Tamilpreneur

In this episode of Tamilpreneur,  Rajamanohar is joining us.

Rajamanohar Somasundaram is the Founder & CEO of Aquaconnect, a full-stack aquaculture technology platform. 

Around five million rural farmers and coastal communities depend on shrimp and fish aquaculture, where traditional farming practices prevent them from achieving production efficiency and disease prediction.

In 2019, He was awarded '40 UNDER 40 Ecosapien' by The New Indian Express for the promotion of sustainable aquaculture practices in Asia.

Aquaconnect has recently raised its Series B funding of $15 million led by Lok Capital.

The complete episode can be accessed at Tamilpreneur Club.  Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1000+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho, Freshworks) worth INR 10 Lacs
• 30+ recorded sessions

In this episode of Tamilpreneur,  Arun Prakash is joining us.

Arun Prakash, a graduate of a tier-2 city college in Madurai co-founded a one-of-a-kind learning platform called GUVI along with his wife Sri Devi and friend Bala Murugan.

His YouTube tutorial on coding in ‘Tanglish’ had hit one million views which encouraged Prakash to start GUVI

GUVI’s platform offers live classes and self-paced courses across C++, Python, Java, Big data, ML and R programming in major regional languages including Tamil.

GUVI was incubated at IIT- Madras's Rural Technology Business Incubator in 2014.

HCL has recently acquired a majority stake in GUVI. Both HCL and GUVI are working together to create more skilled tech professionals in India and abroad

The complete episode can be accessed at Tamilpreneur Club.

Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1000+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho, Freshworks) worth INR 10 Lacs
• 30+ recorded sessions

Premanand Sethurajan needs no introduction if you watch YouTube and love science.

Premanand is the founder of Let's Make Education Simple (LMES) Academy, which started with a YouTube channel in 2014, today has over 1.6 million subscribers and clocked a total of over 17 Crore views since its inception.

Later, he went on to start multiple ventures around education and career enablement for students with Chitti App, and PickMyCareer.

Chitti App is a learning platform for K-12 students that explains the curriculum-oriented syllabus in an entertaining and interesting manner with real-time stories and animations.

PickMyCareer helps school students to find their dream careers. Their AI-based career assessment, personalized career report, one on one expert session will help the students to find their career interest and maps them to the field that best fits their career.

To watch the full interview, Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1000+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Virtual Networking session.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho, Freshworks) worth INR 10 Lacs

In this episode of Tamilpreneur,  Jahabar Sadique is joining us. He is the Cofounder and CEO of Chai Kings.

Chai Kings is a Chennai-based QSR retail chain Chai Kings raised $1 Mn from The Chennai Angels (TCA), Hyderabad Angels, and TiE India Angels. They target to reach 100 stores in 5 years.

Chai Kings sells over 25,000 cups of tea per day, including deliveries and corporate orders. On an average, 7.5 lakh cups of various kinds of tea are sold per month through its 40 stores.

To watch the full interview, Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1000+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Virtual Networking session.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho, Freshworks) worth INR 10 Lacs

We tend to overestimate the city life when we are in a village or rural area. We also undermine the life of people living in rural areas. 

Some of the biggest entrepreneurial lessons are hidden in rural villages. It's in the simplest of things.

Just like a tea kadai. Think about it. The tea kada annachi is the one gathers the information. He is the community manager.

The tea kada bench is the community platform for discussing interesting stuffs that happen in any particular village.

Have you had similar experiences, share it with us :)

Mukkiyama,

Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1100+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Virtual Networking session.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho) worth INR 10 Lacs

In this episode of Tamilpreneur,  Rajesh Kumar is joining us.

Rajesh is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kalvium. Prior to Kalvium, he co-founded Faceprep (famously known as FACE Academy)

In my honest opinion, parents and students both look for placement opportunities as a key factor before choosing a college. And in 4 years, lot of things change in the job market - whereas the college curriculum still remains the same.
Bottomline : "College doesn't prepare you for the Job Market"

Enter Kalvium. Kalvium is India's first liberal engineering program in Computer Science.

• Classroom learning while building real world applications.
• Guaranteed Placement at the end of 1st year in leading Global Tech Companies

Well, who knows the job market better than the employers themselves. The course curriculum is designed by top CXO's of the tech industry such as Cred, Flipkart, Ola.

They teach you skills that you make you industry ready today and future proof tomorrow. In addition, you graduate with three years of industry experience.

Beauty right !! Lets dig deep in this interview with Rajesh.

