Founders’ Friday: 50 startup stories on a Bengaluru evening at YourStory
Would you share your expensive clothes and accessories with a total stranger? Is it possible to make Rs 2 crore selling Maggi noodles on a college campus? Would you take a certification course for scuba diving – in landlocked Bengaluru? Does it make sense to go all the way from Bengaluru to Bangkok to launch a startup about backpacking?
Fifty founders apparently think so. At the housefull YourStory Startup Mixer Meetup on Friday evening, nearly two dozen startups pitched their offerings to an eager audience who shot back with probing questions and even requests for partnerships.
Business opportunities, consumer pain points, solution proposals, price points, job openings, and even hilarious stories of ‘aha’ and ‘ouch’ moments were shared by the founders at the three-hour event, followed by discussions over samosas and tea.
Gulshan Iyer, Founder of GullusKitchen.com, realised in his first year of college that he liked talking, eating and cooking much more than engineering – and launched his campus food startup. “We didn’t have a license and were forced by the authorities to show our accounts one day. It was only then that I realised our business was worth Rs 2 crores already,” he joked.
The Co-founders of Aquanaut got hooked onto scuba diving immediately after their first dive, and quit their advertising jobs to launch their scuba certification startup with brand partnerships from Italian vendors.
PratiLipi.com was founded to fill the market gap for e-books in Indian languages. Two IIT Kanpur students launched Klozee.com to help consumers share high-priced clothing and accessories via a rating scheme backed by security deposits.
The Founder of Ithaka sees a huge opportunity in online resources for backpackers and ‘flashpackers’ (short-term backpackers) in Asia, with choice recommendations like the ‘booze cruise’ in Vietnam.
The more tech-centric startups at the meetup included DazeInfo (insights on using Big Data and analytics).
E-commerce was a big draw with startups such as Touchpoint (rewards like vouchers for shoppers) and JumKey (online sales of jewellery). AgMart is an online ‘F2B’ (farmers to buyers) classifieds portal for real time sellers and buyers of agricultural commodities. Eventosaur is positioned as a marketplace for those who want help with conducting pujas for occasions like housewarming.
Other startups featured at the meetup were SponsorSource (finding corporate sponsors at industry events), DeeBowl (entertainment options portal), DwellMart (real estate solutions), Centre of Gravity (branding research and services), Yogurt Labs (resources for making attractive videos) and CamBuzz (corporate community forums).
The audience also included aspiring entrepreneurs looking for insights on when to quit their corporate jobs and launch their own ventures, and a few investors as well.
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