Starting out early: Hyd’s band of student entrepreneurs

Hyderabad: The novel Coronovirus (COVID-19) outbreak that crippled China earlier this year, didn’t spare Hyderabad-boy Anurag Reddy either. Miles away in his hostel room at Lovely Professional University, Punjab, he felt the ripples of the crisis as orders on his e-commerce portal started to pile up. Revenues dropped, and customers became jittery.
Fortunately for the student-cum-entrepreneur, the phase lasted only a few weeks. Now, his start-up – Penguinkart – is up again and racing towards hitting the $2,00,000 revenue mark. “I used to dabble in bitcoins during my second year of engineering, when this idea of floating an online shopping portal, struck me. It’s different from others as we promote innovative products for daily use – most of it sourced from Shenzhen, China,” said the 22-year-old now in his final year.
Anurag strongly believes in starting out early, as it allows for more time to take risks. “These are the defining years of our life. So, if we want to start something of our own, this is the right time,” he said.
Driven by the same ideology are many others from the city, collectively fuelling student entrepreneurship. All aged between 20 and 25 years and still pursuing professional courses, this band of young men and women, have registered companies on their names, offering a range of services – training job aspirants, using robotics in construction, providing retail customers, among others.
“It is often very difficult for students from lesser known colleges to land jobs. That’s also because they are not industry-ready. Our firm bridges this gap,” said Saksham Garg, one of the two founders of Work Minar Pvt Ltd that conducts talks by industry experts/trainers and skilling workshops for these students. So far, they have conducted over 10 seminars across Hyderabad and Vijayawada. The group is currently looking for funding to scale up their reach.
Academics encourage this trend. “It is an extremely rich experience and must be supported by colleges and parents. Start-ups must be viewed as part of education. If this shift in perspective happens and we become less obsessed with jobs, our country will have more successful entrepreneurs,” said Ramesh Loganathan, professor, Co-Innovation at IIIT-Hyderabad.
Gokaraju Rangaraju Institute of Engineering and Technology (GRIET) is among those making the effort. Supported by the college, a team of five 21-year-olds have set up an enterprise – Standard Programmed Instruments – that uses automation to offer solutions. “To begin with, we have developed a kiosk that allows for self-issuing and self-depositing of books at a library. We are setting up one in our college and are in talks with another in Pune,” said Bhanu Prakash Kandula. The plan is to use the same technology to offer medical services in remote villages, going forward.
Sai Kiran Gaddam’s long-term plan is equally exciting: promoting sustainable fashion while simultaneously telling stories about risk-takers. “The Jobless Street (online portal) is a platform that applauds free-thinking and combines it with fashion that complements it. Every piece of garment must have a story behind it. Right now, I am promoting Ikat,” said the ASCI student, scouting for funds.
Claiming that dedication is the only must-have for this job, Rohit Chelta, founder of Warranty Me said: “Even while being a full-time student, I worked tirelessly on my product. I often woke up in the middle of the night to write down some random strategic idea. I single-handedly built the business plan, pricing, managed sales, followed up with technical partners and raised funding.” His is a mobile app that allows customers to keep track of their purchases (electronic products) and avail of warranty services. With nine small retail outlets under his belt, the Guru Nanak Institute of Technology is gunning for the big brands now. He recently received a funding of Rs 4 lakh from the state government.