Peyush Bansal’s journey didn’t begin with success. It began with rejection. As a Delhi school student, he had his sights set on the IITs but didn’t make the cut. That setback could’ve ended his dream before it began, but instead, it redirected it. With some convincing, his parents sent him to Canada to study engineering.
Landing there was a jolt. He had no home, little money, and a workload that felt endless. Between a tough engineering program and a receptionist job, he often worked close to 20 hours a day. But those long nights taught him resilience, and, eventually, introduced him to his true passion.
In his college lab, watching a senior write code sparked something. He started teaching himself programming from a thick manual on Visual Basic Plus, coding late into the night after his shifts. What started as curiosity soon turned into opportunity, he was offered a coding job, replacing his own receptionist position.
That experience shaped how he thought about problem-solving. It helped him earn an internship at Microsoft , not on his first try, but his second. There, he learned to look at challenges through the customer’s eyes. After graduation, he joined Microsoft in Seattle, working with brilliant minds and soaking up lessons that would later define his approach as a founder. But somewhere inside, he wanted more than a great job, he wanted to make a difference.
In 2008, he quit his comfortable role and came back to India with savings, conviction, and no clear plan. He started small, literally in a garage , trying to solve housing issues for college students. Soon, he noticed something bigger: half of India needed glasses, but most couldn’t access or afford them. That realization became his next mission.
In 2011, he co-founded Lenskart with Sumit Kapahi and Amit Chaudhary. Their goal was simple but massive , to make eyewear affordable and available for everyone. Investors arrived quickly, but Bansal’s focus stayed on customers, not valuations. The team built Lenskart brick by brick, powered by experimentation, failures, and an unshakable belief that customer obsession beats any business plan.
Over a decade later, that philosophy turned Lenskart into one of India’s most successful consumer tech brands. The company’s IPO, now on the horizon, marks more than a financial milestone, it’s a full-circle moment for Bansal. From being rejected by IIT to leading a global eyewear brand valued in billions, his journey is proof that real success isn’t about where you start, but how deeply you care about the problem you’re solving.
