Leading tech entrepreneurs share insights from road to success

Thursday, 6 March 2014 00:39 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Leapset played host to the Google Business Group Colombo recently, as they kicked off the year with their first event – ‘Starting a Startup?’ The meet-up that targeted young entrepreneurs from the industry saw speakers from four successful Sri Lankan tech start-ups share the lessons they learned over the course of launching their businesses.

“As a successful Silicon Valley start-up, we have seen first-hand the ability for disruptive tech companies to generate enormous value in very short periods of time,” said Leapset Managing Director Sri Lanka and Senior Vice President of Engineering Shanil Fernando. “The future for Sri Lanka’s IT industry is in developing disruptive products and technologies for the global markets, and it will be the tech entrepreneurs who will lead this change. That is why it was our pleasure to host this GBG event and support aspiring Sri Lankan tech entrepreneurs. The first speaker for the night was Leapset General Manager Rasika Karunatilake. He covered the critical steps that every entrepreneur and innovator needs to go through in order to be successful. Drawing examples from the valley, as well as from his own experience at Leapset, he laid out a simple step by step approach for aspiring entrepreneurs and highlighted examples of recent successes to emerge from the valley. Creately and Cynergix CEO and co-cofounder Chandika Jayasudara was the next to address the crowd and delivered a presentation on ‘Finding Success in Entrepreneurship’. Drawing from his own experiences he explained how the start-ups that succeed are those that can roll with the punches, and pivot when they are faced with hurdles. Jayomi Lokuliyana’s presentation followed as co-founder and CEO of Sri Lanka’s first mobile marketing company, zMessenger. Jayomi focused on the process of turning and idea into a great business. She challenged many of the preconceived notions surrounding tech start-ups, and emphasized the importance of the sales and marketing team in achieving success. Finally Dr. Romesh Ranawana closed out the evening with a presentation that urged the audience to reassess the role that higher education plays in entrepreneurship. Delving into his presentation on ‘Disruptive Innovation through Research’, Romesh used numerous examples to illustrate the fact that people with good higher education are the often the ones who go on to create successful tech startups, while emphasising that the days of the career academic are numbered with most PhD holders turning into entrepreneurs. If you missed the session you can watch videos of all the presentations online at engineering.leapset.com. The GBG will also be having many more events this year; you can keep up to date with their event plans by following their G+ page.