Shark Tank India's Anupam Mittal shares how he went from being jobless in US to earning millions in 3 years

Anupam Mittal recollected going hungry for two to three days when he was jobless in the US. (Image credit: @anupammittal.me/Instagram)

Before being a judge on Shark Tank India, before becoming the multi-millionaire founder-CEO of People Group and Shaadi.com, Anupam Mittal was one among 20 children growing up in a cramped 1000-square feet Mumbai flat.

Speaking at a podcast, he said that while his father made his fortune in the textiles business, there was a time when the family wasn't very well off. “We wouldn’t realise it as kids, but 20 of us were living in a 1,000-square foot house at the time. People were sleeping on the dining table, under the dining table. But as kids, you don’t think of that. You enjoy having so many kids around,” Mittal said on the Barbershop podcast.

Soon, however, as his father's business prospered, Anupam Mittal went to the Boston College in the US to study but had some "terrible experiences" trying to find a job in the IT sector. "I sent out 800 resumes," he said. And even though he had no money, he couldn't ask his parents for help because they would have just called him back home. “Now the situation was such that I had no money, and if I asked them for money they say, ‘Where’s your salary?’ I had no money. It was the first time I experienced hunger," he said.

The Shark Tank India judge shared that there were times he would go without food for two to three days but experiences hunger taught him a number of lessons. "This is something everybody should do in live once, because experiencing hunger teaches you a lot. There was a time when I didn’t eat for two-three days, because I couldn’t eat. How long could friends help? They would’ve helped, but you also feel bad after a while… credit cards are maxed out, everything is finished. It wasn’t like I was out on the streets, but I did experience some level of lack of resources,” he said.

Mittal finally landed a job that he liked with MicroStrategy where he was offered stock options. The company was worth $100 million at the time and within the next three years, thanks to the dot com boom, its valuation reached $40 billion. "I had joined as a sales consultant but very quickly I rose through ranks to become the director of strategic partnerships so I had a lot of stock options and had become a multi-millionaire in my early twenties," he said. "It was crazy, I’d never imagined it. I’d ordered a sports car, we used to party in stadiums, our corporate parties would be on cruise ships. It was next level.”

Read more: Anupam Mittal finds it 'amazing' that Shark Tank India pitchers aren't IIT, IIM 'elites'