They swear by the words - creativity and innovation. Not afraid to give up hi-flying corporate jobs, they dare to tread on a different path and join the fast evolving world of start-ups. For many aspiring entrepreneurs, the dream to embark on a different path may soon take off with the coming up of the Sunrise Startup Village in Rushikonda.
Upbeat about these latest developments, youngsters in the city feel this will be a “turning point” in not only creating a culture of start-ups but also bringing out an attitudinal shift. While Vizag has seen a growing number of start-ups springing up in the last two to three years, the road to entrepreneurship was anything but smooth for the ones who took up the challenge in the absence of an ecosystem like the Startup Village.
Challenges Take for instance the case of the young founders of a promising city-based start-up – Crazy Heads. A creative design agency started by two friends – Vaibhav Sisinty and Vineet Ganti – Crazy Heads was formed during their second year of engineering. “Once we had the belief in the concept, getting started was the first hurdle. The first problem we encountered was getting an office space. For a big budget project, the look and feel of an office space matters a lot to the end user. The next challenge was to study the existing market and know about our competitors. We had no idea how to go about doing it,” recalls Vaibhav. In order to make a market survey, they both pretended to be magazine delivery boys and went around all the design agencies in the city. “It was a funny thing to do. But we needed to understand how our competitors function in order to step out in the market and do something different,” they say.
Breaking the conditioned mindset of the people in the city towards start-ups was the next big challenge. They often had to face statements like – ‘Didn’t you get placed in campus recruitments? Is that why you want to start your own enterprise?’
“Bringing an eco-system like the Sunrise Startup Village here will hopefully break this mindset and also bring about a sea change in the start-up culture of AP. But start-ups have to ensure that the products they sell in the market are really good. The competition is intense and it is vital to focus on your product,” they say.
Facilities Aimed at encouraging entrepreneurship among students and youth, Sunrise Startup Village is a platform where students with an innovative idea can come to and get it incubated. Once it is developed into a product, they can move out and set up their own enterprise.
The aspiring entrepreneurs have an advantage of getting access to facilities provided by the Sunrise Start-up, avail tax exemptions and other subsidies and get mentorship.
“The facility is the best thing that could happen to aspiring entrepreneurs. The problem with most start-ups is that they have an idea of how go about looking for funding. Very few know how to avail industrial loans and terms like angel investors are new to them. A start-up village can address these issues,” says Sirisha Challa, who started her bakery enterprise ‘Bake My Wish’.
Albeit on a small scale, youngsters are gradually stepping out to set up their own businesses bringing in new concepts to the city like late night food home delivery services and innovative web application that ensures privacy in information exchange, among other enterprises.
Startup revolution While taking the leap towards entrepreneurship may require courage and conviction, nevertheless, a fascination for start-ups has sparked an entrepreneurial spirit among the youth in the city. Recently, a team of young engineering graduates – Siddharth Ram, P. Bharat, Kireeti Varma and Likesh Pammina – visited the Kochi Start-up Village to understand the ecosystem and provide support, to create a buzz around the campuses in the region about the Sunrise Start-up Village and incubation centre here.
“Our fascination for start-ups started a couple of years ago. We had two things in mind - either start-up on our own or help other start-ups by giving them opportunities. We chose the second one and travelled to Kochi to understand the start-up ecosystem of the Start-up Village,” says Siddharth.
The team feels that this Village is the advent of start-up revolution in Vizag. “If you want to embark on this journey and have firm belief in your start-up idea, now is the time,” says Siddharth.
