World Entrepreneurs Day

On World Entrepreneurs Day, AIC – SMU Technology Business Incubator hosted an inspiring hybrid session to honor the relentless journey of startup founders.

The event brought together over 30 founders and innovators from the North East and Darjeeling region.
Who truly understands the challenges and struggles of building a venture? Not the incubator, not the mentor, not the venture capitalist—only fellow entrepreneurs can truly relate and offer the support and understanding needed during tough times.

A Heart-to-Heart Conversation between fellow entrepreneurs was the Center Stage of celebration. They shared their challenges, dreams, and experiences in building their venture. “The only job where one works 80-100 hours per week so that you don’t have to work 40 hours per week for other” as so rightly said by Ratan Kumar from Encamp Adventures .

A special highlight was hearing from Mr. Vaibhav Kaushik, co-founder of Nawgati. Vaibhav narrated his journey of building a B2B SAAS product for efficient monitoring of fuel stations for large oil and gas companies. Nawgati diversified into a product (app) that helped customers fuel their vehicles more efficiently. They were featured on Shark Tank Season 2 and got funded by two sharks. Today, their user base is 1.5 million and have added many more oil and gas companies to their list of clients and is valued at 100 crores.

Mr Abhimanyu Dhakal, President, of Unnati Foundation an alumni startup of AIC-SMUTBI shared the Government of India’s flagship scheme for the North-East, the Unnati Scheme (Uttar Poorva Transformative Industrialization Scheme) to the fellow startup founders and suggested how they could leverage each other’s strength to make the best of such schemes in North East India.

To all the startup founders who joined us, thank you for your honesty, wisdom, and camaraderie. You are the heart and soul of the entrepreneurial community, and we’re proud to be part of your journey. We’re excited to continue supporting and empowering entrepreneurs through future events, resources, and a strong network of like-minded individuals.