No Internet, No Funding, No Problem: How Naukri.com Built India’s Hiring Backbone from Scratch

India, 30th June 2025: In an era where startups raise millions before writing a single line of code, it’s almost surreal to imagine one of India’s most iconic internet companies–Naukri.com started without an internet connection.  Yes, you read that right. When Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Founder of Naukri and Executive Vice Chairman of InfoEdge, launched Naukri in 1997, the company didn’t have Wi-Fi. It didn’t even have dial-up. What it did have was a hunch–an observation made in a marketing office in the 90s. 

In a recent conversation with Pushkar Bidwai on People Matters’ Humanscope podcast, Sanjeev unpacks that journey with rare candour. 

“We didn’t have internet—but we had insight,” Sanjeev says. Every time the office copy of Business India landed on desks, Sanjeev noticed colleagues flipped straight to the back–to the job ads. Not to find new roles but out of pure curiosity. This quiet behavioral truth became the launchpad for what would become India’s first internet job portal—built without capital, Wi-Fi, or even a proper office setup. 

For the first few months, the site was updated by hand, via floppy disks ferried to a friend’s home with internet access. The team subscribed to 29 newspapers from across the country, manually inputted job listings, and committed to keeping a minimum of 1,000 active listings live at all times. Yet even then, the platform saw growing traffic. Why? Because it promised something India’s fragmented job market had never seen before: every job from every major city, in one searchable place, available anytime.

And the name? That wasn’t planned either. With every obvious English domain name already taken (jobsindia.com, employmentindia.com, etc.), Sanjeev called his brother in the U.S. and, on a whim, asked him to check if “naukri.com” was available. It was—and it got booked instantly. Back home, friends weren’t impressed. The name was dismissed as “downmarket,” “too Hindi,” “too simple.” But its simplicity became its strength. “It had zing,” Sanjeev says. More than that, it had relatability.

Today, Naukri.com is more than just a job portal—it’s a part of a holding company InfoEdge, that also incubated successful platforms like 99acres, Jeevnasaathi, Shiksha. But its origin story remains instructive in a talent landscape that’s shifting dramatically. It’s clear that we are moving away from a volume-based hiring economy to one that values fit over flood, but Naukri cracked that code long back.  

In a moment of operational clarity, Sanjeev discovered that each Naukri salesperson costs around Rs 22,000 but generated over Rs 50,000 in monthly revenue–without any additional variable cost. Just as Naukri scaled not by hiring endlessly but by hiring intentionally, the larger hiring ecosystem in India is increasingly embracing: quality over quantity, efficiency over excess. Employers are focused less on headcount and more on capability, alignment, and adaptability–mirroring Naukri’s philosophy.     

It’s a full circle moment. Sanjeev and his team weren’t trying to build a unicorn. They were trying to build something useful. And that’s perhaps the biggest lesson for today’s entrepreneurs and HR leaders alike. You don’t need fancy tools, big words, or a five-year plan to create impact. You need genuine insight. You need to solve a real problem. And sometimes, you need to trust that a name like ‘Naukri’ can become a billion-rupee brand even if it sounds wrong at first.