Creative pursuits
All of 22, Zeba A. Rahman, knew she never wanted to settle for a regular job. Which is why, she launched Paper to Bag, a customised party supplies retailer, while in her final year of college in 2013. “I was always involved in social activities. In my third year, we suddenly had a 20-day break due to a strike. I didn’t want to waste my time. That’s how Paper to Bag came about,” she says.
The company customises party supplies all made with paper — bags, boxes, pom-poms and photo frames among others. “My very first order was for a family friend. But as people began noticing my work, I began taking fewer orders from people I knew.”
“My very first order was for a family friend. But as people began noticing my work, I began taking fewer orders from people I knew and more from strangers who liked my products. Today, I receive an average of 20 orders per month — for birthdays, baby showers, the likes,” says Zeba, who also works as a special educator at an orphanage in Teynampet, Chennai. “I didn’t want to let my education go to waste and I also love working with these children,” she smiles, adding, “I did take an eight-month break after college so I could focus on Paper to Bag. That is when the company really grew.”
Three years on, Zeba employs three people to work for her. “I still handle the designing and make the samples, which I then hand over to my staff to replicate,” she explains.
In the future, Zeba hopes to cut down production time and also involve the children from the orphanage she works at in her business. “I want to start a vocational centre for these children; something that gives them a platform to learn and showcase their work. I’d like them to earn just as much as my employees do, if not more,” she says.
Incubating dreams
Jancy Jose was well on her path to joining an IT company till she attended a seminar at Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram. One of the sessions she sat through, sowed the seeds of entrepreneurship in her and at 22 she started a company with two friends. As her confidence grew, she launched Strava Technologies.
“The company helps innovators, start-ups, students and institutions with the necessary support by bridging their skill, experience, infrastructure and financial gaps; it also connects them with the right people in the industry,” says Jancy, now 26.
The going however, was not always smooth; loans for instance, were not easy to avail of and her family had its doubts about the financial security and risks involved. However, nothing could break her resolve and this Computer Science graduate from Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Technology for Women went on to taste success. A package for engineering colleges, mobiSTRA, that helps aspiring entrepreneurs realise their dreams proved to be a huge hit. “The best part is it has been recognised as the state’s first Certified Entrepreneurial Skill Development Programme. It pushes people directly to the second level of a business.”
Strava has also launched SIM (Student Incubator Mentoring) that provides mentoring support to colleges to start their incubation centres. Then there is the GeoIT service that aims to bring geology/geography students to the corporate sector.
“Some thought I was immature to even dream about starting a company. But I am happy that I made this decision,” she says.
One for all
In 2014, at the age of 25, Aardra Chandra Mouli and Gayathri Thankachi V., students of Sree Chitra Thirunal College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram launched Aeka (‘Aeka’ means ‘one’) Biochemicals, a biotech and biochemical start-up.
“We wanted to be job creators and not job seekers,” says Aardra, who has done her Masters in Management from Warwick Business School.
Their emphasis was on careful planning and long-term preparation for which they visited the best technical institutes and labs across India.
“We undertake the manufacture of biotechnological, biochemical and enzymatic products, chemical products or extracts of biological origin. We have a laboratory and small scale production unit. Our facility is a green, zero effluent zone,” says Gayathri.
Without any external investment, they are working on a small scale. “We aim to manufacture research chemicals that have applications in oncology studies or offering green solutions for cleaning up the environment,” says Aardra. And they have not stopped dreaming. They hope to make Aeka a national-level player in the years to come.
Furnishing dreams
At 27, M. Sathya Pradeep’s wisdom in the field of furniture making belies his age. The strong-willed person that he is, Sathya doesn’t regret leaving a well-paying job at Wipro, Australia, and striking out on his own. “My family was a little sceptical when I decided to quit my job. My father however, understood and gave me the go ahead,” he smiles.
The engineering graduate, felt his software job was too monotonous and wanted to pursue a more creatively satisfying career. He sought help from the Native Lead Foundation to validate his ideas and met several furniture manufacturers to understand the market trend and how he could be different.
He went on to set up Furnify, a company that designs and customises furniture according to individual needs. Through augment reality android platform he demonstrates how the furniture will look in a real setting. “I know such ventures will take time to pick up in cities like Madurai but I wanted to change the conservative mindset of people in Tier-II cities. I involve customers in the designing process, to give them a feel of what they are choosing,” says Sathya, who is now pursuing an MBA in entrepreneurship.
Just six months into the business, Sathya already has a large number of orders.
Leading the way
From being one of the founders of the first incubated start-ups in Kerala to partnering with the State Government to set up India’s first private-public start-up incubator, Sanjay Vijayakumar, CEO of MobME Wireless, has seen it all. “Back in 2005, when we started, broadband Internet had just been introduced and the mobile phone revolution in India was picking up. All of a sudden, youngsters who grew up in Kerala became more exposed to the outside world. So seven of us got together and started our own company,” he says, before adding a line he has probably repeated many a time, “People called it madness, we called it MobME Wireless.”
The company, which provides value added services for mobile users and solutions for network operators, reached out to another self-starter from Kerala, co-founder of Infosys, Kris Gopalakrishnan, who responded to their enthusiasm. This partnership eventually paved the way for Start-up Village. “Now, we have created a blueprint for a start-up ecosystem, and this is being replicated in Visakhapatnam.”
Sanjay goes on to sum up his philosophy behind doing it on his own. “There are three keys to India’s growth — Digital India, Make In India and Skill India. For us, all these things come together in Start-up India.”
