Inspiring, Dynamic and Talented: Meet the young entrepreneurs of India

Our country is blessed with many young and inspiring entrepreneurs, who at a very young age have contributed towards the development of our country. The aspiring minds of young people have made us believe that age is just a number and with their immense hard work, they have been able to break the stereotypes and carve out a niche for themselves. Not only this, their innovative minds and ability to think beyond limits have given us many technologies of great use.

1. SHRAVAN KUMARAN AND SANJAY KUMARAN:

Shravan Kumaran, 16, and Sanjay Kumaran, 14, are India’s youngest entrepreneurs. The techie brothers are the founders of Go dimensions, an app development unit they found in 2011 in their home in Chennai. Over the years, they have developed 11 different apps that are available on the Apple's App Store as well as the Google Play Store. The two have given various presentations at IIM-B as well as at a TEDx conference.

2. RITESH AGARWAL:

Meet Ritesh Agarwal, a 23-year-old techie, who redefined hotel booking system in India. His 'Oyo Room' app has today become one of the most popular applications when it comes to booking a luxurious hotel room at a cheap and affordable price. Ritesh did enrol for the University of London’s International Programme provided by the Indian School of Business and Finance, Delhi for the sake of his parents. But, all he wanted was to start his own business and become an entrepreneur. So, he dropped out at 17. 

He started his journey in 2012 with a single Gurgaon hotel which had 14 rooms. And as of today, Oyo is India's largest branded network of budget hotels, with 5500 properties in over 170 cities.

3. HARSH SONGRA:

At the age of 11, Harsh Songra was diagnosed with dyspraxia, a neurological disorder that affects motor skills. However, this didn't stop Harsh from chasing his dreams. At a small age of 16, he developed 'My Child App', a free mobile app that can help parents monitor the growth of a child between 11 and 24 months and screen potential neurological, physical and speech disorders.

The app was launched in January 2005 and has been downloaded more than 9,000 times across 100 countries.

4. KING SIDDHARTH:

Multitalented King Siddharth is not just an entrepreneur, but also an artist, designer and a public speaker. Siddharth, who is just 22-years-old, is a college dropout. The 9 to 5 schedule of the college gave him very little time to fiddle with his interests, so he decided to quit college and instead pursue his dream of becoming an entrepreneur. He writes an e-magazine ‘Friendz’ and has also written books called ‘Law of Attraction’ and ‘Bhagvad Gita’.

5. FARRHAD ACIDWALLA:

Farrhad Acidwalla is a 23-year-old entrepreneur, investor and TEDx speaker. At an age of 16, he bought a domain name with 500 bucks that he had borrowed from his father. He started a web community that focused on aviation and when the website became a hit, Farrhad sold it at a high price. Today, he is the CEO of a web development, marketing and branding company called Rockstah Media. At this young age of 23, Farrhad has his own team of developers, marketers and designers across the globe.

6. ANSHUL TEWARI:

Anshul Tewari is the founder and editor-in-chief of Youth Ki Awaaz, a media platform for the current generation to express themselves on issues of critical importance. The reason for launching this platform was his discovery that the youth, at large, did not have a platform to address critical issues and get heard. Started in 2008, Youth Ki Awaaz has now become India's number one youth portal with millions of readers every month and over 40000 volunteer journalists from around the world. Anshul was named a Young Innovator by the United Nations International Telecom Union for innovation in crowd-sourcing, in 2012.

Bengaluru 40th among top 50 cities for women entrepreneurs

New Delhi, Jul 27 () Bengaluru may be India's Silicon Valley but ranks at the 40th spot among the top 50 global cities that foster high-potential womenentrepreneurs, according to a report by tech giant Dell.

The only other Indian city in the top 50 tally is Delhi, that at the 49th spot, just ahead of Jakarta.

Dell, as part of its annual Women Entrepreneur (WE) Cities Index, ranks cities in terms of its ability to attract and foster growth of women-owned firms.

New York ranked numero uno in the list, followed by Bay Area, London, Boston and Stockholm.

Singapore was at the 8th spot overall, the only city from Asia Pacific and Japanregion.

The study ranked cities based on the impact of local policies, programmes and characteristics in addition to national laws and customs.

