Did you know that Bengaluru is the second fastest growing startup scene in the world and has the youngest entrepreneurs? Well, it’s true. And the city’s enterprising youngsters are going into a happy frenzy about Startup India – the Indian government’s commitment to paving the way for a young and fearless generation to innovate and startup. They shout out and we hear what they’ve got.
As a natural progression, people either look at taking a shot at entrepreneurship or moving overseas for better work prospects. “Initiatives such as this will keep our young force in India, resulting in a number of new ideas seeing the light of day,” says Tina Garg, CEO of Pink Lemonade, a creative design and content agency that works with an assortment of startups in the city. “As more Indian services and applications begin to become the Whatsapps, Hikes and Ubers, I would be really proud to see our apps trending globally. It also means a lot more work out of India and excellent news for our economy,” says the young CEO, who is particularly kicked about the startups being given an IT rebate for three years.
“This will make sure India becomes a very attractive investment destination with access to ample capital,” seconds Vamsi Krishna, the 31-year-old CEO and co-founder of Vedantu Innovations, a live online tutoring startup based out of Bengaluru. “India is known to be a gold mine of bright minds; however, people didn't have access to the right ecosystem until now and such a policy will catapult startups in a forward trajectory,” he says, confident that this will see greater use of technology in the educational sector, increasing the chances of the under-privileged having quality education, putting them on equal standing with their global peers.
With a number of key points spelling freedom and opportunity for newbies, startups across the spectrum are hoping to make the most of it. “We can now look forward to the removal of any roadblocks with better infrastructure, taxes, ease of doing business, compliances, mentoring and access to funds on the horizon. This also will give a level playing field for fashion startups to compete with big companies with deep pockets who offer huge and unbelievable discounts to customers,” says Samridhi Agarwal, the 22-year-old CEO of Revamp my Closet, a fashion startup.
While for most factors like tax exemption for three years, building innovation centers, patent protection and the guarantee of funds is piquing interest, for others it’s the commitment to boost innovation that counts. “I think the real impact is not the policies but the fact that the government is putting the effort in talking to the entrepreneurs about it. They are finally giving importance to what we think should be the future of doing business in India. Never has something like this happened anywhere else in the world,” says 24-year-old Sonic Prabhudesai, the cofounder of Campus Diaries, a Bengaluru-based online discovery and recognition platform for the youth.
With no one putting words in the leaders’ mouths, “They got eight secretaries of state to sit on the dais and opened up the space to ask them whatever we wanted!” he says, lauding the coming of age of the startup scene in the country.
