This Small-Town Entrepreneur Turned a Rs 3 Lakh Loan into an Rs 8 Crore Turnover Data Business

Murtaza Amin grew up in the small town of Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh, in a modest household where his father worked as an electrician and his mother was a homemaker.

Today, he is the founder and CEO of BizProspex, a data-selling company with a turnover of Rs 8 crore, over 100 employees, and offices in Burhanpur and Nagpur.

Murtaza Amin's BizProspex employs over 100 people and serves global clients (Photos: Special Arrangement)

However, Murtaza’s journey began as a one-man operation from a rented room in Mumbai, with a borrowed capital of Rs 3 lakh.

Founded in 2013, BizProspex operates under the registered name Prospex Network Pvt Ltd and specialises in selling high-quality data to clients across the world.


Starting from a humble background, Murtaza dropped out of an engineering college in Jalgaon after realising that a Tier 3 college degree would not help him land a good job.

At just 19, he began interning at PriceBaba, an electronics price comparison site, where he learned the basics of data - how it’s gathered, analysed, and used in marketing and business.

“I was fascinated by the power of data,” Murtaza recalls. He freelanced for PriceBaba until August 2013, and then started selling data on his own. Working from Mumbai, he initially ran the entire show himself.

“It was always at the back of my mind that if I could save Rs 10 lakh, I could return to Burhanpur and live with my parents while building something from there,” he says.

BizProspex tracks nearly 1,000 events a year to serve clients across the world

In 2016, with some savings and support from a customer in California, who loaned him Rs 3 lakh after being impressed with his work, he returned to Burhanpur to set up his office.

“He offered to lend me money to hire people and expand. I took the money, built the business, and repaid it,” says Murtaza.

BizProspex, which began with a single employee - Murtaza himself - now owns a 7,000 sq ft office in Burhanpur and operates a sales office in Nagpur.

The company has grown steadily, hitting Rs 1 crore turnover in 2017, Rs 5 crore in 2020 during the COVID boom in data consumption, and Rs 8 crore in the last financial year.

Their clients include names like Walmart, E2E Network, Alfa Insurance, Optimize, Pop Deem, GODO, Silk Start, and Mimoona. About 98% of the company’s clients are international, based in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Japan, China, the US, Europe, and Hong Kong. Only 2% of their sales come from India.

Murtaza explains the business: “Our SEO is strong. People visit our website, see our subscription plans, and buy what they need. We sell data on a subscription basis - weekly, fortnightly, or monthly - just like Amazon’s service model.”

BizProspex offers a wide range of B2C and B2B data, including CEO/CFO/CTO email lists, data on global sanctions, Shopify customer lists, SaaS companies, travel agencies, CRM/ERP users, job titles, healthcare, country-specific data, and exhibition and attendee lists from global events.

Murtaza focuses on building an employee-friendly, flexible work culture, especially for women

They also provide services like database solutions, data mining, data analytics, data verification, event database creation, lead generation, and hiring intent tracking.

“We track nearly 1,000 events globally every year to source data. We also receive data from job aggregators and events companies and buy from third-party sources,” Murtaza shares.

The journey wasn’t without challenges. “Hiring trained professionals in Burhanpur was difficult, so I chose trainable people who were willing to work hard. I focused on hiring women and building an employee-friendly culture,” he says.

Understanding the social dynamics of a small town, Murtaza welcomed families of women candidates to visit the office and see for themselves.

“I wanted to provide a safe and respectable workspace,” he says. Many employees now work half the day from the office and the other half from home, allowing them to have lunch with family. This has especially helped married women continue their careers and has resulted in zero attrition.

COVID brought a mindset shift. “People started preferring the slower, more balanced lifestyle in small towns. I leveraged this reverse migration trend to build a team of talented people who didn’t want to leave home for metros like Mumbai or Delhi,” he explains.

Murtaza trains local talent from Burhanpur, proving that tech businesses can thrive beyond metros

Murtaza now wants to take his company to the global stage. He advises aspiring entrepreneurs: “Build a recession-proof business. Try to grow it with your own earnings. Don’t rely on outside funding.”

Now 34, Murtaza has completed his BA and MA in entrepreneurship through IGNOU’s distance learning programs. He is also an avid traveller, having explored every Indian state and 15 countries including China, Dubai, and the US.

“I don’t go on short trips. I travel for 20–30 days to understand the people and their way of life,” he says.
His story from a small-town boy with limited means to the owner of a thriving data company offers inspiration to anyone with a dream and the determination to pursue it.