It would not be wrong to say that whoever said, “Before every successful man, there are a number of unsuccessful years”, had the word entrepreneurship in mind. Entrepreneurship is one of the biggest trends of 21st century. It’s amazing to witness people growing out of literally nothing, to being the most successful business tycoons in their fields. 

Entrepreneurship is crucial, as it has the ability to generate wealth, not only for the entrepreneurs but also for related businesses. It helps drive change with innovation, where new and improved products enable new markets to be developed. 

Obviously, this notion didn’t just pop out of nowhere but is clearly based on a number of years of people trying to stand on their feet while changing the world with brilliance and innovation. 

Although every entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily aim for ‘changing the world’ but instead just sells what’s already in the market, it’s important to note that in today’s world, the majority of people who actually ‘changed the world’ started as entrepreneurs. I don’t need to mention Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, or a thousand others to prove the above point.

EBTL: A Home Automation Start-up

In the entrepreneurship and start-up world, among the enthusiastic people tirelessly hustling on their dreams, are three engineering students from IIT Kharagpur. They somehow felt that shocks from electric switches were an area they could focus upon.

So the trio of Monish Salhotra, Rajbir Singh, and Saswat Sahu started their venture in 2011 named EBTL or Engineer Bringing Technology to Life with their headquarters at New Delhi. 

EBTL has worked on the home automation segment where an ordinary electric switch panel could become a hi-tech but simple to use device, connected to the internet.

EBTL: Greener Initiative

Every one of us, who ever thought of starting their own companies also thought of what to actually work on. These three engineers smartly chose an area which is going to be the ‘Next big tech thing in India’. It took EBTL four and a half years of research to come out with its first product Amour, which is a smart home automation device for the energy or electricity segment. They claim that this IoT device is totally shockproof and safe to use. It also has built-in intelligence to manage the energy needs of a home or commercial establishment.

Statistics indicate that smart product penetration in Indian households is going to rise to 9.5% in 2023 compared to only 1.5% in 2019. The smart automation market is currently pegged at over Rs. 8,000 crores. Monish says, “We have been evolving as a company since 2011 when there was no term like IoT. Our product matured into a hi-tech device. Amour’s biggest USP is its well-suited functioning ability for Indian conditions".

For instance, it can be connected to the inverter, and the energy supply is cut off when there is no power outage. But, this is not the case with the imported devices available in the market. Also, Amour can be retrofitted into any existing home or office.

The company’s first customer was a spiritual institution that was in need of a centralized and easy-to-use energy solution. Since the company launched Amour in 2015, it has expanded a lot in India and abroad. The company has in fact tied up with leading hotel chains to install its product in their rooms.

EBTL's Path Ahead

At present, EBTL has a team of around 35 with the majority of them focusing on research and development (R&D). This is done from its Jalandhar office and the entire product is manufactured in India. The team believes that EBTL will register a revenue of Rs. 20 crores by the end of this financial year. The start-up is targeting Rs. 100 crore revenue by the end of FY21. This huge jump is mainly due to large contracts EBTL has signed recently.

While there is still competition in the market, EBTL is doing amazing and it’ll be only a matter of years that we’ll see the company grow and expand even more in the Indian market whenever home automation sector is concerned.