Most people visiting restrooms in malls in Mysuru may not have missed the advertisements displayed at vantage locations inside the premises.
Restrooms are the unlikeliest places for display of any advertisements. But, a startup in Mysuru has broken conventions to become arguably the first restroom branding company in the country.
“We display advertisements at places where customers have no choice but view them for one to three minutes,” said promoters of ipopi, a grooming space branding company which has now put up similar advertisements in restrooms of malls in Bengaluru.
‘Culture picking up’Sharing the innovations by startups in Mysuru, Pragnya Doulatram, chairperson of entrepreneurship and innovation wing of Young Indians, told The Hindu that startup culture was picking up in Mysuru even if was not on the scale of Bengaluru.
“There is a huge potential for startups in Mysuru. The cost of setting up a venture is way less when compared with Bengaluru. In terms of talent, there is no dearth, with hundreds of students coming to study in the engineering colleges of the city,” she said.
Already, there are about 70 startups in Mysuru in various areas, including education, agriculture, digital marketing and tourism that are doing well. Among them is Jiiv, which manufactures eco-friendly stationery such as pens and pencils made out of waste paper.
Also, a bio-fertilizer company Codagu Agritech, established by B.C. Nanjappa, an agriculture graduate, and Chaitra Narayan, a postgraduate in microbiology, are coming up with a biocontrol agent in capsule form in association with Indian Institute of Spice Research, Kozhikode, that will help the farmers reduce the amount of money they spend on fertilizer.
ChallengesThough startup culture is looking up even in Mysuru, Ms. Doulatram said the city, however, faced challenges in terms of access to funding, government support and connect with venture capitalists, considered to be crucial for the sector.
If there is sufficient infrastructure support in terms of incubation centres, the sector will receive a further boost and prevent the flight of talent, she said.
Young Indians, which is part of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), is, however, trying to help startups by arranging networking meetings and programmes, including marketing sessions and bringing venture capitalists to interact with them.
Young Indians is also planning to hold a startup summit in Mysuru shortly to bring more founders of startup companies from other places to drive entrepreneurship in the city.