Join Tamilpreneur Club - a family of 1000+ Tamil speaking entrepreneurs. You get

• Exclusive App based Digital Community.
• Interactions with Startup Founders.
• Startup Masterclasses in Tamil.
• Virtual Networking session.
• Discounts on Sangamam and Workshops.
• Startup Credits (AWS, Zoho) worth INR 10 Lacs

Bored of our interviews? Here we come, UNCENSORED - an unbiased discussion on everything in and around the startup ecosystem For this week, we discuss the following,

• Invact Metaversity Panjayathu
• Tiger Global - Pasithaal Puliyum Pullai Sapdum
• Indian Startups - Velai Illa Pattadhari - Layoffs Spree
• "Kaasu Ila Bha" - Slow down in VC/PE Fund Flow
• Funding Scenario for TN Startups
• "En Vazhi, Thani Vazhi" - Kunal Shah, Founder - CRED
• "Ini Elarume Amazon/Flipkart Aagalam" - Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC)
• "Recession Adhiyavasiyam" - Elon Musk
• Internal Tech Email - Private Conversations of Elon Musk with other Founders and Investors
• Live Q&A with Tamilpreneur Club Members

This episode was recorded on June 10, 2022.

It feels so happy to see people from Tamilnadu are delivering world class products, but disappointing at the same time that no one is bringing out their stories.

Meet Prasath Prabhakaran, Sandeep Prabhakaran and Udhaya Chandran the Co-founders of Timeless Ventures.

They have built products & apps for Smallcase, Ditto Insurance, Freshworks, Chargebee, Privacy.com and much more.  Building world class designs just sitting at Pallikaranai, Chennai :)

Their workplace design would definitely inspire one to think different. The founders were so polite and friendly. Sandeep Prabhakaran is also an entertainer who always keeps his team cheerful. Found him sharing a joke with one of his newly married teammate with hands on his shoulders. They have fun friday, play games together and lot of benefits for employees.

They are hiring for different roles like Senior Product Designer, Marketing Intern, Marketing Associate, & HR  Interested people please send an email to hello@timeless.co

It feels so happy to see people from Tamilnadu are delivering world class products, but disappointing at the same time that no one is bringing out their stories. 

Meet Prasath Prabhakaran, Sandeep Prabhakaran and Udhaya Chandran the Co-founders of Timeless Ventures.

They have built products & apps for Smallcase, Ditto Insurance, Freshworks, Chargebee, Privacy.com and much more.  Building world class designs just sitting at Pallikaranai, Chennai :)

Their workplace design would definitely inspire one to think different. The founders were so polite and friendly. Sandeep Prabhakaran is also an entertainer who always keeps his team cheerful. Found him sharing a joke with one of his newly married teammate with hands on his shoulders. They have fun friday, play games together and lot of benefits for employees.  

They are hiring for different roles like Senior Product Designer, Marketing Intern, Marketing Associate, & HR  Interested people please send an email to hello@timeless.co

Just like a family doctor, let's have a family farmer"   

A typical city brought up who had grown up hearing about connecting to the roots by her father. As an young entrepreneur, Archana Stalin took the lessons from her first venture and created myHarvest Farms in 2016. 

myHarvest Farms is a company which delivers fresh produce and organic food directly to customers. Today they have more than 100 farmers serving more than 2800 families with their list grown from 40 items to 200 items. Building a healthy community which enjoys safe, healthy food and practices natural way of living has been the dream of Archana and team. Service to humanity has always been in her mind. She had started an NGO while in college with the sole aim of serving people. Today, she serves as a mentor to many startups and her growth as an entrepreneur in immense.  

Few key learnings from her : 

1. Pilot your product
2. Pivot when required
3. Necessity will help you take the next step
4. Empathize with your customer
5. Own your decision   

Pilot your product(MVP) 

Archana and team started with 1 farm and 18 families to pilot their model. They started small so that they can practically learn and understand their mistakes. This pilot phase helped them iterate and work constantly on their model.

Pivot when required

Covid was an unexpected bash for many and so was for myHarvest Farms. They were operating earlier in the subscription model and had to pivot to D2C model when situations demanded.   "It was not us, but the local supply chain that won", says Archana.

Necessity

It will help you take the next step Started with a small terrace garden, understood the basics and decided to setup their own farm. Once they started farming, they learnt that there are seasonal vegetables and certain vegetables doesn't grow in certain areas. This urged them to travel to learn and create the ecosystem that is present today.  

Empathize

Managing Supply chain was difficult in covid times. And unexpected delays were unavoidable. Being transparent with their customers had helped and Archana insists on being empathetic. Empathizing with customers and farmers has helped them earn their customers' and farmers' trust.  

Own your decision 

Mohan, CEO of Ippopay walks us through the story behind the name Ippopay and How it impressed even an Investor !!

Today's guest is a renowned tedX speaker.

Today's guest's father is a policeman.

Should I say "like father like son" and introduce Vijay as the mastermind behind the startup which

acts like a policemen for NFTs or 

Should I say "Growing up at Sankaran koil to starting up in Munich, Germany"

Well well, 

We have Vijay Pravin Maharajan talk about bitsCrunch - The guardian angel for NFTs.

