When Shashank Kumar graduated from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, in 2008, and joined management consulting firm Beacon Advisory Services in Gurgaon, started by two of his IIT seniors, he was already breaking from tradition. “I had the opportunity to go into investment banking but chose to join a startup. I was the first employee, doing everything from pitching for a project to deliveries,” he says. For the young man from Chhapra, Bihar, this was closer to his eventual dream.