Kathmandu has hosted a lot of startups and entrepreneurship related events in recent years.
The most recent one is Udhyami101 : Basics of Starting a Business which I attended on June 30th at Nepal Tourism Board. Although the event started about 20 minutes late, it went smoothly afterwards. The event began with Kavi Raj Joshi, STARTUPSNepal welcoming the speakers and audience members, reflecting upon the journey of his organization and purpose of Udhyami101. The program proved its worth right away when Dr. Rudra Pandey, Deerwalk (Rudra dai as he likes to be called) delivered the opening keynote speech Fundamentals of being an Entrepreneur. There was so much knowledge and insights shared within the 30 minutes or so that he took the stage. The audience was left mesmerized by his simple entrepreneurial insights and plain humor.
After Rudra dai’s speech, Srijana Shakya Jyoti from Honda Nepal talked about Jyoti Group’s investment arm. Following her speech, there was a panel Basics of Starting a Business featuring Bina Shrestha, Shine Nepal, Asgar Ali, e-Sewa, Sunayna Tamrakar, One to Watch, Anil Keshary Shah, Mega Bank and moderated by Rupesh Krishna Shrestha, Idea Studio Nepal. Narottam Aryal, King’s College talked about the importance of startup ecosystem, Baburam Poudel, Nepal Telecom talked about ICT for Startups and two Udhyami Seed Camp participants shared their experiences.
I took away several insights shared by various speakers throughout the evening. Entrepreneurs have to solve a problem. They should first identify a problem and build products/services accordingly. They know when to quit when things are not going well because they are the first ones to sense the business is not going well, the product gets bad reviews etc. It’s important to understand the market size of the product or service you are trying to build. Investment model in Nepal needs revision. The person/company working on the idea for years should have majority share rather than the investment company to provide incentive to founders/management team. They should have a social purpose to their business as well.