India, Jan. 7 -- In 1991, at the age of 17, Umar Akhter worked at a sari store located in Kolar, a small town near Bengaluru. His father, reeling from heavy losses in his wholesale business, had rented the outlet as a lifeline. As the oldest of six siblings, he had no choice but to juggle studies and work to ease his family's financial burden.

"Life was incredibly tough then. We had no running water and used to sleep on the floor. My father had zero capital. And there came a time when we didn't have any money to pay our lenders," Akhter told Inc42.

Despite the hardship, he learnt business fundamentals from family entrepreneurship at a time when ethnic retail pulsed through local markets and family-run stores that knew their customers by...