Home to a large and growing group of tech-savvy youngsters, Bangladesh is gradually becoming a major startup hub. The scene is particularly exciting in the capital, where the use of Internet is growing at an exponential rate.
To highlight this brewing culture, as well as to encourage and inspire locals to become entrepreneurs, organisers of last November’s StartupBashBD produced a film entitled Startup Dhaka through which the film’s director Mustafiz Khan wanted to draw global attention to the country’s steps towards technology-based entrepreneurship.
Feature presentation
Md Fahad Ifaz, co-founder of Amarcv.com, comments on the film: “At first I did not know what to expect from Startup Dhaka, but after it came out, getting featured seemed more than just a cool thing. In fact, it was an organised effort to document the issues that startles any new business, the motivation and the story behind every little dream.”
Amarcv.com is a web-based platform where fresh graduates or any job seeker can create their CVs by simply entering required information on a step-by-step process. The idea first came to the founder’s mind from his observation of his relatives and friends facing difficulty in making their CVs.
Among other pioneering enterprises featured in the film are Amar Desh Amar Gram, a website that links rural farmers and urban consumers, Chaldal, an online grocery store and Dugdugi, a website for listening to and downloading Bangla songs.
Mustafiz addresses the act that there are only a handful of women entrepreneurs in the film.
“Tech startups have globally been a male-dominated sector and there is no logical explanation of why this is. In Bangladesh, however, the ratio is comparatively impressive. Through this film, I have deliberately focused more on women in the field.”
For example, they interview the founders of Maya, the first Bangladeshi website entirely dedicated to women, expressing the need for more encouragement and contribution from the society to empower women.
Show me the money
“There are innovative entrepreneurs building inspiring business models in Bangladesh, who can disrupt industries at a global scale, like NewsCred,” says Fayaz Taher, an angel investor currently based in Bangladesh. Newscred is a leading startup founded in Bangladeshi that recently raised $25m in investment.
Through this film, the founders say they have tried to not only create awareness and inspire entrepreneurship, but also show the pathway to start a business, starting from getting financed. It introduces sources of funds which are quite new to Bangladesh, despite expressing concern about the lack of trust and regulatory framework needed to establish a formal angel network in Bangladesh.
“Angel investment is a viable funding option for startups in Bangladesh, where startups can find an angel or a group of angels here to purchase equity of their company, and get not only monetary funding, but also an invaluable rolodex of contacts and priceless experience and knowledge,” says Samad Miraly, investor at Empty Ventures.
The film itself raised funds through a campaign in Indiegogo, an international platform where people from anywhere in the world with access to international payments options can contribute to finance a project, where it raised an amount that exceeded 6% of their initial target. Crowd funding on the Internet is yet to receive popularity in our country but traditional crowd funding where we seek money from our relatives and friends has been – and continues to be – practiced.
Samad’s take on such funding is simple. “There’s more to funding startups than just money. You also need people with expert opinions to guide you in the initial stages of starting out which is not available through crowd funding.”
The patriots
Founders of Startup Dhaka dream of creating a better Bangladesh for all through entrepreneurship. In the future, they want to explore local ventures, which will not be restricted to technology startups only.
“With 160 million people and over 100 million mobile subscribers, Bangladesh is the ideal destination for innovation, and our ideas will soon turn into businesses that will accelerate our economic growth,” said the first-time director.
The “story of possibilities,” as they refer the film, showcases the positive expectations about Bangladeshi entrepreneurship to the world. This leaves only one option for the youth: to believe in their ideas, and get started.
Mustafiz adds: “We wanted this to be a voice saying: “We are here to help you with your dreams.’”