We talk about, 

• Data is the next oil ? no ! data is the next gold ! How Vijay's expertise in Data science is helping him in his startup ?
• India troubles you so much if you are starting up in NFT/crypto space ? Just kidding...
• How VC are racing towards funding NFT based startups 
• The art of Channelizing VC money once you raise funds
• Blue tick for NFT's ? will make sense once you hear it :)

Bored of our interviews ?

Here we come, UNCENSORED - an unbiased discussion on everything in and around startup ecosystem

For this week, we BEEP on

• If you liked Squid Game token at $2800, you will definitely like it at $0.0007
• Elon's feast to solve world hunger problem
• Bajaj will eat only OATS for breakfast it seems
• Coinbase acquired Bengaluru based startup
• We have an idea for 5min delivery. We will be raising $120M soon
• Nykaa IPpO enna panranga
• Tamilpreneur Fellowship program
• Top names from Tamilpreneur Fellowship Program
• We have an idea for electric charging stations
• Commercial vehicles or Consumer vehicles : who will adopt e-vehicle first
• YC's NET Worth
• Are we living in the METAVERSE already ?
• METAVERSE is not Mark's original idea ?
• Eyyy, Metaverse ku oru Competitor parcel.

So, for today's Masterclass, (Drumroll) Let me welcome myself.

The masterclass is about User-research. 

So I'll kill your time for a few minutes without going into the episode with the takeaways from 

MacAppStudio Suresh's episode. You ask why ? Because it is important.

We don't want you to miss important things, 

If you asked an entrepreneur " what's the one thing that you miss doing during the pandemic ?" He'd say innovation.

None of us is as smart as all of us. When you need to innovate, you need collaboration

VISA Tamizh Sangham kelvi patrukingala ?

If I told you Tamilnadu's greatest fintech startup came out of tea conversation, would you believe ?

M2P's CEO and co-founder Madhusudanan is here to tell you why you should believe and,

1. How did Kunal shah invest in his startup ?

2. How Kunal shah is paying it forward for the startup ecosystem ?

3. How it was decided to take a profitable bootstrapped startup to venture funded startup ?

4. Seed stage to Series A, B, C : how to plan ?

5. How did M2P capitalize demonetization and pandemic lockdown

6. How is M2P revolutionizing banking systems ?

7. The founder market fit Myth 

8. Why M2P is investing in fintech startups like Ippo Pay ?

9. Chennai, a Fin-tech capital ? "Not at all, We are not doing enough"

The startup series in Tamil covers everything from why to startup and how to startup with daily examples from the startups and mobile applications that you see and use.  

In this episode: 

Shyam Prasad is a 25 year young social activist who has delivered more 500+ motivational talks. But his blood flows into the heart of vegroute. Although his job title "COO" would make one believe he handles only the operations, one would realize he is Master of all trades once you listen to his startup journey

In this episode, we have a Visionary Mr.Kumar Vembu of Vembu brothers. Kumar Vembu is the CEO of Gofrugal technologies. In this episode, 

 1. What made Kumar Vembu to quit a job at Silicon Valley and come to India?

 2. How did Kumar Vembu and Sridhar Vembu develop startup mentality during late 90s

 3. Kumar Vembu's Employee to entrepreneur Phase

 4. Flashback on telephone and internet connection in the 90s

 5. Made in India, Sold in America - A Vembu brothers partnership.

6. How do you develop intrapreneurship culture in minds of your employees ?

 7. How to choose between bootstrapping and raising funds for your startup ?

 9. How does Kumar Vembu make his investments in startups ?

 10. Made in India, For India - A Kumar Vembu Venture.

Curious to know who's behind Tamilpreneur ?

Founded in December 2016 and bagging many awards from Central Ministry, Webboombaa was co-founded by Mr. Durairaju, who faced multiple failures in his college life, but a winner of Top 30 under 30 award from Impact Weekly Magazine, and his co-founders and friends, Sarath Ravikumar and Varun Kumar. Mr. Durai is also one of the few founders who has taken an exit from his startup.

Mr. Durairaju is an Engineering Graduate from Anna University, Marketing and Operations Graduate (MBA) from Sri Sairam Group of Institutions, Artificial Intelligence Powered Marketing Graduate from IIM, Calcutta and also learnt Product Growth and Marketing from GrowthX.

He was a Business development Student Ambassador in Uniq Technologies, Co-Founder and CEO of Astute Fanfare, and now is also the Co-Founder of Brandinfluencerz. His startup Astutue Fanfare was started while he was a college student.

Want to learn more about a Startup, founded by a Marketing executive and his friends? Tap the Play Button!