ECell IIT Bombay in association with SESC IIT Indore presents, ENVOYAGE, A Pre-ESummit workshop for students in and around Indore. For more details visit and register at http://ecell.in/esummit/envoyage/indore
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Monday, November 25, 2013
‘We just couldn't stop ourselves
from starting this restaurant’ says Ram, one of the founders of IDLI HUT, when
asked about his decision to go for a start-up. IDLI Hut is a startup restaurant
founded by Ram and Rajat back in 2010. They started their business with a
‘Tri-Cycle’ selling delicious and hygienic south Indian dishes in a place
called ‘Chappan’ in Indore (famous for Food items, especially north Indian
CHAT). They slowly grew their business by shifting from ‘Tri-Cycle’ to a proper
location ideal for restaurants in Indore city. Now, after three years since
their startup, they are located in four places in Indore, one in Pune and one
in Mumbai. They are also constantly expanding their business by adding more
franchise in and around Indore. The startup has reached revenue of Ten Million
INR within three years which is a great progress for a startup.
The main motto of the startup is to
provide Hygienic and Delicious south Indian food to satisfy the customers
craving for mouth-watering South Indian Cuisine. They offer a plethora of
dishes, which includes 25 varieties of soft Idlis, 19 varieties of crispy
Dosas, many varieties of Uttapams and also other items like Pav-Bhaji, many
varieties of Cold-Coffee, soft drinks and Ice-creams. The have a properly framed
training material to train the chefs in all their branches and provide their
own raw materials like masalas and other ingredients for the menu, ensuring the
same quality and taste in all their branches. They also have regular training
for their chefs to maintain the quality of their service.
Q: What is the main motive or
driving force about the startup? Why did you choose this startup?
A: We both had plans during college
for doing something different other than the monotonous job which the companies
provide. Many people including me have wondered why only Mumbai has restaurants
providing delicious south Indian food and not Indore. We wanted to bring
authentic South Indian Cuisine here in Indore. So we came up with the idea for
this startup. When we planned for this startup, we were already working. Ram
was a professor and I (Rajat) was working in HDFC. But both of us weren’t happy
with the job and we had to startup something different which they dreamed for.
But we had lot of problems, problem for initial capital and many more. So we
planned to do both job and the startup together. So me and Ram hired a
‘Tri-cycle’ and two chefs and one more worker and started making and selling
Idlis in the ‘Tri-cycle’ after the working hours, from 6PM to 10 PM. This way
we had job security and also lived our dream. When the business started to heat
up, it was more demanding and we had to choose between either of the two. So I
and Ram took the toughest and riskiest step in our life. We chose to leave the
job and follow our dream. Initially we didn’t have much support from our
parents. But we had to do it. We had interest in no other work other than this
startup. So we continued with the ‘Tri-Cycle’. After few months we collected
some capital to start a proper restaurant in Indore city area. Initially the
business was slow, as people weren’t aware. We never lost hope in our business;
we started including new recipes every month. Slowly our customer base grew,
and we started taking orders for parties and other college events. Now we are
successfully running four centers in Indore. Proper planning of training
modules ensured the quality in all the centers.
Q: What are your present expansion
plans?
A: We are planning to expand our
business also to towns around Indore. We are not particularly interested in
opening our business in big cities as the capital required is more and also
there is heavy competition. We are presently concentrating on small towns
around Indore, but will surely come to other cities once we earn a good brand name
and when the business is stabilized.
Q: What will be your advice to
students who are interested in startup?
A: I would say ‘Just go for it’.
There is never a better time, than doing it right now. We will never know how
the situation will be in future. Just follow your dreams now, or you will be
following others later. The difference between the two sides is just a small
step, but this small step makes huge difference.
A Team of three SESC (Student
Entrepreneurship Support Cell) members visited IDLI HUT on Nov 16, 2013 in one
of their main branches in Indore. The interview lasted for an hour and was very
inspiring to students planning for a startup right after their college. For
more details about the interview please hear the Audio recording sent along with
this report.
SESC NEC Team
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's
largest technology corporations as well as thousands of small start-ups. It is the leading hub for high-tech innovation and
development, accounting for one-third of all of the venture capital investment in the United States. It was in Silicon Valley
that the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, the microcomputer,
among other key technologies, were developed. The region employs about a
quarter of a million information
technology workers.
Bangalore has for long been known
as India’s answer to Silicon Valley, and this is the city where most large
software companies have set up their state-of-the-art facilities. The
Government of Karnataka has also been extremely positive about the software and services marketplace, and has
helped create the relevant telecom and policy infrastructure conducive to the
growth of this sector. The high efficiency and reliability of the IT companies
in Bangalore soon earned a name for themselves among giant IT companies in the world
and Bangalore has emerged as an important IT hub.
Start-up
ecosystem
Start-ups are the backbone to any
growing economy and America’s Silicon Valley has the tailor-made environment to
promote and foster them. The access to
capital, presence of angel investors, mentors, availability of talented
workforce and more importantly liberal rules and regulations to stimulate
entrepreneurship are some of the remarkable asset an entrepreneur will have at
his disposal here.
