Starting a jet company against the odds
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We meet the founder of one of India’s largest private aviation companies who overcame several life challenges before starting the business.
After doctors initially told her she had months to live, Indian entrepreneur Kanika Tekriwal went on to build JetSetGo, one of the country’s largest private aviation marketplaces. She talks about overcoming illness, sexism and family opposition to launch her company.
If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Rahul Tandon Producers: Amber Mehmood, Ahmed Adan and Niamh McDermott
Business Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.
Each episode is a 17-minute, daily deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.
Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.
We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of Canva, Melanie Perkins.
(Picture: Kanika Tekriwal, founder of JetSetGo. Credit: Kanika Tekriwal)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Hi, I'm Ruhl Tandon, and this is Meet the Founders from Business Daily here on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:15.0 | This is where we speak to innovators around the world about the ideas, risks and realities behind starting a business. |
| 0:24.3 | Today, an Indian aviation entrepreneur who defied the odds from arranged marriage expectations |
| 0:30.9 | and sexism to surviving cancer at the age of 21. |
| 0:35.3 | I had nothing. I had zero knowledge, zero money, zero anything. |
| 0:38.3 | My guest is Kanika Tekriwal, founder and CEO of Jet Set Go, India's first and largest |
| 0:45.5 | marketplace for private jet and helicopter charters. |
| 0:49.0 | I went away from home to start my company. |
| 0:51.0 | Only because I'm like, if I survive cancer, I can survive anything in the world. |
| 0:54.4 | That's Kanika Tekriwal, our founder today. |
| 1:04.6 | Let's start this story in northern India, in the Marwa region of Rajasthan, which is India's largest state. Because it's from |
| 1:13.7 | this area, the one of the country's most entrepreneurial and tight-knit business communities emerged. |
| 1:20.3 | I went to boarding school, very young age, right? And to me, everyone was just Indian. There was no |
| 1:24.6 | Hindu, there was no Muslim, none of that. And suddenly I started, you know, reading in history books and in class about how there was this business community in India, which actually built corporate India today. |
| 1:36.9 | You know, and that's why I started getting really curious. |
| 1:39.5 | And I got to know about the Marwari community that I'm from. |
| 1:42.6 | And they were literally literally like, I think |
| 1:44.2 | they have different blood. So there's something in the water there or there's something in the |
| 1:47.7 | air there or I don't know what the mothers met these kids. But every single one of them has been |
| 1:52.1 | a successful entrepreneur. Now it's okay for Marwari's to do jobs. But when I was a child, |
| 1:57.8 | I didn't know Marwari who did a job. What this community I think personifies is very simple living, simple lifestyles, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.