November 24, 2019: Jaipur, Rajasthan – As part of the Global Entrepreneurship Week #GEW2019 celebrations, Startup Grind Jaipur and Coffic CoWorking Cafes organised HUSTLER STORIES, an interactive session with 5 amazing entrepreneurs and startup founders from Jaipur.
The objective of organising this session was to help aspiring and young entrepreneurs experience the struggles, hardships and success moments of these entrepreneurs, so that a vibe of positivity and inspiration spreads within the Jaipur startup and entrepreneurial community.
Speaking on the sidelines of this session, Rahul Singh, Chapter Director of Startup Grind Jaipur, said “Startup Grind’s mission is to educate, inspire and connect the entrepreneurial ecosystem through its values of giving back, making friends and helping others. We are proud to associate with Coffic to celebrate Jaipur’s wonderful spirit of entrepreneurship and bringing this community together to learn and connect from one another. We handpicked today’s speakers because we truly believe that they have the ability to ignite and enlighten thoughts within the community.”
Suchika Bagrodia, Co-Founder of Coffic CoWorking Cafes added on, “Coffic strongly believes that entrepreneurs need a creative spaces for coworking and connecting within the ecosystem. Coffic, having tied up with several beautiful cafes, fosters entrepreneurial creativity by allowing them to work at a different space everyday. Our partnership with Startup Grind Jaipur for this session was to serve the common objective of bringing this amazing community together so that aspiring and young entrepreneurs connect and interact with our speakers, who have hustled their way to success.”
The session began with an inspiring talk by Rajendra Lora, Co-Founder & CEO of Freshokartz, wherein he shared his journey from being a part-time farmer to being one of the top emerging agritech startup founders from Rajasthan. Having been brought up in a village, he understood the plight of farmers and hence worked to devise solutions that add sustainable value to their businesses. He shared several challenges faced by him how each of these adversities taught him a valuable lesson that kept him going.
The second session was by Naveen Meena, Founder & Chief explorer of ToRoots Explorers, wherein he spoke about his journey from a marketing professional to an entrepreneur, that was filled with both achievements and challenges. As the flagbearer of this unique idea of Rural Tourism, Naveen had encountered new issues everyday and create a distinct business idea. He could not seek inspiration from similar businesses as there were none. In this process, he also took some tough decisions. Naveen mentioned that the thumb rule of running any business is to always be in the driver’s seat. He has worked on the ground with several rural families and hence today ToRoots Explorers has built one of the strongest networks of village communities that draw income from rural tourism.
The third session by Shipra Bhutani, MD & CEO of Capacita Connect inspired the audience and left them deeply impressed with the unique path that she has traversed. She and her team worked hard to create a digital platform for industries looking for skilled labor. Her venture is one of the only 12 companies in India to have an official association with NSDC as an innovation partner. She shared that most of her lessons have come a hard way. But the biggest takeaway from Shipra’s journey is that adversities will come and go but in order to survive the market, it is important to never give up.
Fourth session was by Sharad Bansal, Co-Founder & CEO of Tinkerly, who believes that the traditional education system is incomplete. His team has created a large number of physical products as well as online education sessions to inculcate a deeper practical knowledge among students. The audience was mesmerized and inspired to know the core value system of Tinkerly. He shared his experience of the many challenges that he had to overcome to convince schools regarding this model. Today, Tinkerly has benefitted over 75000 students with their unique program. One of the most important lessons that we took from this session was that in order to start your own venture, before everything else, it is most important to have an undeterred conviction on your idea and the business model. The value that you add to your customers must always be above and beyond everything.
Last but not the least Ch Vaishnav, Founder of Aviotron Automations took the stage for an exciting journey. From the word go, every person in the audience could relate with him and feel his passion towards his business. As shared his unique idea and even more distinct journey, we understood that starting a venture may appear fancy on the outside but it takes courage, conviction and a lot of groundwork on the inside. He specifically mentioned that the purpose of a startup must always primarily be to solve a problem that exists. Everything else becomes secondary. Through his inspiring session, the audience learnt that before turning an idea into a business, we must have a clear vision on where do we see that idea in the years to come. And this must be a vision that is good enough to keep us going everyday of our lives as entrepreneurs.
The session witnessed a gathering of close to 50 participants from the diverse background of Jaipur’s entrepreneurial and startup community. This is one of the many initiatives that Startup Grind Jaipur has planned for the ecosystem and for the distinct community that they have created. As Coffic shares the same ideology, this partnership would definitely go a long way to ensure that together they can create an environment and atmosphere that supports young hustlers and encourages them through the various nuances of their journey. Startup Grind Jaipur and Coffic hope that this celebration continues with more and more success stories coming out from all over the state.
