Entrepreneur Digest

Local industries and businesses are the backbone of the economy of any country. Additionally, Sri Lankan Government defines a local company as one with a minimum ownership of 51% of a Sri Lankan. To help these companies grow, the Sri Lankan Finance Ministry has proclaimed a circular enlisting the priorities to the local companies. Moreover, this move from the government may bring some salient alterations in the condition of the local manufacturers. The government has also come with up steps that will augment the local industries across the different domains. These domains include IT sector, construction, etc. The circular, as issued by the government includes relevant documentation regarding sourcing of resources and products. Additionally, sources point towards the fact that the government is hoping to extend support to the domestic sector and help them grow. Besides, the major focus is on the three sectors- IT software and hardware, construction and furniture and allied products. Pos...

Kiki Air, a student-based start-up, is a drone-based delivery system that drops off packages across Yale University. It delivers four categories of goods at specific locations around the campus, including residential colleges, commonly-frequented walkways and in old campus. The start-up offers $5 worth free snack when ordered through app. Currently Kiki Air is using iOS app. The app is being tested on a small sample of students, and the developers plan on creating an Android app. The app developers plan on eventually functioning beyond Yale’s campus. Kiki Air functions with the view of reducing carbon footprint, creating jobs and providing a more environmentally friendly, convenient alternative. Once the order is placed, the sundries are loaded and attached to drones. After confirming that the location is safe for delivery, the drone drops off the order in a padded envelope. CEO Jason Lu’20 conceived of the original idea and recruited, co-founder Orman to work on publicity and m...

Recent years have seen a major boom in technology start-ups. But now, job cuts have begun eating into these start-ups as investors are pulling back from high cost ventures involving physical assets such as scooters, mattresses, pot - and lots of labor. A newspaper counts more than 8,000 cuts at 30 companies around the world in the past four months. Disappointing public offerings by companies such as Uber and WeWork are prompting investors to scrutinize profitability. This has resulted in the fewest startups managing to raise money in this last quarter since 2016. Unicorn, the electric scooter startup is shutting down operations after blowing all its cash on online ads but only receiving 350 orders for its e-scooters. The company is working on selling its remaining assets in order to give partial refunds. Casper sleep, a popular start-up which deliver sleeping mattresses direct to customers' doors, have fallen out of favor as private fundraising has become more difficult. The...

Dorsey, CEO of twitter has always been a target for activist investor as he serves as a Chief Executing Officer to two companies at a same time. He serves to twitter as well as square Inc. Though it seems, Dorsey isn't a target of activist investors only as In December, Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, penned a letter about his own concerns as an investor in the company. In an open letter he clearly stated that his primary objective is replacement of CEO Jack Dorsey. This angst against Dorsey hasn't mounted overnight. Dorsey's leadership arrangement is unusual compared with other executives of public companies. While other tech executives run multiple companies, like Tesla's Elon Musk, Dorsey is the only CEO of two public companies with market valuations of more than $5 billion. More to it, his plans to move to Africa aren't pleasing Elliot Management either. Since Dorsey returned as CEO in July 2015, the...

Recently,Microsoft shook up the controversy about global warming by promising to make all of its operations carbon negative by the year 2030.The tough part will be to actually eradicate the carbon which is in the air and go beyond the concept of conservation. Microsoft is staking for everything from planting massive numbers of trees to soak up carbon and using technologies to capture carbon and sequester it in soil, to more exotic technologies, like direct air capture, in which arrays of machines take in ambient air, eliminate the CO2 from it, and use the carbon in chemicals or concrete. In pursuit of raising the price of activities that use heaps of carbon, Microsoft will additionally use what amounts to private-sector carbon taxes, or fees it imposes on its supply-chain partners, and on itself for intercompany transactions. The company's methods for reducing its carbon emissions to near zero are forthright and similar to what other businesses and consumers are doing. Competi...