A place to connect
In a day and age when everyone is connected almost all the time through social media, personal interactions are rare. It was this disconnect that inspired 23-year-old Sundar Yazhin, a media graduate and filmmaker, to start Kites Café with his friends. The coffee shop offers people a chance to come together and discuss just about anything.
The young start-up has created a buzz in Coimbatore ever since it began a year ago. Tangy mocktails and juicy burgers apart, Kites also hosts rock shows and screens films as well as football matches.
The café though is just the first of their many entrepreneurial dreams. “One of us wanted to start a travel company and another wanted a production house. We wanted the café to help us realise these dreams,” says Sundar Yazhin.
“Digital platforms like Facebook are great spaces to market. Our Facebook page has around 14,000 likes. We also connect personally with our regular customers through SMSs. Smart-phone users are our targets.”
But the picture is not as rosy as it seems, he says. “We wish we had better guidance before we started. Lack of funds is another issue. It was tough convincing banks to loan us the seed money. I wish the Government was more encouraging of youngsters like us.”
Finger in every pie
He may be 27, but Bangalore-based Varun Agarwal is already a bestselling author, filmmaker and entrepreneur. As an engineering student, he launched Last Minute Films, which made music videos, corporate films and ad films that have gathered more than 3,50,000 hits on YouTube. He also went on to co-found Alma Mater, now a prominent merchandise selling outlet for schools and colleges across the country with their customised sweatshirts. And if that wasn’t all, Varun also wrote the bestselling How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co-founded A Million Dollar Company that dealt with his entrepreneurial experiences.
On the recent trend of more and more youngsters taking up entrepreneurship Varun says, “One needs to be really passionate because are many risks associated with the choice.”
Factors that are also influencing youngsters to join the bandwagon are the availability of capital being available and parents being more amenable to choices.
Ride to success
When Praveen Battula decided to join a Bangalore-based start-up after his B.Tech in 2013, he had to face a barrage of questions from his sceptical family. Despite the pressure, a determined Praveen knew that the thrill of innovation and sense of ownership in the start-up journey were far greater pull factors for him. He wasn’t wrong. Today, he is one of the co-founders of a unique concept of auto-rickshaw ride sharing service called Pickupmama.
The venture — an enterprise of Abhyadan Tech Solutions — is incubated at Vizag’s Sunrise Start-up Village, a thriving hub of young entrepreneurs. Pickupmama was launched in February this year by the core team comprising Praveen Battula, J. Dinesh Chandra, D. Siddharth and G. Venkat Ravi. Its concept is to offer a safe, reliable and convenient auto-rickshaw pooling service to school-, college- and office-goers.
The idea to start an auto-rickshaw pooling service occurred to Praveen when he was working in Bangalore and saw the rising popularity of ride sharing services. While he wanted to replicate the idea in Vizag, he knew he had to do it differently to make it click. “In Tier-II cities, auto-rickshaws are the preferred mode of transport. I wanted to come out with a venture of a verified and safe auto-pooling concept,” says Praveen. It took six months of market research before launching Pickupmama.
Its USP of letting users share rides with other passengers, makes the service cheaper. Since its launch, the start-up has managed to build a network of 50 verified drivers, including a small team of women drivers.
Currently, the Pickupmama team is working on their next innovative concept of social travel. “We will be testing our product in the next two months before rolling it out in Hyderabad and Bangalore later this year,” says Praveen.
A student’s quest
Despite the lure of a plum job with MNCs, Arpita Soma and Surya Adavi knew it was not their calling. Instead, the duo launched Yo Grad, an online student platform that fills the gaps between education and employability.
“We are making a difference in our own small way. For instance, we had a graduate, who organised a marathon with us last year and promised the presence of his entire college in the event. When he sat for his placements, he didn’t even need to undergo the technical interview; his leadership qualities were testimony enough. According to him, it was Yo Grad that helped ensure it. What better high do we need?” says Arpita.
Their brainchild has now ballooned into a one-of-a-kind venture that fulfils the quest of every student, who finds himself at a crossroads.
However, it wasn’t always easy. “We realised the need to revamp our earlier initiative Internfever that helped students do their internships. It didn’t grow beyond a product service company and Yo Grad was born out of the idea to look at the wider picture,” she says.
Making it an online venture has been one of the key reasons for them to enjoy a good reach today. While Surya brings a system in place, Arpita is the go-to person for social interaction and marketing.
The start-up club
College mates Shreyans Jain and Anto Phillip started the Under 25 Club as an initiative to engage with entrepreneurs, creators, innovators and doers under the age of 25. The aim of the club, Sam contends is to create a media platform. “We have launched www.under25.club that features young entrepreneurs and brings in hyper local content of unheard stories from the youth in different spheres ranging from food, design, tech and music.”
They add, “We conduct U-25 summits every year as part of our endeavour to bring everyone in the young start-up community together. Our annual summits have grown immensely over the past two years and have seen attendees from across the country. We had more than 1,000 participants at our last annual summit.”
They point out, “Bangalore being the start-up capital of India, is doing justice to this designation as a ton of young entrepreneurs are choosing this as a legitimate career option to build out products/solutions. The energy, enthusiasm and the willingness to innovate is top notch.”
(With inputs from Ranjani Rajendra, Athira M., T. Saravanan, Sooraj Rajmohan, Parshathy J. Nath, Nikhil Varma, Nivedita Ganguly and Srivathsan Nadadhur)
