Startup Village will help Gutsy Entrepreneurs Grow

TechnoparkToday.com>> July 23: The Startup Village in Kochi can provide cash-strapped entrepreneurs an ecosystem to flourish if they have the intelligence and courage to pursue their goals, according to Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman of the enterprise that is looking to create a ‘Silicon Coast’ in Kerala.

The Startup Village is on course to achieve its five-year goal at the end of its very first year, having already received more than 900 applications, he told a Meet-the-Press program at the Trivandrum Press Club.

The 28-year-old said he could have left for the Silicon Valley in the United States after completing his course at the College of Engineering in Thiruvananthapuram, but chose to stay back in his home state. “I believe that has inspired thousands of young entrepreneurs to stick on in Kerala,” he added. “The Startup Village has facilitated such a trend.”

Mr Vijayakumar said few states including Andhra Pradesh have offered significant co-operation to build Startup Village in their states, but clarified that he had no plans of moving out of Kerala and believed in creating an ecosystem for home grown companies.

He noted that Kerala and India is at least 40 years behind Silicon Valley in creating an environment for promoting entrepreneurship. “When it comes to intelligence, our engineers are on par with their American counterparts. What Kerala lacks is in capital and infrastructure. Also prospective entrepreneurs seldom used to get encouragement.”

Mr Vijayakumar recalled how he and a team of friends sought entrepreneurial support from Technopark in 2006 to sow the seeds of the first incubator company, MobME Wireless Solutions. That kind of support is what Startup Village is currently providing to entrepreneurs, he added.

The entrepreneur, the co-founder and CEO of MobME recounted the company’s association with megastar Mammootty in 2005. The tech-savvy actor entrusted MobME with the publicity of Rajamanikyam, the film he was involved at that point in time.

“Our work was success, and Mammootty subsequently handed ten similar projects over to us. The confidence that we thus gained was great,” he added.

Information Technology currently has two sectors: IT Services and IT Products. Silicon Valley companies are very focused on creating products.

“The emphasis in the 80s was on IT services which saw the rise of billion dollar companies like Infosys and TCS, while today product companies have gained importance in the field of IT. India does not really have an ecosystem for IT products which Startup Village is now trying to address” he said.

There is a great difficulty to build IT Product as for first three years the companies hardly earn anything. “Once Startup Village came on to the scene, the number of applicants wanting to set up production firms shot up. It has been tough to select the best among them; it only proves their merit.”

The promise that Kerala holds in nurturing a Startup Revolution is extremely high with attitudes as well as technologies that are changing, Mr Vijayakumar said. Smartphones will be a common gadget in the next three to four years, he noted. The next round of IT revolution would be the internet and smartphones, and by riding this revolution many companies based in Kerala can rise to a global stage, he added.

Press Club secretary Biju Chandrasekhar welcomed the gathering. Managing Committee member A Anas proposed thanks.