Bhavin is highly respected in the Web 2.0 landscape, and is a frequent speaker at various seminars, tech conferences and colleges around the country. He has won several awards, including the Entrepreneur of the year award in 2005 and was former chairman for the Global ICANN Accredited Registrars Constituency for two consecutive terms.

Bhavin has also authored several technology patents and is the chief architect of the .pw social communication platform, OrderBox, and various other products and services provided through ResellerClub and LogicBoxes. He is also responsible for Directi's community evangelism efforts such as TechCamp and CodeChef.