The Music Of Achievement

There are people who have been given everything that they need not work so hard to obtain their successes. One cannot say the same with other people who had to toil hard, sacrifice sweat and tears, just to be able to get to where they are now. But as wise men say, the harder the struggle, the sweeter the victory will be. Naveen Jain is now reaping all the benefits of his hard work.

Starting out in India, Naveen Jain has seen everything from overpopulation to poverty, to the great opportunities provided by the information technology market despite all of this. After studying and getting his bachelor’s degree in engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Naveen Jain proceeded to get his post-graduate degree at the Jamshedpur School of Business and Human Resources. After getting his Master’s in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations, he tried his luck and went on a business exchange trip to the United States. He hoped to explore and tap into the wide array of opportunities provided by the up and coming IT market.

Getting his first break at the Burroughs Corporation in New Jersey, Naveen Jain went on to work for one of the pioneer companies in the IT industry, Microsoft Corporation. Under the tutelage of Bill Gates, one of the industry’s prime movers, Jain became one of the brightest minds in the IT industry and this eventually prompted him to start his own IT business after his stint in Microsoft. Steadily climbing the corporate ladder in Microsoft with big projects such as the MS-DOS and the Microsoft Network, Jain pulled out in 1996 and founded InfoSpace. In 2003, Jain moved on to found his most successful venture yet, Intelius Inc.

Since its inception in 2003, Intellius Inc has experienced steady growth under the guidance of their CEO and president. After 18-hour workdays, 7 days a week, Jain has steadily stirred Intelius to where it is right now. He had his share of ups and downs but through “blood, sweat and tears,” and as proven by the continuous success of his company, Naveen Jain is still going at it, making sure that every opportunity is never passed up.

Intelius founder and former InfoSpace CEO Naveen Jain is an estimable philanthropist. He is a staunch advocate of Washington-based nonprofit groups that benefit the youth, education, family, health care, and his native India.

With his company, Naveen Jain has given generous sums to the Seattle Children’s Hospital, Kindering Center, Child Rights and You, Hopelink, Overlake Service League, Indian American Education Foundation, Olive Crest, Tree House, and the Bellevue Boys and Girls Club. Aside from that, he has designated a special job for his wife Anu: the vice presidency of community relations. Anu Jain previously worked in the same function for her husband’s first company, InfoSpace.

InfoSpace is chiefly a content provider. However, it gained repute for making forays into wireless Internet, then unheard of in the 1990s when it was founded.

Jain followed InfoSpace with Intellius. As its name implies, Intelius is into intelligence services, at least those that can be offered using public records of persons. Americans are known to file various kinds of records with public agencies; Intelius procures them and creates the pertinent intelligence services.

Among others, Intelius can search for specific people in its 30-year old address history and screen prospective job seeker’s applications in behalf of other companies.

For his work with Intelius, Naveen Jain was close to winning the prestigious Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2006 by Ernst and Young. Nevertheless, the firm won the Best New Company in that year’s American Business Awards.

Lately, Intelius has attracted a degree of attention with its revenue growth. For instance, Intelius is an Inc. 500 company. To be so means the company has to be one of the fastest-growing in America today.

Naveen Jain and his wife ultimately channel a sizable portion of the company’s revenues to charity work. In 2008, the company broke its own record in charity.