With a recent peak value of $174.7 billion, Tesla was the 30th largest stock in the US. More than $55 billion of Tesla stock was traded on first Tuesday of Feb 2020.This is remarkable because the stock exchange is more than the stocks of tech giants including Apple, Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. However, there is no reasonable justification for any of this. Competition was tough and the only mollifying news was about Chinese production facility being running but still Tesla managed sustainable profit and the fourth quarter went way better than anticipated. Tesla is by far the biggest stock not in the benchmark so it has a good chance of being included in the index. This could rationalize a pop in the price, may be as much as 5-7% considering past academic studies. However, there is still quandary in the doubling of price in just one month or sinking 17% on the very next day. The desperate attempts made by short sellers to buy stock to exit their position often adds up to...

For most of us, leaving the stability of a well-paid job to join a start-up might seem daunting. For Danish entrepreneur Mette Lykke, it's a leap she made not just once but twice. Back in 2007 she was working for management consultancy McKinsey. But later Mette decided and partnered with Christian Birk and Jacob Jonck, to launch the personal training app Endomondo.For the three sports enthusiasts, launching an app to "make fitness fun" was a logical fit. But making success of their Copenhagen-based idea was no walk in the park though. At that time - 13 years ago - most of the phones lacked GPS systems. In the first few months of Endomondo, there were days when no one signed up at all. The game changer came when the Apple App Store opened in 2008 and smartphone sales boomed. By 2015, the app had 20 million users and caught the attention of American sportswear giant, Under Armour. The US Company bought Endomondo for $85 million. Mette was just 33 at that time and s...

At the age where most of a person's attitude towards life is erratic and unplanned, Sujit Jain, after graduating from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies in 2000, started his computer training institute in Pune. He developed a product that would help a person to create his website. But the only resource lacking was funds. Sujit came up with the strategy of direct selling and in no time got 80 orders. By 2002, the number increased to 40,000 with 500-fold growth which marked the beginning of Netsurf Communications Pvt Ltd. Starting from 2003, the duo accumulated 25 lakh and even acquired Ajay Biotech Ltd. Netsurf distributed these products under the brand name of Biofit.Today, millions of farmers trust Biofit for higher yield and better farming. In 2004, Netsurf expanded its operations to household products: “Naturamore". Naturamore holds 33 percent share in Netsurfs turnover. By 2007, Netsurf had a training and supporting system for the direct sellers, with more ...

The following is a report on snags to be faced by CFOs in 2020: Transforming Geopolitical Quandary into Sagacity CFOs will oversee trade conflicts, Brexit and supervise a latent economy slump. The U.S.-China trade war has admonished U.S. companies to nurture vigilance. Because of this, 56% of the CFOs at U.S. companies have instigated contriving for a recession. Trimming and Tightening CFOs gauged that in the third quarter capital spending would grow by 3.6% over the next 12 months, lower than their outlook for 9.4% growth a year. In the fourth quarter of 2019, it reached their rock-bottom since early 2017. U.S. business investment was sluggish throughout 2019 schlepping down U.S. economic growth. CFOs’ worries about the necessity to acclimatize and invent will burgeon in 2020 as more companies will acquire automation to build proficiency and growth. Quest for Talent CFOs have to deal with the paucity of availability of personnel and qualified finance professionals...

Danny O' Mallay, before starting his venture of plant based and sustainable food, was a salesman at Beyond Meat for 3 years and there he realized that he should explore the development side of the plant-based food businesses and infuse new products. Before initiating the brand Butcher, he started a line of plant-based meat alternatives for foodservice. To take a closer look of the market, he interacted with his daily customers and now all he wanted was more options to expand. The Butcher began with plant-based alternatives to chicken chunks and beef shreds. Today, the line-up includes vegan versions of burgers, patties, crumbles, ground sausage, chorizo and pulled pork. The Entire range of products are soy based, initially pea protein was decided as the main hero but they swapped it to soy as pea protein can have a bitter taste that requires more ingredients or processes to counteract. Mallay publicised recipes and production processes as a marketing strategy. Butcher's ...