"Globally, women's entrepreneurship rates are growing more than 10 per cent each year. In fact, women are as likely or more likely than men to start businesses in many markets," said Karen Quintos, EVP and chief customer officer at Dell.

However, financial, cultural and political barriers can limit the success of these businesses, she added.

"By arming city leaders and policymakers with data-driven research and clear calls to action, we can collectively improve the landscape for high-potential women entrepreneurs, which in turn dramatically lifts a city's economic prospects - as what is good for women is good for the economy," she noted.

US decision to delay ‘startup’ visas to impact Indian entrepreneurs

After the Donald Trump administration's intended tightening of the work visa rules that has come as a blow to the Indian IT companies, the US government’s latest announcement to delay the so-called "startup" visa could impact Indian entrepreneurs. The visa programme was approved in January by the then Barack Obama administration and was meant to allow foreign entrepreneurs who started companies in the US to live in that country — a longstanding demand of the Silicon Valley. It was supposed to come into effect on July 17. 

Immigrants have started more than half of US startups valued at $1 billion dollars or more, and are key members of either management or product development teams in more than 70% of these companies, according to a 2016 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), a US-based non-profit nonpartisan public policy think tank. Out of these, people of Indian origin have founded almost 30%. 

Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa called the policy “brain-dead” and a “lose-lose” for the US. “Without doubt, bringing in entrepreneurs creates American jobs and expands the economy, it is the closest thing there could be to a free lunch for the United States. This is a lose-lose for the US and for the entrepreneurs who would have come here but it will benefit the countries where they would have come from.” 

Wadhwa, who is a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University Engineering in Silicon Valley, added that countries such as India and the rest of the world could gain from this. “This is the type of brain-dead policy that is becoming a hallmark of the Trump administration. They are pandering to anti-immigrant groups rather than focusing on US competitiveness and economic growth,” said Wadhwa. 

As per the NFAP study, 14 Indian-origin entrepreneurs have started billion dollar companies in the US which are collectively valued at $19.6 billion. The foundation had evaluated 87 startup companies valued at over $1 billion as of January 1, 2016, for the study. The Obama administration’s idea was to keep high-calibre talent who come to the US for studies but return to their countries and start businesses that become huge successes. 

Puru Vashishtha, a Valley-based Indian entrepreneur-investor who studied at Stanford University, said the startup visa would have been great for Indian and Israeli students. “Imagine if Vinod Khosla had to come back to India to work in Infosys. That would have been a big loss for innovation. Unfortunately, it’s already happening now, due to difficulties faced by international students and immigrants to become entrepreneurs. Countries like Canada are taking advantage of it, but they don’t have big enablers that Silicon Valley provides and a big market that US readily provides,” he said. 

Vashishtha added that he has witnessed the struggle of many of his Stanford friends without the startup visa. “These were highly trained, best minds in the world. They wanted to do product startup in the Valley. Unfortunately, because of being a foreign national, even a top university graduate does not get the same options as rest of her US classmates. This is regressive and it deprives the US from significant value creation and job creation. startup visa was a big hope.” 

According to a 2012 study, companies founded by immigrants in the US have created more than 10 million jobs and over $4.5 trillion in annual revenue. 

On Monday, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a memo saying that the rule will now be launched on March 14, 2018 and it will solicit comments from the public about rescinding the rule, and "may ultimately eliminate the program." 

“Given the real shortage of tech talent in the US, this startup visa would have been a great enabler. It has the potential to take the innovation to the next level. This move to cancel it is a big setback,” said Vashishtha. 

3-time entrepreneur couple OPENs the door to neobanking in India

Neobanking may be a new concept, but Anish Achutan and Mabel Chacko are banking on OPEN, a digital bank for SMEs and startups. The neobank aims to on-board 500,000 micro-entrepreneurs in the next three years.

Starting up isn’t new to Anish Achutan and Mabel Chacko. The duo, who founded three startups together, find the process is a significant “high”.

The entrepreneurial bug bit the couple in 2007, and they built Cashnxt Technologies, an infrastructure enabling banks and financial institutions to extend services to semi-urban and rural markets through a network of secure mobile payment gateways.

In 2009, they came up with Neartivity Wireless, an NFC-based mobile money platform, and in 2012 launched developer payment platform Zwitch Payments (was acquired by Citrus Pay in 2015).

