All of 25 years of age and bursting with energy, Deepak Ravindran is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Innoz, a Bangalore-based mobile technology applications start-up, already profitable and gunning for a revenue of R25 crore by the end of this financial year. Last fiscal, the company made R6 crore. All his co-founders are friends from the same college in Kerala.
A engineering college dropout ? whose entrepreneurial fervor was well entrenched since his school days but fuelled further by the slowdown woes ? Deepak is equally sanguine about his company?s prospects, as well as assisting those of his age group wanting to chart a similar path. Deepak is only one among a new wave of young technology leaders under 30 years, who has set up companies since the slowdown days of 2008. Dwindling salary hikes and perks have convinced these youngsters that it is better to run companies than get run over by disappointing increments.
?When you are young, there is no fear of failure,? says Ravindran. ?So start young. Plus, I wanted to be with my friends all the time.? Today his parents are not concerned about him and his ways. ?Initially they were sceptical. But today I have cleared off their home loan and bought them a car.?
Last year, IIT-Mumbai batchmates Bhavish Aggarwal (26) and Ankit Bhati (25) started Olacabs. The Mumbai-based car-rental company that went operational only in January 2011 managed to convince VC major Tiger Global to invest around R40 crore in the company recently. After graduating in 2008, Aggarwal worked with Microsoft for two years in India and the US. ?But coming from a technology background, I always had the urge to start something from scratch. Slowdown creates opportunities for start-ups, especially if you are in the field of technology. It is also easy to hire talent during such times as more people are willing to take the plunge,? says Aggarwal.
?There is no job guarantee wherever you work. Your job is here today, but can be gone tomorrow. The risk factor remains same. It is better you take a bigger risk and be happy with what you are doing. In the past six months, I have hired 30-40 people from IIM, IIT and ISB with average four-five years of experience, besides freshers,? he says. The online cab rental firm, which has angel funding from Rehan Yar Khan and Anupam Mittal of Shaadi.com and Snapdeal?s Kunal Behl, has daily bookings of over 1,500 in Mumbai and Bangalore, with plans to expand to six cities by the year-end.
US-based serial investor Kanwal Rekhi feels recession is the best time for entrepreneurs. ?Recession signals the end of one era and the start of another. Slowdown opens doors for entrepreneurs. During such times people are knocked out of their comfort zones, which is the starting point of becoming an entrepreneur,? says Rekhi, founder of early-stage VC firm Inventus Capital, which has funded start-ups such as online bus ticketing firm RedBus, e-commerce site Cbazaar and mobile marketing firm Telibrahma. ?India is seeing a great resurgence in entrepreneurship now. We at Inventus have seen almost a 1,000 plans in the past 12 months,? he adds.
Prashanth Prakash, partner with Accel Partners, says most of the new proposals are coming from people who are below the age of 30. Prakash says the new-found confidence among young entrepreneurs has got a lot to do with the presence of other successful start-ups like Flipkart, Inmobi and Snapdeal.
Harkesh Mittal, secretary, Technology Development Board, points out that most tech professionals decide to take the entrepreneurial route as they don’t get to see a fulfilling prospect in their jobs during a downturn. ?They get frustrated when they don’t get raises as per expectations,? he says.
A latest study by Venture Intelligence says during the six months ended June, VCs have invested $363 million across 100 deals in India. IT-ITes companies, at 33 deals worth about $86.4 million, attracted 60% of investments in volume terms compared to 53% during the same period last year. Early stage funding accounted for 78% of the investments during the period.
The rate of companies getting funded in incubators ? there are over 60 incubators at institutes across the country supported by the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB) ? has increased in the past few years.
IT is the one of the easiest ventures to start with. ?The only capital required are your brain, fire in your belly and a laptop with an Internet connection,? says Sanjay Vijayakumar, chairman, board of governors, Startup Village, the country?s first business incubator on the PPP model.