The recent decision of Jeff Bezos to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040 ahead of Paris climate agreement is bold and ambitious. The decision has come after Amazon's employees went on a strike demanding climate justice. The bigger question however is that when would other big corporates acknowledge the need to work in accordance with climatic change to ensure sustainability of Earth. The global emissions of carbon are still alarming. Coal and other conventional methods of energy relentlessly cater to the energy requirements of countries. Even after incessant admonishments from climate activist and environmentalists, environment friendly practices still haven't gained utmost priority. Understanding the intricacies and the harm that lust of human has done to the nature raises a big concern over the regulation and unethical practices the big corporates are so obstinately involved in. Most of the times, the suggested practices are disregarded and ground reality of these MNCs i...

Asia’s richest man is handing out TVs to hook users on movies and entertainment shows via internet . Mukesh Ambani’s fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) service is finally here. After jostling into the wireless phone market through free calls and data for three years, the billionaire is back to rule the market. Jio-Fiber plan rentals starts at ₹699 and goes up to ₹8499. The lowest tariff starts with 100 Mbps speed. Ultra-high speed, free domestic voice calling, conferencing, TV video calling are some of the promises made by the Jio-Fiber Plan. Airtel, backed by tycoon Sunil Mittal, and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla's Idea are also trying to entice users by offering access to TV and movie content in order to cement their position in market after the arrival of Jio-Fiber salvo. They were previously left under maintaining debt due to Ambani's free calls and cheap data service. The market could jump to $5 billion by 2023 from $500 million last year. With boom in Bollywood production...

India-born Canada based billionaire Prem Watsa, CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., proposes to invest $5 billion in India in the next five years, doubling what he’s put in this far, thus downplaying worries after India's GDP growth slipped to 6-year low of 5% in April-June quarter . He also calls India “ the number one country in the world” to put money. Watsa said that he was interested in participating in the Indian government’s asset-monetisation and disinvestment plans.  He is also planning to finance in oil and gas and said that Fairfax would look into the internal procedures by providing professional Canadian companies to be partnered with. Watsa was “was not worried about the growth slowdown in the GDP of India,” describing its 1.2 billion population as the epicentre of economic prosperity and advancement. He believes that “its economic growth will come back to 10%.” He is optimistic about the long-term partnerships with India. Watsa claims that India offer...

In the US, out of the total carbon dioxide production, 30% is produced only through the generation of electricity. Scientists are into the research projects like burying the carbon and waiting for it to become rock solid or reversing the combustion process to recycle it into ethanol.Multiple industries are making efforts to reduce its emission. Nature Solar, a leading installation company has started using latest solar power cells which are made up of perovskite material. These cells are highly efficient and excellent light absorbers supplemented by their affordability. These cells are designed to work in both hot and wet conditions while maintaining their chemical integrity. Scientists are also working on the expansion of colour band, which is absorbed by the solar power cells, so that more energy could be produced by fewer cells. For this process, they are adding components made up of carbon nanotubes and nanophotonic crystals to solar energy systems. This could be of a huge he...

Entrepreneurship plays an influential role in boosting the economic growth of a country. When it comes to fostering the entrepreneur world, our government has always gone the extra mile. Government introduced National Entrepreneurship Awards in the year 2016. The main thrust of National Entrepreneurship Awards was to recognize and celebrate the country’s most exceptional entrepreneurs who have moved us all with their vision, innovation, courage, and leadership.   Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister for Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, said, “This year marks the fourth year of running the National Entrepreneurship Awards, and I am gratified by the continued interest of the entrepreneurs in the initiative." These Awards can contribute to a country’s development in multiple ways: 1.       Promotion of New Start-Up Ventures Entrepreneurs need financial support in starting their own ventures. By organizing these awards, the government has given...