Before these, Anish’s portfolio includes founding a digital prepaid wallet, NXTPAY, in 2006 and virtual chatbot company ifuturz Wireless.

One thing common to all these ventures is that they were ahead of their time. Their latest venture, OPEN, is no different.

Introducing OPEN, a neobank     

After spending two years in Citrus Pay (acquired by PayU India in September 2016) and PayU, the duo realised the one basic but key problem the three lakh merchants on the platform faced.

In a day, while running the business, a merchant has to switch through multiple dashboards, from accounting and book-keeping solutions to checking if bank accounts have debited payments.

The solution seemed clear – integrated dashboards that would give a detailed view of the customer’s current account cash flow and provide payment options.

Seeing that this specific solution was not on the market, Anish and Mable launched OPEN in August this year.

So, what is OPEN?  The co-founders define OPEN as a neobanking platform focussed on small businesses and enabling them to manage cash flows, automate accounting and get easy access to credit line.

The root “neo” in Greek means “young” and “new”. So neobanks are conventional banks with a new look – they have no physical branches and use mobile applications and websites to provide services.

It may sound like a new concept, but major global banks have been experimenting with neobanking for close to a decade now.

OPEN lives up to the definition, offering business accounts to merchants (with instant account activation) and leveraging EKYC and ESIGN capabilities in 5 minutes. It also provides VISA-linked expense cards. It is still in need of a banking partnership and is in talks with multiple players.

A neobank or ERP?

But the account opening facility is just one part of OPEN’s services. The OPEN dashboard is equipped with characteristics closer to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution and is  equipped for:

Book-keeping  The dashboard is tightly integrated with the bookkeeping module, allowing merchants to manage, categorise and reconcile income, expenses and budgets while helping create GST-compliant invoices.

If the user has added two different accounts to the dashboard, the backend connects with other bank accounts automatically reconciling income and expenses.

Payment options Tying up with PayU for their payment gateway, the dashboard also lets merchants collect payments from customers through credit, debit card, net banking or NEFT transfers.

Third-party app store The dashboard also has an integrated third-party app store, which allows users to get instant tools through third-party integrations to get instant SMB Creditline or loan (integrated with a NBFC), file GST and tax filings, and book hotels and couriers.

HR tool It also functions as a HR tool, allowing business owners to disburse salaries or payments to other vendors, all in one view. The dashboard can also provide limited access functionalities. For example, HR teams can be given access only to payroll on the dashboard while finance teams can be given access to only book keeping.

However, the dashboard allows up to only 10 user logins.

Focus on micro-entrepreneurs

Through its solution stack, OPEN is targeting micro-entrepreneurs or homepreneurs. Anish, the CEO of OPEN, says this covers “a good 2 million population in the country”.

OPEN also has an eye on the freelancer market and startups with less than five to 10 employees.

But that’s not all.

OPEN is driving innovation to provide personalised and innovative products to their merchants.

Anish explains, “We are trying to build an offline payment mechanism with banks, where an offline payment can automatically be linked to the right invoice.  Second, we want to use analytics to predict cash flows and create meaningful insights for banks and NBFCs. Third, we are also looking to digitise meal vouchers, by providing additional pre-paid cards.”

Revenue model

OPEN offers customers two models – freemium and paid.

First is the freemium model, which Anish predicts will get OPEN 80 percent of its consumer base. The remaining 20 percent will pay OPEN Rs 999 on a monthly basis for additional services delivered by the platform.

“Banks see us as an acquisition channel. By taking the entire process of opening bank accounts online, we can save banks as much as Rs 5,000 per customer,” he says.

As it opens acquisition channels for third-party players, it isn’t much of a surprise that OPEN also gets a commission on products (credit lines, bank accounts) cross-sold on the platform.

This, in principle, is the biggest revenue model for most neobanks across the world.

OPEN aims to on-board around 20,000 SMEs this fiscal year, and grow this number to 500,000 micro-entrepreneurs by the end of three years. It is also aiming at revenues of Rs 25 crore in three years.

The co-founders of Citrus Pay, Amrish Rau and Jitendra Gupta, recently invested a total of $250,000 in the startup. OPEN is also in talks with other investors to raise their next round of funding.

