This Ahmedabad Man Quit CA Even After Qualifying It And Built A ₹102 Cr AdTech Company With His School Friend - Started With Just ₹75,000

In the early 2010s, on the scorching afternoon streets of Ahmedabad, locals must've seen two young men standing at busy traffic junctions.

They weren’t protesting. They weren’t selling toys. They were holding simple, hand-painted banners that read just one thing: Advertise with us.

They weren’t marketing gurus. They weren’t ad-agency veterans. They were school friends with empty pockets, zero contacts, and a stubborn refusal to accept defeat, just starting a bootstrap advertising startup, relying purely on grit and determination.

Those men were Vaishal Dalal and Manan Joshi. Back then, they had no idea that the dusty streets they were standing on would be the foundation of Excellent Publicity: a leading AdTech platform and advertising agency in India, managing campaigns for global brands. A company that would one day welcome a third partner, Amit Thakkar, grow into a Rs 102 crore AdTech powerhouse, and manage advertising and branding campaigns for brands like Google and Amazon.

This is a story of three friends who lost everything, almost quit, but chose to consistently build an adtech empire.

THE BEGINNING: STARTING WITH NOTHING

In 2011, at the age of 21, Vaishal Dalal became one of the youngest qualified Chartered Accountants in India at the time.

Everything was flowing smoothly until the epiphany to build something creative of his own hit him.

There was the societal pressure of steering away from a structured, safe career as a Chartered Accountant, but there was also this inner spark that refused to die down.

So, Vaishal Dalal set out to try his hands in the advertising field.

Excellent Publicity did not begin in a glass office with venture capital. It began with zero investment and a desperate need to survive.

For the first six months, Vaishal and school friend Manan treated the city streets as their office. For eight hours a day, they stood at commercial junctions, markets, and crossroads, hoping just one person would stop their car and ask about advertising. It was humiliating, exhausting work.

“At night, when internet rates were cheaper, we would stay awake scraping data, building prospect lists manually, and sending cold emails into the void,” Manan Joshi tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

There was no "Plan B", relying solely on their entrepreneurial grit to grow their advertising startup.

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EXPERIMENTING, FAILING, AND THE “RICKSHAW” DREAM

Before they found their footing, they faced a brutal reality check.

Their first big bet was a hyperlocal magazine distributed through auto-rickshaws, a venture they named “on wheels” for auto rickshaw advertising and rickshaw branding. They poured their hearts and their limited funds (just Rs 75,000) into it.

They wrote the articles, designed the pages, and personally went from auto to auto, begging drivers to install magazine racks.

They built the racks with their own hands. They distributed the copies themselves.

But the market was unforgiving. Brands didn't want magazines; they wanted visibility on the outside of the rickshaw. The model collapsed. The investment was wiped out. It was their first taste of failure, but it wouldn't be their hardest.

THE BETRAYAL: LOSING EVERYTHING AND ALMOST QUITTING

If the magazine failure was a stumble, what happened next was a knockout blow.

Just as the agency was finding a tiny bit of rhythm, they were hit by a massive fraud. In a deceptive deal, the founders were scammed out of Rs 7 lakh.

“For a bootstrapped startup today, that is a lot of money. For us back then, it was everything,” Vaishal Dalal reflects.

It wiped out every single rupee they had earned in their first six months of blood and sweat. Overnight, they went from hopeful entrepreneurs to being startup owners with zero revenue.

The emotional toll was devastating. The optimism vanished. The situation became so suffocating that, for the first time, the dream was broken by harsh realities of entrepreneurship struggles. This was the point when Manan Joshi actually started polishing his CV and started applying for corporate jobs.

They were ready to walk away. Excellent Publicity was effectively dead.

But in that darkness, a spark remained. They looked at the empty bank account, looked at each other, and decided to take one final stand. They wouldn't go back to their jobs. They would fight to earn it back.

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THE COMEBACK: ONE CAMPAIGN THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

The turning point in their advertising success story came when they helped a small business advertising campaign for a local sweet shop.

Desperate for a win, they convinced a local sweet shop owner to execute a local advertising campaign by putting ads on 500 auto rickshaws. It wasn't glamorous, but they executed it with military precision.

