Woman Builds $19M Company After Selling Fan to Bury Father

When Seema Bansal was 18 months old, her father died and her mother faced an impossible choice. They owned nothing but a ceiling fan, which she sold for 170 rupees (about $2) to pay for his cremation.

That moment of desperate poverty shaped everything that followed. Seema's mother raised four children alone in Gwalior, India, giving music lessons to keep them in school. When tuition costs climbed too high, she moved Seema to a government school where the language and everything else changed overnight.

Seema stopped attending for six months. When she finally returned, she topped her class.

By eighth grade, Seema was tutoring other students to help pay for her own education. She aced competitive exams and landed an air hostess interview in Mumbai, only to discover the job required a $3,600 payment her family could never afford.

She moved to Mumbai with her brother, living in a tin shack that baked in the summer heat. After working odd jobs, she broke into IT and eventually transferred to London. There, she met her husband and they built a successful business in New York's Empire State Building, even earning green cards.

Then the business collapsed. They lost everything and returned to India with nothing.

Unemployed and living with relatives, Seema remembered the packaging catalogues she used to receive in London. She started DCG Packs from a desk in her home with zero industry experience in a male-dominated field. She drove the deliveries, made the sales calls, managed the books, and answered customer questions herself.

Her first order was 4,000 packages for a major brand. She promised 24-hour delivery across Delhi and kept that promise religiously. Service, she believed, was everything.

When COVID hit and businesses shuttered, DCG Packs grew. Seema supplied packaging to hospitals and emergency services across India, securing special passes for essential deliveries. She refused to fire anyone, temporarily reducing salaries instead and later repaying every rupee.

Why This Inspires

Seema's story isn't just about business success. It's about a woman who watched her mother sell their last possession and learned that survival requires relentless determination. She now employs a workforce that's 40% women, creating opportunities she once desperately needed herself.

Today, DCG Tech Limited serves over 50,000 clients with warehouses in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Dubai, generating $19 million in annual revenue. Seema didn't just escape poverty; she built a ladder for others to climb.

From a $2 ceiling fan to a multi-million dollar empire, Seema proved that your starting point doesn't determine your destination.