'All things come to those who hustle': your startup fix to start the week

Monday January 21, 2019 , 5 min Read

Our life wouldn’t be what it is if not for Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park. Imagine living in a world without the electric light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, the nickel-iron-alkaline storage battery, or the electric motor?

But Edison, the last of seven sons and daughters born in 1847 to a school teacher and an exiled Canadian activist in Milan, Ohio, believed nothing happened by chance. “I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work,” he famously said.

Exhorting people not to miss any opportunity “because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work”, he believed that the three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile were “hard work, stick-to-itiveness, and common sense”.

And despite the childhood malady that left him with hearing issues and left him nearly deaf as an adult, he continued to hustle. For Edison was confident that “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits”.

So, there’s got to be a way to do it better. It’s time you found it and got started. If you're looking for more inspiration, may we suggest going through our startup stories?

If this doesn't inspire you to start up, what will? Automatad founder Vijay Ram Kumar built a Rs 25 crore business with less than Rs 12 lakh in his pocket! Vijay, who started up in Bengaluru in 2012 in digital advertising, has pivoted to build a programmatic ad-engine to help content publishing websites host ads to make money.

Take our survey - Let's beat Angel Tax

It's time to give startups and key stakeholders a place to voice our common concerns about Angel Tax. At YourStory, we've been the voice of entrepreneurs and changemakers for the last 10 years. Now, let's come together to fill out our survey on the angel tax issue. Tell us your concerns. Share your suggestions. Together, we can amplify your concerns. Together, we can knock on the doors of policymakers and decisionmakers in New Delhi. Together, we can get heard and bring about lasting change. #AbolishAngelTax. Take our Angel Tax survey now. Let’s act, not react.

Real news or fake news? In this time of information overkill, it's often difficult to know. But IIIT-Hyderabad has created a ‘Fake-o-Meter’ to identify fake news. Designed by the Information Retrieval and Extraction Lab (IREL) at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad, the Fake-o-Meter uses machine learning algorithms and natural language processing.

Vasudeva Varma, J.Ramachandran — (L-R) Vasudeva Varma and J Ramachandran have designed a Fake-o-Meter, which works for many languages, including Spanish and Chinese.

Who doesn't love silver jewellery? Now meet the American who built a desi silver jewellery brand for the modern Indian woman. Rebekkah Kumar, who came to India in 1994, felt there was a lack of silver jewellery options and started Fourseven, a Delhi-NCR-based online brand that manufactures unique silver jewellery pieces with contemporary designs.

Rebekkah Kumar, Founder of Fourseven, works with jewellery manufacturers and artisans from across the country. Credit: Bebeautilicious

They were determined to start up, and so they did. Even being chased out of hospitals didn't stop these founders from building Medicento, their pharma supplies startup. The Bengaluru-based one-stop supplier for pharmacies was launched by Arpan Debasis and his friend, Rahul Vidyarthi, in 2015.

While India created history by winning its first overseas cricket test series in Australia, another dream team is being driven by two techies from a small village in Amritsar, Punjab. Their startup, StanceBeam, lets you can better your game at cricket with a 360-degree batting performance analysis with all the information on an app. And guess what? It is already being sold in Australia.

Cricket, stancebeam — Brothers Arminder Thind and Ishwinderpal Singh founded Bengaluru-based StanceBeam.

Meet Rajat Aggarwal and Rohan Bhatial, the IIIT graduates who have built a camera that captures 360-degree, 3D videos in real time. Hyderabad-based deep tech startup DreamVu's camera platform can find application in a range of industries, including autonomous vehicles, drones, VR/AR, robotics, and healthtech.

The DreamVu team is betting big on the growing focus and push towards autonomous machines in different sectors

When the going gets tough, the tough find a way out. That's why Mumbai-based Haptik, which began life as a consumer product, found its sweet spot in a B2B play. It now builds chatbots that companies can deploy on websites, apps, and other applications. Here’s the story of its quiet transformation over the past two years.

There is one bastion everyone wants to conquer: India's next 500 million internet users. This is the story of how Mimo is bridging the last mile for businesses trying to conquer Bharat, from Raichur to Bhilwara. The Delhi-based startup connects telcos, banks, insurance firms, and logistics companies to customers in semi-urban and rural India with its network of trained, on-ground agents.