Take Your First Step Towards Entrepreneurship With StartinUP

India's startup culture has grown significantly over the past several years as more and more business owners follow their entrepreneurial ambitions. With 1.4 billion people, there are endless opportunities for new businesses. With 108 startups valued at over $1 billion in December 2022, India is no stranger to startup unicorns. In the post-pandemic era, the most successful startups in India and their ground-breaking concepts emerged, freeing humanity from the mundane. Overall, startups all around the nation can innovate and adapt, setting themselves up for success in a market that is rapidly shifting.

Amid startups scaling new heights in India, Uttar Pradesh has launched a fresh platform called StartinUP to support budding entrepreneurs from small cities in Uttar Pradesh.

We highlighted two incredibly motivating startup stories in a previous blog, and we have another two for you today.

Story of Kratika Sharma & Puneet Sharma founders of GetSahayak 

We covered the story of Kratika Sharma and Puneet Sharma, the siblings who founded "GetSahayak'' to facilitate digital literacy in our nation. In an exclusive interview, we discussed their startup idea, how they got help from StartinUP, and much more.

Tell us a bit about your startup. How did you two come up with this idea?

I will start by telling you from the scratch, so I was in a job where I had to give training to government teachers on how to make learning simple. However, when covid happened, my job role was radically changed because everything went online straight away. Teachers were unable to take classes on Zoom, so it was my duty to demonstrate to them how to do so. 

We have smartphones, and we live in the era of digital India, but there is a huge gap in the adoption of digital literacy in India, so I asked Puneet about how to overcome this problem. This is how we came up with an idea to bridge the gap and make the digital learning process simple for everyone in our nation.- Said, Kratika.

If I talk about myself I have been in a startup ecosystem for years now. For this startup, I had the idea by observing my 4-year-old child who used to play games online when he was only 2. I observed that even if children are not able to speak they can play games because of their ease. So, the internet should be like this. The application we use is here to make our lives easy so we should be able to use it but it should be seamless so that everyone can benefit from it.-Said, Puneet.

Kratika, how was your mentorship experience? Puneet: Do you believe that mentoring is important for early-stage startups?

My mentor is my brother Puneet because he has a lot of startup expertise. When I first started to sit with Bhai I wasn't familiar with the jargon used in this sector. To understand all the minor things, I reasoned that I needed to first create a dictionary. So I'll say that I started from scratch. Although I don't think of myself as a Chanakya because I still have a lot to learn but I will say that I have learned a lot that would not be possible in my job.- Said, Kratika

When startups were not well known, I was a part of the startup ecosystem. So when I first started, I even encountered a lot of difficulties since I had the delusional belief that I would create a product and then I would sell it, but in reality, things don't work that way. Product validation is very important and there are a lot of other things that you need to know while building any product. So for that, you need mentors who will guide you in the process so I will say mentors are very important in this journey. Said, Puneet

Is your startup incubated? What did you think of the incubator experience?

Yes, we are incubated by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam University (AKTU) through the Kalam Center of Innovation at StartinUP. 

We are receiving support as AKTU is a huge university in terms of students and courses, we have offered them a proposal and are currently in discussion with them about whether Sahayak can appear on their portals.

They keep on conducting small workshops which is very helpful although the startup ecosystem is in its nascent stage but I'm glad it exists now here in Lucknow because there wasn't one when I first started. Said, Puneet 

For female solo entrepreneurs, there are numerous opportunities, and incubator centers are useful because they frequently host workshops which is very helpful. Said, Kratika

Did you have availed of any of the government schemes? Was the process quick and easy, or did it take a long time?

Yes, we have availed of a seed fund scheme of the UP government.

"The procedure was easy. It's great that they have a 45-day deadline for processing seed fund applications and that they have to stick to it. After a few rounds of pitches, they will decide whether or not you will receive the funding," said Puneet.

"It's impressive that you can even track the entire process of your application," Kratika added.

Story of Nitin Sharma founder of Road Pilot 

Have you ever thought of how important the role truck drivers play in our day-to-day life? 

Our transportation system heavily relies on truck drivers. To ensure that the goods delivered reach us by the deadline, truck drivers travel great distances in all types of weather. 

Sadly, they haven't received the respect they deserve or haven't gained considerable attention to help them better their lifestyles over the years. Moreover, there are a lot of negative stigmas about the needs that need to be changed. We covered the story of one startup that is working to improve the lives of these truck drivers. We spoke with Nitin Sharma, founder of Road Pilot who founded his startup to enhance the lives of truck drivers.

How did you come up with the idea of a Road Pilot?

I grew up closely observing the lifestyle of truck drivers because my family owns a transportation company and we owned trucks. I have witnessed the difficulties in recruiting skilled drivers. Once, one of my drivers was involved in a serious accident and felt helpless because morally I should have been paying for his medication but I had a loan. Even though I was already in-depth, I had to take care of his medication so I did that. It was then this idea struck my mind how one can be helpless in such a situation. I traveled throughout India for two to three years, meeting with various organizations and individuals involved in the transportation sector. The lack of good drivers was a major issue for all of them, and there is no platform from which you can onboard good drivers. That's when I had the thought to start a business to assist truck drivers to make the best potential improvements to their lives.

Do you think mentors for entrepreneurs? How was your experience with the incubator? 

Yes, mentors are important to your entrepreneurial journey, especially if you are just starting. They give you that ray of light on the dark road to how to move forward.

I did not know about incubators. I just needed government recognition for my startup to build trust in my drivers but when I got to know about the StartinUP incubation I registered myself in one of the nearest incubation centers. 

There are loopholes in the incubation centers. They are quite careless. Besides that, I noticed that there is favoritism involved in supporting a select few startups while ignoring others, which is wrong. Fortunately, the U.P government has a great policy that allows you to change your incubation center, so I did, and now things are going well here.  I feel whatever happens happens for good now I got registered with an incubation center that is directly associated with IIM Lucknow. 

Ending Note:

Startup-friendly policies in India are important and it's great that the Uttar Pradesh government has come up with such an initiative to support entrepreneurs who have great ideas. 

Entrepreneurs need help from strategic angels in all stages of development, such as business strategy, community building, and connecting with skilled business mentors and StartinUP is doing a great job in helping them in all these phases. 

As India has a massive, diverse population with many talented individuals with terrific ideas we need more such initiatives like StartinUP in other states.

We discussed two inspirational stories of Chankyas who benefited from the support of the U.P. government to successfully implement their ideas. The story of two siblings who founded the startup GetSahayak with the goal of democratizing access to digital literacy. We also discussed the story of Nitin Sharma, the founder of Roadpilot, who used creative thinking to empower truck drivers.

We will continue to feature more of these inspiring success stories to inspire our readers to start their own businesses. 

We hope you enjoyed the blog and feel free to leave questions in the comment section.