‘If you give, you get’ - your startup fix to start the week

Helen Gurley Brown, the original Cosmo girl, wasn’t too happy as a child. “I never liked the looks of the life that was programmed for me—ordinary, hillbilly, and poor,” she wrote later. But Helen, who would have been 97 today, wasn’t one to let life take its own course. “Early-in-life problems can be the yeast that makes you rise into bread!” she believed.

Helen went on to become Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, a magazine for “fun, fearless females”, for 32 years, and wrote several best-sellers, including Sex and the Single Girl and Having It All (at a time when the debate didn’t even exist).

Cosmopolitan may have been known for its straight talk on sex and relationships, but Helen left behind an inspirational legacy for working women.

“Need, yearn and work—that is the kind of aggression that brings success, not acting dramatic,” she said. She routinely focused on the need for women to have that “drive” to succeed.

Helen would always say,

“There is no way to succeed and have the lovely spoils - money, recognition, deep satisfaction in your work - except to put in the hours, do the drudgery. If you give, you get. If you work hard, the hard work rewards you."

On that note - here's a bunch of startup stories to start your week with!

Here's the inspiring story of how this GE Six Sigma Black Belt went from constructing a friend's house to building a Rs 220 crore business. Bengaluru-based Sowparnika Projects has completed over 35 projects in 16 years and made a mark as an affordable real estate company. Founder Ramji Subramaniam believes the focus on millennials has helped.

AR-VR isn't just for the movies; it's changing the way the world functions in many spheres. In Chennai, Nutpam is using virtual reality to upskill professionals. Started by Senthil Sarguru and Karthik Bavanandan, both 28 years old, the startup builds VR-driven training content for people working in large corporations and sectors like healthcare and education.

The world's keen to vroom down a green path, but what if you're not sure about buying an electric bike? You can rent one from eBike and do your bit for the environment. The Delhi-based startup, which began operations in Amritsar in 2017, offers electric bikes on rent and for delivery. eBike is targeting tourists, students, working executives, and delivery chains.

Meet TukTuk Ride, India’s latest app-based ride-hailing service focussing on small towns. It launched in Delhi-NCR in January, after about 10 months of being in development, and will roll out in Indore, Bhopal, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jaipur, and Udaipur by the end of the year. And by 2020, TukTuk will ride into 20 small towns, where smartphones prevail, but app-taxis are absent.

While there are several security startups in Tier I cities, Geet Vaishnav and Prateek Sharma decided to start one in their hometown - Indore. The duo founded Securitybulls - a penetration testing and infrastructure security service provider - in 2016. The platform analyses a company’s digital assets from a hacker's point of view to provide a blueprint for remediation to help build or enhance a protection strategy. 

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