The Second day of Spark Week 2017 was held at the auditorium hall of Kings’ College, Kathmandu. It shed light on the importance of materializing the idea. Everyone has ideas that could ultimately become a million dollar enterprise. Yet, the main difference lies in making sure that the idea is viable, bringing about THE product or service along with the hard work that comes along with it. Along with it, the importance of capacity building programs like Startup Weekend, mentoring programs, etc. The moderator of the event was Mr. Brijendra Rochan Joshi ( Co-Founder, Nepal Entrepreneurs’ Hub) and the panelists for the panel discussion was Mr. Anish Shrestha ( CEO, FawesomeApps), Mr. Ben Britton (Innovation Advisor, FieldReady.org), Ms. Sunita Nhemaphuki (CEO, R&D Innovative Solution Pvt.Ltd), Mr. Hempal Shrestha ( Co-Founder, Nepal Entrepreneurs’ Hub).
TALKING POINTS and KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Mr. Anish Shrestha
Mr. Anish Shrestha started by sharing his journey as a software engineer. In 2013, he thought it was the right time to develop an app. The idea was driven basically by passion without having to think about the money behind and how do to run it. The first company was not very calculative, they weren’t sure what to do next if they failed or even if they actually succeeded. Through his experience, he learned that making an app isn’t a big deal, having an entrepreneurial mindset and having knowledge of innovating something, marketing it, being able to sell it and making the company sustainable is more important. He had a great learning opportunity when they were selected as one of the 3 global winners at GBG International Startup Stories Contest. He talked about how he had to pivot his idea after working on it for 18 months when they realized that the particular idea was not going to make money and not going to scale in a couple of years. Mr. Shrestha also stressed on the importance of networking events as one of key factor of being successful.
Mr. Sunita Nhemaphuki
Her entrepreneurial journey started at the age of 17 when she thought of starting an advertising agency without any idea. She went to one of her teachers who then encouraged and motivated her. So she started the company and it took 7 years for her to realize that it was not for her. She stated, ‘business is not like marriage, you don’t have to continue the relationship if you don’t like it. If you can, go on and continue but if you don’t enjoy it, you can leave everything. It’s just money making.’ She shared her experience in starting and running Green Mart which according to her wasn’t a failure but it was really difficult to scale up. She went on to suggest essential things an entrepreneur must do for balancing between innovation and the administration process. Entrepreneurs usually don’t check if they’re making money or not, they rather see if their dreams are being fulfilled. So it is important for an entrepreneur to hire an accountant, be it a part timer depending on affordability. The next thing is checking the balance and paying the employees on time. It helps in cash borrowing as startups are rarely handful on cash. The last thing she suggests is investing the savings in gold. Gold has been a great help in her journey as an entrepreneur. Ms. Nhemaphuki talked about what it takes to start an agribusiness firm. One must be socially and mentally prepared to get neglected by their family.
Mr. Hempal Shrestha
Mr. Hempal Shrestha, a person driven by the passion for technology, shared his entrepreneurial journey. He is a firm believer that technology can leverage the status of the society and the people, not any technology but technology that gives power to the people. After working about 10 years for 15–20 hours a day regularly, he thought of taking a break and thinking where to move on. That’s when he started a free and open source software for education in 2011. Profit making was not the motive, sustainability was. But they were either a bit ahead of time or were not right fit for the market. Now he advises technological and legal companies how not to fail. He sees his learnings from technological and legal sectors as an idea and that’s where he’s trying to enterprise. He went on saying when an idea sparks in one’s head, there needs to an ecosystem to take it to logical conclusion. Ecosystem can be created to some extent by the entrepreneur himself but on a larger scale, there are actors who are critically important. The community consists of partners, clients, competitors and enablers. Community is important but how does the idea materialize and at what speed the innovation is going is more important. That’s the challenge we’re still not able to catch up with.
Mr. Ben Britton
Mr. Ben Britton talked about how Fieldready was developed as an organization based in humanitarian sector. Humanitarian sector is different from business but there’s still value in having an entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurial approach. While starting Fieldready, the founders realized that the humanitarian sector was upside down, 60–80% of the money spent on humanitarian aid is in logistics. The sector was right for innovation and what it took to found an organization that was based on changing those dynamics for the benefit of people who need humanitarian aid was people giving up their jobs, their salaries, moving to different parts of the world without pay and really dedicating themselves to the cause because they have seen this could be done so much better. Fieldready goes on field trips and conducts need assessments to get inspiration and make sure they’re connected to the needs of the people. Ben believes that when an entrepreneur connected with his/her beneficiaries or customers, s/he understand their needs and empathize with them. He went on to talk about why 90% of the innovations fail. The sole reason ideas fail is the disconnect between customers and the innovation. Once well connected with the market, the entrepreneur can understand their needs inside and out. It’s a continuous process of engagement with the customer. The channel of communication has to be open with the customers to ensure that one is not developing something that doesn’t have a market.
Key Takeaways of the session:
- Even though one loves his/her idea and can’t think of giving it up, s/he needs to pivot and move on to something else if the idea does not work. It is essential to focus on things one is skilled at and experiment more without losing one’s entrepreneurial vibe.
- It’s not only about entrepreneurship, it’s about entrepreneurial way of working. Even if the person is working in development sector, there needs to be an entrepreneurial way of thinking for solving problems.
- The community needs to be ready for the idea. There are networking events like Techstars Startup Weekend and Hackathon where one can come and test their idea and take it to the next level.
- Even the most innovative idea would fail if one doesn’t don’t understand its customer. It’s important to make sure that the market is ready and the idea is sustainable.
People should know what they are doing. If a product is being made, it is crucial to make sure that people know about the product.
