Comments on: Does Sri Lanka Have A Start-Up Culture?

By: indi.ca » Colombo Hackathon (#cmbhackathon)

indi.ca » Colombo Hackathon (#cmbhackathon) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 12:37:19 +0000

[...] (from ticketslk and create.ly, among others) sitting and giving great advice. A while back I asked if Sri Lanka really had a startup culture. Now I think it does. This is it. [...]

By: Praveena Sarathchandra

Praveena Sarathchandra — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:54:31 +0000

I 100% agree with MahoTrain. We, as Sri Lankans are good at being confined into our comfort zones and conventional thinking, as our parents and grand parents did in their days. (The correct Sinhalese saying is “dena de kaala, wena de balaagena siteema”) We’re also afraid to take risks and thus avoid great opportunities fearing they’ll “fail”. How pathetic! Most students grow up without having a proper “vision” for their future life (trapped in the tuition-mafia) or most of them bear the same mentality, wanting to become either a Dr/Lawyer/Engineer. Who wants to become “entrepreneurs”? It’s time for a change else we will remain as a nation with no voice!

By: indi.ca » This Week In Startups, Colombo

indi.ca » This Week In Startups, Colombo — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:18:48 +0000

[...] not quite sure) and are looking for five startups to pitch on their show. I’ve previously written about startup culture (or the lack thereof), but it’s obviously developing. So who’s going to [...]

By: Kirigalpoththa

Kirigalpoththa — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:01:12 +0000

@Dilsiri,

I have seen kitesurfinglanka growing from strength to strength.
Keep it going! It has great potential!!

By: shammi

shammi — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:17:54 +0000

HEY, wait a minute. Was our Dodo ……?? oooooooo!

By: shammi

shammi — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 09:04:53 +0000

Couldn’t resist throwing that in ;) and really Dodo, lately this government has decided to do a lot of things we thought couldn’t be done. Anyway, lots of businesses are carried out on land leased from the state, and from what I’ve heard about the bill it’s rather vague on what underutilized exactly means, that’s the problem.

By: shammi

shammi — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 08:40:55 +0000

Lol! I hope you have a lot of success. To my utmost horror my son’s stated ambition in life is to do something like that, and in typical Sri Lankan parent fashion my response was that he should make use of the free education he’s been blessed with first.

By: Yudhanjaya

Yudhanjaya — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:08:04 +0000

“The environment we are brought up in does not support the need to take risk.”
Possibly one of the best explanations. People in Sri Lanka are grown into this O/L –> A/L –> get your rear into campus —> everything will be A-OK mentality. And most of them expect to be hit successes within days of starting up something new; when that success doesn’t arrive, MEEP.

[ I make games. People call me mental ].

By: Magerata

Magerata — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 07:02:24 +0000

I wrote a long comment about how I am making money with the internet, not exactly blogging. I am sure you are very well capable of doing a good job of pro blogging and leading a few wise guys you can easily find. I know some of of those so called Pro Bloggers and wonder “why the Fcuk someone pay them such money?
Start ups are not that hard. In our tea estate, we gave one hour in the morning and in the evening for people who live in the estate and work, to grow vegetables. We gave the land as well. All in communal basis. I hear now, that one entrepreneurial couple buys the vegetables from others and take a quite a big load of vegetables to wholesale market or such thing. The negative is that they spend the money on alcohol and fight in the evening, more than before. So I wonder how long it will last.
But I am sure there are other possible start-ups for SL for sure. More likely what you need is somebody to bankroll new ideas. Find a rich guy who understands technology.
How about inventing a proper Chili pepper drying machine? (so I can travel to Jaffna without having to sneeze all the way with Chili peppers lying by the side of the road. That will be a good startup

By: the way of the dodo

the way of the dodo — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 06:53:29 +0000

Shammi the government can’t decide whether your assets are under utilized. It can only decide on assets built on government owned land. ;)

The problem with start ups in the lack of financing. Banks are reluctant to give you money unless you have a repo with them. But there are quite number of sucessful start ups. And phenomenally successful businessmen who made thier money with startups. Ashok Pathirage got into bussiness with nothing but eventually opened softlogic and then branched out. dammika perera, most likely the richest person in sri lanka, started off operating a handful of slot machines.

By: shammi

shammi — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:55:14 +0000

It’s definitely a cultural thing, the family will never countenance mortgaging the house to raise cash for an uncertain venture, but will happily do so to pay for an education, and the opposite seems to be the case with Muslims families.

Well, now there’s another demotivator. What if the government decides your assets were underutilized? I’m surprised no one’s organised any mass protest or something against this yet.

By: Dilsiri Welikala

Dilsiri Welikala — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:09:59 +0000

The environment we are brought up in does not support the need to take risk. However with exposure you slowly get the confidence and by luck or chance (or prayer) you start to build the networks.

Kitsurfing Sri Lanka started off as a simple blog but now has nov evolved to an establishment through its training and hospitality arm Kitesurfing Lanka (www.kitesurfinglanka.com).

Will we fail? Will be succeed? We dont know but as my friend Tim said, you need to have the balls to just it. Take a risk.

By: Dee

Dee — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:21:40 +0000

I guess the states was established with people coming with the clothes on their backs trying to make a buck through entrepreneurship and other ventures. We’ve got the island mentality. Agree with MahoTrain on the education also…Maths and Science is good, Commerce mediocre and Arts the least accepted in some families. (Arts? What can you do with arts?)… I’m not generalizing but its true to an extent. So entrepreneurship takes the back seat.

By: Tania

Tania — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 02:04:28 +0000

While Virtusa may be a service oriented organozation, Millennium IT is still very much a software house. I believe there are plenty of other (comparatively smaller) IT startups that have come up in the last decade or two (ie. hSenid, E-College, empriseIT, etc.). Most of these (if not all) are because of one individual who have ‘broken away’ from the usual employment and gone their own way.

By: MahoTrain

MahoTrain — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:32:25 +0000

The general belief is not helping towards a start-up culture. Everyone is trying to be a doctor, engineer or an accountant. Eventually to work under someone.

The education system also not geared to it. Entrepreneurship was never taught in school. We hardly found any impetus even at tertiary level (But right now there is some movement @ University of Moratuwa – http://www.ft.lk/2011/11/05/ndb-bank-sponsors-entrepreneurship-training-at-university-of-moratuwa/)

We are culturally backward and afraid to get failed. Need to break it. Perhaps need a bit of bait like the ‘mars bar’. Also remember ideas can come from the most inhibited places. Trick is to get it out and trigger innovation. We have to keep trying..

By: Chama Peiris

Chama Peiris — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 18:08:53 +0000

Good article again Indi. We could meet up sometime & have a discussion :)