The future of neobanking

Globally, the concept of neobanks has caught up. Partnering with traditional banks, some of the well-known fintech firms in this space are UK-based Atom, Tandem Bank, US-based Moven and Chinese internet giant Tencent Holding’s WeBank.

ATOM Bank reportedly raised close to £100 million ($125 million) in February.  London-based Monzo was reportedly valued at £50 million in its “interim” £4.8 million funding round.

Investments seem to be flowing in across the world. The year-old French neobank, Qonto, raised $11.3 million from existing investors Valar Ventures and Alven Capital. This month, London-headquartered Tide, which claims to be world’s first mobile-first banking service for small businesses, raised $2 million in a seed round.

However, the definition of neobanking still remains nebulous. In Europe, neobanks are called challenger banks. In India, payments banks launched by PayTM and Airtel are called challenger banks. But the Indian challengers can’t be called neobanks since they aren’t completely digitised. PayTM and Airtel have licences to operate on their own, unlike neobanks.

What’s reassuring is that there is a new class of institutional banks (like small banks and payments banks) has emerged and caters to segments usually ignored by traditional banks.

With complimentary functions like book-keeping and financial management tools, neobanks could be a better option for merchants, current account holders and businesses. For they aren’t only about “digital”, “mobile” or “branchless” banking, they’re about added value.

Aspiring Entrepreneurs in India Face Immense Challenges, But Must Persevere

Entrepreneurs, India needs you. It’s time for entrepreneurs in India, and for those of us abroad, to rise to the challenge to bolster the economy by creating jobs for the youth amidst grave challenges that include societal judgment and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Those entrepreneurs who wish to create a positive impact for India must challenge the status quo, be risk takers and most importantly, not be afraid to fail.

A few years ago, my family and I started a ginning and oils company in my father’s hometown of Hinganghat, India. Our objective was simple — to create jobs and educate locals while running a profitable venture. Currently, I visit once or twice a year to learn about the market and oversee operations. During my travels, I’ve noticed how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur in India, and the following are the hurdles I believe entrepreneurs will face when starting a business:

• No Appetite For Failure: Indian culture is intolerant of failures. If an entrepreneur does not succeed on the first attempt, s/he is given no recognition for attempting something new. “Playing it safe” is a modern mantra in India. This is a primary reason why, despite having a skilled workforce, there are minimal technological innovations to come out of India. Additionally, a young entrepreneur is discouraged by his or her parents from starting a business for fear of financial loss and not being able to find a suitable spouse.
• Lack of Capital And Moral Support: Indian parents want their children to get a good education and find a job with foreign multi-national corporations, domestic companies or government. Hence, an entrepreneur is considered an outlier and his or her business venture unworthy of serious consideration by family members. Parents’ unwillingness to finance initial activities and relatives’ scorn, in the event of a business failure, is very difficult to overcome.
• Outdated Education System: Indian education system focuses more on memorization and very little effort is expended to develop a student’s critical thinking and risk-taking abilities. Often, students are discouraged to ask questions as it is considered an affront to the teacher. Moreover, little thought is given to developing a student’s natural talent. As a result, a graduating student is risk averse and unprepared to handle the challenges of real life. These students, lacking self-confidence, have no option but to seek employment. They will do only what they are told, and unfortunately, nothing more.
• Bureaucracy: In India, there are rules for everything — except that only a few follow them. No government servant questions the relevance of the archaic rules passed by politicians or high ranking officials, or challenges them. The sole purpose of the bureaucrats is to appease elected officials so that they can stay gainfully employed. Questioning and critical thinking are not encouraged in Indian bureaucracy. As such, most are happy to follow the rules blindly. This attitude discourages an entrepreneur immensely. From getting a bank loan to securing a no-objection certificate for pollution control, an entrepreneur faces public servants’ apathy that is astounding. They are not concerned about the time and capital it will take to collect the needed documents or clearances. This adds to the cost of starting a business and the uncertainty about project completion time. Additionally, corruption is a bane of India. The country suffers from graft that has permeated every fabric of Indian society. For any service discharged to public, officials expect remuneration in return. Even though an entrepreneur has fulfilled all requirements and submitted all the necessary documents, expect no authorization or certification unless an official is handsomely rewarded on the side.
• Shifting Government Regulations: The only constant about Indian regulations is change. Regulations keep changing at the whim of a political party or an appointed bureaucrat. This is evident from a retroactive income tax charged to Vodafone; an entrepreneur cannot take the regulations for granted and often, may not even know that the regulation has changed.
• It may seem daunting to start an entrepreneurial venture in India, and some may elect to pursue opportunities in other countries with better systems that offer a higher chance of success. But this doesn’t solve the problem at hand: Our call to action is to grow businesses amongst these challenges so future generations have the reassurance of job growth and most importantly, value entrepreneurs in the same regard as engineers, physicians and accountants. If you’re willing to face the challenges head-on, there are benefits to reap.
  • Manageable Competition: Being a developing country, there is little competition for entrepreneurs with strong morals and innovative ideas. As long as the service is unique, there is a good chance that the business will succeed. Keep in mind that there is no intellectual property right protection. Therefore, once a new service/product is introduced to the Indian market, an entrepreneur will face competition from copycat products immediately.
  • Growing Middle Class: The Indian middle class has swelled to hundreds of millions of people in the last decade. With population and earning potential of individuals on the rise, there is a growing demand for services in every sector that add value to consumers at an affordable cost.
  • Government Subsidies: With about 12 million youth entering the labor force every year, the government wants more jobs created in India. Hence, through Make in India and other initiatives, it is eager to help startups. To incentivize new companies, federal and state governments are offering subsidies in the form of low interest on borrowed capital, no taxes for five years and more.
  • Labor: A skilled labor force is readily available. One can hire a well-trained engineer, with years of experience, for less than $10,000 per year. This may be higher depending on skill specialization, but overall, labor cost in India is very low.
  Do I believe India can have a bright future for entrepreneurs? Yes — but it starts with a cumulative, fundamental shift in mindset, starting now.

