Welcome to start-up city

Young Bangalore cocks a snook at the downturn and hops on to the entrepreneurship bandwagon. They say it's fun doing what they want

Welcome to start-up city

Young Bangalore cocks a snook at the downturn and hops on to the entrepreneurship bandwagon. They say it's fun doing what they want

The start-up capital of Indian is seeing more and more young professionals giving cushy jobs the boot and becoming entrepreneurs.

Jyoti Ramnath, 27, for instance, used to be a software developer and designer for a multinational company well-paid and secure.

"Yes, I took a risk," says Jyoti. "And it's still going on the company is young and evolving. But we are doing extremely good business despite the economic crisis and we have fun doing it."

There are others like Jyoti. Satish, 27, gave up his job as a software engineer for Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and start Design Ectopics, a company that does everything foru00a0 websites, from marketing and advertising to logo and branding.

Satish made his move last October when the downturn was giving most people in the industry goosebumps.
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"When you believe in the quality of your service, you are not afraid of any crisis," says Satish. "I felt I was an entrepreneur. I did it to follow my passion."

Sachin Lakharia
Get what you want

Then there's Sachin Lakharia, 28, whose businesscard displays two titles he always wanted to hold: "Founder and CEO".

"I wanted to start my own company since my college days," says Sachin. There is never a right time to do that. I just felt I had to make it."

But he admits that some people were scared for him when he decided to give up a promising career in the US to start his own business.

Sachin worked for seven years in the United States for companies such as Ameriquest and Nextag. Six months ago, he flew home and launched Shopnics.com u2013 a website that allows customers to compare specifications and prices of products like cameras and Mp3 players before to buy them.

"My friends and family implored me not to do it," says Sachin with a laugh. "They didn't want me to leave a job during a recession."

Today, he has statistics to show them. Every month, 10, 000 users log on to his website.

The city of entrepreneurs
Start-up City was an event, organised by professional network Siliconindia.
There were start-ups in every field internet, software, biotech, you name it.
Organisers say, 5,000 delegates attended the event at the Nimhans Convention Center.
According to managing editor of Siliconindia, Pradeep Shankar, Bangalore has around 1,000 start-ups in India. "But these are only product start-ups. This number excludes all service companies."

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