Back home in India, although the
1991 economic reforms had greatly opened up the economy and provided a great
degree of manoeuvrability and
flexibility to the Indian entrepreneur, the environment was no way near to that
of America’s. The bureaucratic system and red tape in India meant that one had
to run from pillar to post to complete the necessary formalities and cumbersome
documentation. However, the Indian
entrepreneurship ecosystem has come a long way since then. Enhanced awareness
regarding entrepreneurship and its lucrative advantages is the key reason.
Moreover, the innovation
ecosystem in India has improved immensely with the greater availability of
resources at optimal costs, government concessions, ease of starting, scaling
and even winding up; and most importantly, the rapidly improving image of the
‘made in India’ tag.
SEZs
With a
view to overcome the shortcomings experienced on account of the multiplicity of
controls and clearances; absence of world-class infrastructure, and with a view
to attract larger foreign investments in India, Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
were allowed to be set up. SEZs are hubs for economic growth supported by quality
infrastructure complemented by an attractive fiscal package, both at the Centre
and the State level, with the minimum possible regulations. Besides, until recently many American IT
companies were given tax breaks for outsourcing which further encouraged them
to invest in developing nations like India.
Conservative
and risk averse Indians
American start-ups and companies
are more energetic, imaginative and agile than those in India, could be attributed
to their risk taking attitude. Indians are more conservative and risk averse, Indian entrepreneurs are
cost-conscious and sometimes this makes them compromise on the quality of input
and, consequentially, this reflects on the output quality too. The risk
averseness is also due to the fact that the Indian banks and financial
intuitions are unwilling to lend to an earlier failed business, however in US
for an entrepreneur’s start-up to fail and return with a successful ideas is
considered as an asset and looked positively.
Capital availability
Big ideas usually require a lot of investment
however the amount available for investment in India is still relatively small.
Furthermore, there is much more information available in the US on markets,
clients, and other related information. The legal system for making venture
investments is much more streamlined in the US, especially for US investors.
Further, potential return valuations remain stubbornly high in India . All of
which makes the US a much more favourable place for investing.
The other challenge that innovators in India face is
the lack of private funding. This becomes pronounced when it comes to tech start-ups.
Since the Indian IT sector is dominated by service-oriented companies like
Wipro and Infosys, it becomes difficult for product-oriented start-ups to
either get funded or acquired. Thus raising funding for technology start-up
remains a big challenge for Indian start-ups.
Broad-mindedness of American entrepreneurs
The companies and entrepreneurs in
Silicon Valley are more open than their counterparts in Bangalore. They are of
the opinion that to recruit best talent and to attract top investors it is
necessary for their company to be open rather than closed. This is how they
create a buzz about their products and services. Indian companies are on the
other hand closed in the sense that there is not much information about their
latest projects as they are not available on their website and not being talked
about in the media. The ventures in
Silicon Valley are much more aggressive with press releases, blogs write ups,
invitation to join beta versions and many other activities to inform and engage
potential customers.
In times
of failure….
Another vital point that must be mentioned is Silicon
Valley’s reassurance-provision in times of failure. In the case of many
successful start-ups, failure has proved to be the stepping stone for success
and this attitude has to be attributed to the relative ease at which one can
dust oneself off and start afresh.
However, in India, along with failure comes the very
daunting task of rebuilding from scratch. Hence, Indian entrepreneurs are much
more conservative.
Role of mentors
Besides, in Silicon Valley, most of the mentors or
entrepreneurship experts have a direct relationship with the ecosystem which
enables them a better vantage point to impart wisdom to their colleagues and at
the same time, directly utilise their intellectual resources in their start-ups.
On the contrary, in India, mentors only play an outside ‘guide’ role. Most of
them have no direct relationship with any start up and are hence limited to
passive roles.
To sum up, one must express great appreciation at
the rate at which the entrepreneurship ecosystem is growing in India. One must
not get demotivated by comparing ours with Silicon Valley’s …after all, Silicon
Valley culture is much mature than ours. The rising enthusiasm to
entrepreneurship coupled by our dedicated work force and the fact that we are
one of the fastest growing economies in the world means that the start-up
ecosystem in India has a promising future and who knows….one day, it might
surpass America’s Silicon Valley.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Hi everyone,
We here at SESC want to have some cool LOGO and T-Shirt for the Cell.The entries can be hand drawn (Hard Copy) or computer drawn (Soft Copy). We would like the students to submit their entries before this Sunday (27 Oct 2013) 2359 Hrs. The winners will be provided certificates and special privileges for SESC events.
Please submit your entries to :
sesc@iiti.ac.in (for soft copy)
Dharmil Chandarana (for hard copy)
T.C. 40, Silver Springs
For Queries mail:
sesc@iiti.ac.in
The mail should have the subject [SESC LOGO] for Logo and [SESC TSHIRT] for T-Shirts. The students are requested to submit Logos and T-Shirts with different varieties of background.
Regards,
SESC Team,
IIT Indore
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
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