Starting Up with Sanjay Vijayakumar

StartUp Village was  launched in 2012 with a partnership between the Department of Science and Technology and mobile internet service provider MobMe. They are about to launch a  digital platform by July, 2015 and getting some time with Sanjay these days is not that easy as the man is really busy. Sanjay was gracious enough to spare a bit of  time despite the round-the-clock schedule. When I met him he was still mentoring many passionate entrepreneurs who looked pleased to have him around. The  Startup Village was a world of its own and it was high on aspiring dreams.

 How are things panning out with Startup Village?

This is been the greatest time for startups. Everyone has awareness about the eco system of startups by now. There are many incubators also. Technopark has one,  Startup Village also. The minimum guidance to startup is now available. The general funding is now much higher. Last year alone saw an investment of around  10,000 crores in Indian startup ecosystem. That means if you have a good product then there is money available and smart phones are growing each day. Yet one  feels that the growth hasn’t still reached full potential.

Which startup technology has the most potential for growth?

India has around 13 crores smartphone users. This has to grow up to a figure of 60 crores. There is more growth potential. Such opportunities are like going to gulf  when there is an oil boom. Or like a bull run in the stock market. One should strike when the iron is hot. I believe the technology sector has the most potential for  growth. Companies like flipkart, snap deal, myntra… have grown significantly. For technology sector this is the right time.

 Any hurdles?

The biggest hurdle I would think is the availability of early stage seed capital. Once your model is proven and you have customers then the fund to scale is available.  But the first 6-12 months of inception of creating a product hardly sees any revenue. That is one problem in Kerala. For other cities that is not a concern. The talent  pool is another concern. When a company is on growth stage they might not have the right people to hire. Trained and quality employers all go to various metros. So  finding the right people to hire when the company is growing is not easy. One another reason is the quality of life for those in 20-30 years are much better in  Bangalore or other metro cities.

How do you rate Kochi compared to other startup locations?

I think we are about 40 years behind Silicon Valley. The physical infrastructure, funding, cultural attitude towards entrepreneurship are all lagging at least 40 years compared to Silicon Valley. I would say even Bangalore is at least 20 years behind. So Kochi has miles to go to catch up with other startup locations.

What are the things one should consider when they decide to go for a startup?

I think people who have ability for self-learning should be the ones to go for it. There is no teacher to guide you. This is more like an adventure. Not like a science problem that you can solve and get an answer. If you consider yourself to be adventurous and are looking to gain experience from it then I think you should be an entrepreneur. Even the stuff you learn from failing on an experiment here can be used for the next one. When you do five experiments one might take off. But you will only be able to do the fifth with the experience you gained from four failures. If you can’t take failure and disappointment then this will become hard for you. Every day will bring a new challenge here as you are operating without an historical data. The ideas you are trying to do here should not be done by anyone before. So you can’t cross check what you are doing is right or not. You are operating in ambiguity. Nobody knows the future of your creation. So if you are adventurous go for it.

What’s next for startup village?

We are hoping to build a digital platform. The number of applicants that came to start up village is extremely high. We designed the incubators for 50 startups. We have more than 6000 applicants. So we can’t have the physical infrastructure for the speed at which people are coming in. So what we want to do is build a digital infrastructure.