In 2007, Mukesh Bansal, a visionary software engineer from IIT Kanpur who spent eight years working at Silicon Valley technology startups, teamed up with Ashutosh Lawania and Vineet Saxena in Bengaluru to launch **Myntra**. The company initially operated as an on-demand B2B personalized gift marketplace, selling custom printed t-shirts, coffee mugs, and corporate pens. However, by 2011, Bansal recognized that personalized gifts had a low market ceiling, while India's fashion apparel market was about to explode online. Bansal boldly pivoted Myntra into a pure-play fashion and lifestyle e-commerce platform, convincing top global brands that Indians were ready to buy branded clothing online, igniting India's digital fashion boom.