Here's how we can empower women entrepreneurship in India

In recent years, there has been a heart-warming paradigm shift of demographics in the Indian corporate landscape. The country has witnessed a titanic surge in the number of women entering the economic wave. With emphatic strides, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts, the sheer confidence exuded by them brings about a fresh wind of change. While it has definitely been a pleasant change, it has not been one without its fair share of struggles and challenges. It is the tenacity and determination with which these women have addressed those challenges that have made them winners in their own right today. 

According to the National Sample Survey Organisation, only 14% of business establishments in India are being run by women entrepreneurs. The data also revealed that most of these women-run companies are small-scale and about 79% of them are self-financed. This indicates that despite the innumerable initiatives taken by women to venture beyond their domestic walls and enter the corporate world, there seem to be several challenges that are not allowing them completely to blossom and break on through to the other side. 

Why women entrepreneurship requires a different perspective

Women are sometimes unaware of the potential they harbour within themselves. With the right mentoring and encouragement, they are sure to shine as confident, smart and successful businesswomen, who have the strength and capability of making a mark for themselves in the business world.

The common notion of women being "better off staying indoors" or the taboo of a "working woman" that has been brought down since generations are now increasingly being done away with. People are now cognizant of the fact that, at the end of the day, it is the quality of work that the person has put in, irrespective of their caste, creed or gender. If the deliverables of the entrepreneur are impeccable and meet expectations, it is that factor that is relevant and evaluated upon, not whether it was done by a man or a woman. Allow your work to speak for itself, not your gender. 

Facebook to train 20,000 entrepreneurs pan-India with EDI

Facebook and Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India will train 20,000 youth and entrepreneurs in digital capabilities to enable online businesses, the duo announced on Tuesday. 7500 of them will be local entrepreneurs. 

Under the Facebook’s ‘Boost Your Business’ program, that is designed to equip small and medium businesses with the knowledge, skill and technology to stay innovative and increase market across globally, the two institutes will enable entrepreneurs to accelererate their businesses through online exposure and integration with global markets, said Ritesh Mehta, Head of Programs, Facebook. 

India is a priority country for Facebook and the ‘Boost Your Business’ program is a part of the company’s continued investment in Indian small businesses, developers and the over 200 million Indians who use Facebook monthly. 

Since 2015, the nationwide program has visited 25 cities across 13 states in India and provided skills training to over 30,000 small business and self-help groups including 7,000 women entrepreneur.