Backed up by driving ambition

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: In many ways, Neeraj Mediratta has the fiancé of a client’s secretary to thank for where he is today. Chancing upon Cisco in 1997-98 was a fortuitous event towards bigger things. Building a Rs 12-crore company—2007-08 revenue—from virtually nothing wasn’t easy, but the challenges and the celebrations keep Mediratta, managing director of Ace Data Devices, going.

Ace’s beginnings were modest. It started out selling ribbons, cartridges, floppies and other low value media and computer consumables. Anuj Mediratta, Neeraj’s brother, a software engineer by training, started the company in 1996, with close to zero capital, in the living room of their home in Kirti Nagar. Four years later, the brothers breached the crore-point; their company clocked Rs 1.12 crore in revenue. Today, they have a 3,000 sq ft office in the NCR’s prime commercial location, Gurgaon.

There were lulls and there were storms, and the brothers never knew in which order they would show up. When Ace was formed, Neeraj was in his seventh year with Wockhardt where he had been working in frontline medical sales covering the national capital region. During the few months of overlap between Ace and Wockhardt, Neeraj would contribute his monthly salary of Rs 3,600 into the business.

Soon after Ace was registered, Neeraj joined his brother in the business. One early client was Crompton Greaves, to which they supplied printer ribbons. Soon, they were supplying to CG Informatics, Crompton’s systems integration arm, peripherals like keyboards, cables and network equipment. The supplies graduated to assembled PCs and and printers.

But Neeraj learnt quickly that getting into new areas is not smooth sailing. The knocks were both big and small but the brothers “never thought of turning back”. There was a time Ace sold 150 PCs to an IPO-hopeful company. But its IPO-application was rejected at the last minute, driving the company into bankruptcy and eventual closure. Ace was left on its own to face the music and thatdrove Neeraj to tak e loan to pay off his vendors for the 150 PCs, the instalments of which he is still paying off.