Shankar Uprety is the creator of Hamro Patro, number one app of Nepal and founder and CEO of Hamro Patro enterprise.

He created Hamro Patro in 2010 while he was working in silicon valley but it was in 2013, the usage of the app took off exponentially as the android phone came to hands of everyday Nepali people. Hamro Patro is the most popular Nepali app with billion requests per month.

In this podcast interview, we talk about his entrepreneurial journey: his aspirations as a young student to make things that can be useful for everyone and his decision to take the leap of faith and coming to Nepal leaving behind his thriving career in silicon valley.

We also talked about being an entrepreneur as an introvert in the culture that regards extroversion as a requirement for being an entrepreneur. He says that introverted characteristics such as problem-identifying and consistency are key assets to an entrepreneur. Also, introverts can create the right team and work on their social skills and there is no reason to hold back.

He shared the dilemma that as a creator, you don’t want to compromise on creating the best quality world-class products but as an entrepreneur, you also need to be realistic about the limitations of the Nepali market. But he is very optimistic about the increasing interest and increased funding in Nepali entrepreneurial scene.

He also emphasized that we need a strong education system for us to be innovative and competitive in the IT sector. Though passion and self-learning can make people like him lead the forefront of innovation, individual passion alone cannot make all students equipped and empowered enough. He strongly believes that we need to prioritize on having strong educational and institutional foundations so that not only lucky 5% but all the remaining 95% students can also flourish and explore their dreams.

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