From a middle-class upbringing in Mumbai to building UTV, one of India’s largest media empires, and redefining himself through education venture upGrad and philanthropy, Ronnie Screwvala has been in constant motion throughout his life.
Not because he had a plan, but because the status quo seemed unnatural.
“Today, reinvention is an absolute necessity for everyone … And if you’re a founder or an entrepreneur, reinvention is a given on an ongoing basis,” said Skruvala, co-founder of the upGrad & Swades Foundation, during a conversation with Your story Founder Shraddha Sharma at Techsparks 2025.
But Screwvala doesn’t see reinvention as a special event in his life; it’s the fuel that keeps him going every day.
“Most of us think of it as project and innovation. But in your mind, if you have a sense of restlessness, you reinvent. If you don’t have that, that’s a problem,” he said.
He also drew attention to the interconnectedness of his businesses to demonstrate that reinvention does not necessarily have to be a restart, but can also be a cumulative effect. His work shaped his media narrative, which in turn shaped his approach to education.
“Each contributed to the other. If it weren’t for my creative sources, I don’t think I would have gone into the media. If it weren’t for media and storytelling, I wouldn’t have a connection to education. “If I hadn’t started a nonprofit at an early age, I wouldn’t have seen what giving back really means,” Skrovala said.
When asked about the uncertainties of reinvention, Screwvalo was very candid: There is no single day when an entrepreneur feels truly comfortable.
“I came from a lower-middle-class home,” he said. “When I started, being an entrepreneur wasn’t aspirational. People thought it meant you couldn’t get a job. So if you don’t have the credentials or the bank balance, that discomfort is the best way to start.”
He said that resources should not be comforting that the next day will be better. “If they do, it’s a problem.”
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Failure can be fruitful
In addition to uncertainty, an entrepreneur has to face failures. “My failure to success ratio is eight to two,” he said. “When you’re on that low, it can be quite cathartic. I’ll be very clear on this: If there were five failures and five successes, it would be less likely that my five successes would be really big. But if you’ve lost eight times, two successes have to be big – that’s the formula I use.”
His early years at UTV were marked by a number of near misses. “When we started cable TV, the first year everyone said maybe you should get an MBA and get a job because we weren’t getting any clients. In my media days, we were (almost) bankrupt three times in the first three years. Each time I had to go to 30 people, then 300, then 600, to tell them we weren’t getting paid the next day… The first five films we shot on UTV, were a disaster,” he admitted.
But Screwvala learned great lessons from this reservoir of failure.
“The more we celebrate failure, the better,” he said, emphasizing that failure is not only inevitable, but important in the entrepreneur’s journey.
Edited by Swetha Kannan
