Four friends were set for corporate jobs. Instead, they bet on mushrooms

Four young friends, including two engineers and an IIT-Kharagpur graduate, abandoned their established careers to embark on a challenging new venture: growing mushrooms. Naveen Patwal, Amit Kumar Sharma, Poonam Sharma, and Sunny Gupta were childhood friends who co-founded a mushroom farming business in 2006. Despite the 90 percent risk of failure, they pooled their savings and bought land in Roorkee, determined to keep their friendship intact.

After initial setbacks, they stabilized their production and expanded their brand, Planet Mushroom, offering a variety of mushrooms to consumers. Poonam, who had a promising banking career, joined the business after seeing the potential for her family to grow together.