Increasing Attraction Of Nepalese Youths In Startups: GBG Bizfest 2019 Attracts 100+ Startups And 5000+ Visitors From Across Nepal
Kathmandu, 8 January 2019
-Sangam Singh returned to Nepal after completing engineering education from India with an aim to start an online shopping company in the country. While doing market research and development, he found that all existing startups were facing one common problem: delivery of goods to customers. So, instead of initiating e-commerce, he instead started a logistics company that offers Cash-On-Delivery services to Nepali e-commerce sites.
-Santosh Pandey and his team came up with a concept of delivering gifts sent by Nepalis abroad to their families and friends here. As they began studying different business models around the globe, they found out that there was something called a surprising industry and its market was really huge and rapidly expanding. On Valentine Day of 2017 AD, they launched ‘Offering Happiness’ to provide surprise planning service in Nepal.
-DipeshKhetan and his friends have recently started AdMana, a company that connects digital publishers with advertisers where the advertisers can pay per output basis.
-Arsalan Akhtar Initiated Today’s Telegram in early 2017 AD that produces leather as well as hemp goods such as ToTe Lap Tables, bags, duffle bags, bean bags, and bags, with unique taglines and his writings on the designs. With Today’s Telegram, he has been combining his passion for writing to create unique products that are selling like hot cakes in the Nepalese market.
NepXpress, Offering Happiness, AdMana, These days Telegram along with over 100 unique and innovative startups of Nepal exhibited their products & services to their prospective users in Biz Festival 2019, the first of its kind startup meet held at premises at Galaxy Public School on Saturday, 5 January. The event was hosted by Nepalese Google Business Group Kathmandu in central collaboration with Khalti app.
BarshaDulal, who has just returned completing her CA studies from India was one of the visitors of the expo. She was keenly interested to know about the growing Information Technology startups in Nepal. She looked enthused after visiting the different stalls of the participating startups and witnessing their innovative works.
Similarly, Rahul Yadav, a grade eleven student in an ICT college in the capital city of Nepal could be seen visiting the platform of the expo with enthusiasm. Along with going through startups’ showcase, he also attended different program and activities delivered by experts — his expressed happiness on learning google tools during these workshop sessions.
Like Barsha and Rahul, over 5000 enthusiastic Nepalese youths visited the expo and interacted with founders of Nepali startups.
These scenes at the Biz Festival clearly showed that Nepali youths are increasingly inclined towards entrepreneurship.
Enthused by the massive turnout of visitors and startups in the BizFest, Amit Agrawal, Manager of GBG Kathmandu shared,
“Startup is a recent phenomenon in Nepal. We can see many startups emerging to give solutions need gaps existing in our society. However, not many people know more about the emerging Nepali startups, and there was no such expo focused on startups only. Also, it’s not possible for some recently founded startups to pay a heavy fee to exhibit in expos. Thus GBG Kathmandu took an initiative to bring almost major startups of Nepal in a single platform. Through BizFest, they tried giving them a free and open platform to connect with their potential users and customers.”
The event turned out to be a unique platform for aspiring entrepreneurs to meet and talk with fellow entrepreneurs who have already founded best ideas and knowledge. The game also provided the best opportunity for exhibitors to get opinion and feedback from the people.
During the expo, 4-day workshop sessions were also held on topics ‘Growth Hacking’, ‘Overcoming legal challenges in business,’ ‘Google Sheets for Business Growth,’ and ‘Ads and Analytics for Business Growth’ that were delivered by experts in the Nepalese industry.
Through all these overall activities Google Business Group Kathmandu aimed to groom startup founders and promote entrepreneurial ecosystem in Nepal. GBG Kathmandu has planned to make the BizFest an annual event.