Sijo Kuruvilla George is full of optimism, hope and cheer as he talks about the trend of entrepreneurship gathering momentum in the country. The Founding CEO of Startup Village in Kochi, knows what it takes to build a venture amidst constant struggle and challenges. Started in April 2012, the Kochi Startup Village is a 50,000 sft facility created for bright youngsters with great tech ideas. George, who was here in the city recently to interact with students and visit the Sunrise Startup Village, spoke about startup culture, the need for an ecosystem and the challenges. involved
On Vizag In terms of exposure, the students in Vizag here have much more exposure than the kind of people I used to work with in Kochi. Proximity to a city like Hyderabad has helped and also Vizag, unlike Kochi, is an industrial city. So the aspiration and mindset of people are different when compared to Kochi. It will be a different bunch of people and opportunities to work with. I have also come across a lot of social entrepreneurs here, which I had not seen in Kochi. I would want the people behind the success stories of the Kochi Startup Village to come here and interact with the students on a consistent basis. Collaboration is the key I believe.
Startup Village Kochi, then and now
A lot has changed since 2012. It was a 5,000 sq feet setup when we started. Now we have expanded to 50,000 sq ft and the government is building another 25,000 sq ft. The number of startups has picked up more than the infrastructure expansion. Back in 2012, we had 80 to 100 startups a month; presently we are getting more than 200 startup applications a week. In fact, we had to put a pause to the whole process because we need to get the infrastructure in place before adding them over. For us, the most critical component in a startup is the entrepreneur. We technically never reject applications. Right now, there are 672 startups in Kochi Startup Village. Out of this, 58 are physically present in the Startup Village. Since we don’t have the space to provide for all, we are working on a mobile app-based solution which can handle the large numbers.
Success stories One of our top success stories is of this guy called Rohildev N who created an IOT (Internet of Things) device, one of the top-end startup in the electronic hardware space in the world. (In March this year, the startup raised over $200,000 through Indiegogo, arguably the highest amount ever raised by an Indian startup through a crowd-funding platform).
We have seen very good stories. Despite of the fact that we are in still in the early stages at Startup Village Kochi, we have seen more than Rs 30 crore coming into startups there. I am now trying to put together a playbook which captures all these stories of entrepreneurs.
On the entrepreneurship trend in India I see the trend across various pockets. The word has spread, but it hasn’t yet translated into what we are trying to communicate. The way people think of entrepreneurship is still trapped in the mindset and perception of what it used to be in 1980s. However, cities like Pune, Delhi and Chennai are emerging as great entrepreneurship hubs. I can see good traction in Ahmedabad too. One of the single biggest important factor is someone on the ground driving it.
Tips for aspiring entrepreneurs of Vizag
Always start building your ideas and trying out stuff. To make it easier, there are many events happening in the country that make you do that. One of the fundamental problems is that we try to close ourselves and create something amazing and then start talking to people. But the strategy should be the complete opposite of this. First start talking to people.
Events like ‘In 50 Hours’, which is more of a hands-on event, is an advanced version of a hackathon. So I recommend students to attend these events in small teams. Industry exposure is the only way to start. There are events that you can participate in while sitting here too. Sometimes all it takes to participate is a PPT. Rather than starting big companies initially, since Vizag’s Sunrise Startup Village is in its very early stage, get the students exposed to at least one or two events in the course of a semester.
Also, I urge students to contribute in open source projects. The good thing about open source projects is, depending on your time and competency levels, you can pick up very small pieces to big projects at your comfort. These range from Wikipedia editing entries for people who are not comfortable with technologies to DIY drones. The kind of people who work here are some of the best minds in the industry and have a mentoring programme.
Talk to people who are similar like you, collaborate and exchange ideas. Identify four-five entrepreneurs and exchange ideas.