A month later, the shop owner called them with news that sounded like a miracle: his sales had nearly doubled.

That was the proof they needed. Advertising worked if done right.

Soon after, they cracked a massive deal with Aakash Institute, their first major corporate advertising client. That contract didn't just bring money; it brought credibility.

“The "street banner" phase was over. The business phase had begun. We were ready to crack advertising and reframe it in every way possible,” entrepreneur Vaishal Dalal says.

THE TRIO COMPLETES: ENTER AMIT THAKKAR

As the advertising agency scaled, the founders realized that passion alone wouldn't build an empire. They needed structure. They needed a third pillar.

By 2014, Amit Thakkar joined the story.

Amit wasn't just an employee; he was the missing piece of the puzzle. He took a massive risk, leaving behind a high-paying, secure corporate career to join a chaotic, growing advertising agency run by two friends.

He brought the maturity, financial discipline, and corporate governance that the wild energy of Vaishal and Manan needed. With Amit on board as a partner, Excellent Publicity wasn't just a hustle anymore - it was a structured organization ready to scale.

SCALING WITH SOUL: THE COVID TEST

The true character of the trio was tested during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the advertising industry collapsed and giants laid off thousands, the three partners made a promise: not to leave their people behind.

Excellent Publicity did not fire a single employee. They did not cut a single rupee from salaries. They absorbed the losses personally to protect the team that had built them. It was a risky financial move, but it cemented a culture of loyalty that money can't buy.

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FROM AGENCY TO ADTECH INFRASTRUCTURE

Post-COVID, the trio realized they had expanded into more verticals and established their digital and sports advertising wing, leveraging programmatic advertising solutions to secure additional clients.

This marked their second turning point, and from then on, there was no stopping them.

They expanded the team and gradually started operating in Surat, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Dubai. From struggling to establish the business in Mumbai in the initial days to becoming a global advertising agency, they achieved something that was once only a dream.

But the hunger of constantly trying something new was always there.

Everything was going well until they realized that the advertising industry grappled with certain gaps.

Especially in the offline industry, Vaishal identified a gap

“I discovered that the offline sector is not as organized as the digital industry. I recognized the opportunity to solve this by introducing our own ad-tech platform,” Vaishal Dalal mentions.

Together, they decided to not only service clients but also start fixing the industry.

They pivoted Excellent Publicity into a technology-led AdTech platform. Today, they have built 100+ AI-powered programmatic advertising tools (with more in the pipeline), including an AI Media Planner powered by 5+ LLMs, 2 search engines, and advanced machine learning.

This technology allows brands to access over 5 lakh+ media options instantly, bringing transparency to an industry famous for hidden costs. They are democratizing advertising, giving small brands the same data-driven power as huge conglomerates.

WHERE EXCELLENT PUBLICITY STANDS TODAY

What started with two guys standing at a junction in Ahmedabad is now a global force.

With Rs 102 crore in annual revenue, and operations in India and Dubai, the adtech firm is delivering campaigns in 23 countries.

It has a prestigious clientele consisting of giants like Google, Amazon, Flipkart, and Starbucks.

Today, Excellent Publicity is an AdTech company democratizing advertising through a tech-led approach to media buying and planning. With offices in India and the UAE, it has delivered 3,00,000+ campaigns across 23 countries.

Its platform brings together 5,00,000+ advertising options from over 50,000 media vendors, creating a unified operating system for an otherwise fragmented advertising ecosystem.

To date, the firm has delivered 3,00,000+ campaigns for clients from 23 countries.

“We even reached the 3rd round of Shark Tank India,” Manan Joshi smiles.

STILL BUILDING, STILL UNFINISHED

Despite the crores in revenue and the global offices, the spirit of Vaishal, Manan, and Amit hasn't changed.

They still operate with the hunger of the outsiders who were scammed out of their first earnings. They still value the grit that kept them from taking those corporate jobs when they hit rock bottom.

“When we started, we knew nothing about advertising. Today, we wake up everyday with just one mission: writing the code for the future of advertising and making it as democratized as possible,” Vaishal Dalal signs off. 

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