Sunny Gupta has sold four start-ups and last one was sold for a whooping price of $2 billion. He said that his success was mainly driven by customer satisfaction. Sunny faced merely one interview in his whole career and then while working in the corporate, he realized that his career was going too typically. This propelled him to explore his entrepreneurial skills. In 1996, he started his first tech start up related to enterprise software.  For first six to nine months, he didn't seize any salary. As soon as his company stood firmly, it was bought by Rational Software for $3 million- $4 million and from there it was sold to IBM for a couple of billion dollars. Sunny felt that he should work on something sustainable, so he decided to work on his fourth venture called APPTIO for a long run. APPTIO provides cloud-based Technology Business Management (TBM) software. The company grew to $136 million and went public in 2016. In 2019, it was bought by Vista Equity in January 2019 for...

Pedro Franceschi, the first person to jailbreak iPhone 3G and the first to build software to make Apple’s Siri speak in Portuguese, and Henrique Dubugras, who was just 12 years old when he started coding and programming video games for himself, are two Brazilian entrepreneurs who met on twitter. At just 16 years of age, the two started Brazil’s first developer friendly payments processor, Pagar.me. They sold the company to study at Stanford University. However, after just eight short months at Stanford, they dropped out. They claimed that there was “something off about college.” They started Brex, a startup that issues corporate cards to tech startups. In just two-and-a-half years, Pedro and Henrique grew Brex into a unicorn, as the company's latest fundraising round values the company at a whopping $2.6 billion. In a recent interview, Pedro, regarding the success of the company, said that “curiosity and entrepreneurial spirits” compelled him and Henrique to “learn the in’s an...

The New York Times & Bloomberg had recently published information about the progress made by Neuralink in the much anticipated Brain-computer interface technology.  The Elon Musk-backed company claims its “sewing machine-like” robot will be capable of implanting threads deep into a human brain. The bundles of flexible threads are about one quarter the diameter of a human hair, implanted using needles to avoid blood vessels on the brain's surface. Then the embedded sensors capture information and send it to a receiver on the surface of the skull. From there it transmits wirelessly. They have so far experimented on lab rats by implanting as many as 1500 electrodes which may or may not work smoothly on humans. If their technology turns out to be successful, Neuralink intends to help amputees, or restore the ability to see, talk & listen.  Elon strongly believes that connecting our brains to computers will eventually be the only way to keep up with the progression of ...

Entrepreneurship is one of the most attractive and fascinating evolution which lead to many individuals choosing self-employment as their career path. Getting hold of a good idea, allocating correct resources and launching a start-up may seem to be the ultimate way to legitimize your dream, but a successful implementation to the preceded plan is ambiguous. Due to less of restrictions, start-ups have been an open field of play. However, it’s not very easy to attain your goal in this saturated business ecosystem. Additionally, fierce competition may lead you to lose track of your vision followed by the clarity that should have been all along. 1.Ensure an Unabated Team Energy   Entire team needs to be enthusiastic and willing to work to make the shared vision a reality. The team should mutually offer benefits to each other thus thriving to achieve the common goal. 2.Weave a Flexible Business Plan In this dynamic environment, flexibility is the key. 'Follow the path' and ...

Entrepreneurship has been nurtured into a trend by this generation. Having a corporate 9 to 5 job is not the ultimate goal anymore. However, coming up with an extraordinary idea isn’t the benchmark to establish a business. Execution of that idea plays a crucial role. Here are some of the basic check boxes to ensure a flourishing business:- 1. Utilization of Funds Proper allotment of the available funds at the early stage of business is a big league to avoid cash burns. It also burgeons your profits. 2. Sustainable Infrastructure you would require an appropriate software infrastructure depending on company’s product needs. This will save funds and boost your business’ growth. 3. Identification of Competitors Analysing the competitive market and setting up the prices that can cover the cost is very consequential. Keeping a check on other players in the market assists you in predicting the next business move. 4. Dedicated Employees Hiring a group of talented people is ye...