Initiating an entrepreneurial venture in a small town is a daunting task.

But today the number of entrepreneurs tapping the opportunities available in small towns are on a steady rise. The will power to overcome challenges and a strong passion to make a difference in the lives of thousands residing in small towns is making these entrepreneurs strive for excellence. Priya C Nair chats up with three such entrepreneurs

Enhancing rural employability When Richa Pandey Mishra, founder & CEO, Ejeevika HR Pvt. Ltd wanted to start something on her own, she was determined to cater to the rural youth by exploring the rural space of Tamilnadu. Thus, she initiated eJeevika that provides industry specific vocational training to unemployed rural youth and connects them to corporate India. We thought, if we could connect rural youth to corporate India, it would mobilise growth of the country. Our target group is the unemployed youth aged between 18-35 years, says Mishra. Mishra explains how she translated the idea into reality. I contacted Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala, the chairman of Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI), a registered society established under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras with a mission to design, pilot and incubate business ventures with a rural focus. He agreed to include me in the vocational training team of RTBI and conduct a pilot in rural areas of Tamilnadu. The pilot was aimed to find out if ICT could be used to bridge the skill gap by creating entrepreneurial network that makes rural youth employable in high growth industries. We were able to successfully train and place around 75 candidates in the pilot by training them on retail sales content. eJeevika was incorporated after the success of this pilot study. But starting up something in the rural space is even more challenging. The rural space is fragmented and vast. Some times things that work well in urban areas do not hold on long in rural areas. The exploratory phase for a start up working in rural areas is longer. You know when to start, but when the exploration will be over, is a question that remains unanswered, says Mishra. To overcome the challenges, Mishra did a thorough study to understand the socio- economic complexities of rural side and fine tuned her strategies accordingly. As a result of her ground work, Mishra made customised multilingual training content for the rural youth, which helped a lot in training the people more effectively. Mishra believes that there is vast scope for rural entrepreneurs as there are comparatively lesser players in the rural space and there are a lot of unaddressed issues and pain points that will require startups to venture into. Healthcare to rural folk For Dr Ashwin Naik, co-founder and CEO, Vaatsalya Healthcare, the idea to start a healthcare facility that serves people in the rural areas came from his own experience. Coming from a small town in Karnataka, I was aware of the lack of good healthcare facilities which can cater to the needs of the rural and semi-urban population. Thus after my studies, I conceptualised the idea of providing affordable and efficient healthcare services in small towns, says Naik. One of my collegemates, Dr Veerendra Hiremath, who had specialised in hospital administration after graduation, also supported me. We decided to focus on semi-urban and rural areas as those are the areas where the lack of good healthcare facilities is very pronounced. We put together a rough business plan to start the company. Our vision was to create a financially sustainable business which could have a significant social impact, adds Naik. But there were several impediments in Naiks route to success, the prominent ones were those of funding and infrastructure. As an enterprise focused on new markets, we had very few backers as investors. We got around this challenge by raising our first angel investment from NRI investors (who are originally from small towns) who believed in the concept and understood the demand for such services. Subsequently, based on our pilot, we were able to rise funding from Aavishkaar, a micro venture capital fund based in Mumbai for expansion to other towns, explains Naik.

The other challenge was lack of supporting infrastructure like power, water, connectivity and real estate for supporting hospitals. As a young organisation, we could not invest in the supporting infrastructure, says Naik. He feels that the government support in the infrastructure development is still very limited. However, Naik and his team overpowered the challenges and today, Vaatsalya has seven hospitals across Karnataka and are planning to start 15 more. According to Naik, starting a venture in an emerging territory has the advantage of being a first mover, and hence better brand recognition at an early stage. Naik is of the opinion that most enterprises in small towns face similar problems, challenges and opportunities, so an online network of enterprises focused on rural and semi-urban areas where best practices and technical expertise can be shared would be a of great help for aspiring rural entrepreneurs and also the existing ones. On for a transformation SourcePilani, a rural enterprise in Pilani, Rajasthan provides high quality, low cost backoffice services in the areas of medical transcription, form processing, lead generation/tele-surveys and vernacular voice services. SourcePilani was founded in 2007 with a vision of bridging the digital divide and to generate employment and wealth among the rural masses. I did my studies from BITS Pilani and knew the rural dynamics very well. There is abundance of talent which goes untapped in Pilani. The business model made a lot of sense since we were extending the BPO industry landscape into rural India to be more competitive in the market in terms of pricing. Also, we provide an opportunity to corporates to engage in a transformed CSR activity by outsourcing to an organisation like us employing a 100% rural workforce, explains Manoj Vasudevan, CEO, SourcePilani. Even though Vasudevan managed to source the seed capital from the Goenka Group, there were other challenges for him. One of the biggest challenges was the telecom infrastructure problem. The only internet service provider in Pilani was BSNL and we applied for an office broadband connection in the first week of our inception. But they made delays and we did not have an internet connection for three whole months. This was inspite of one of our person going to their regional office in Jhunjhunu (50 kms away) everyday. Finally, we wrote to the Union Telecom Minister complaining about this issue and within a week, the connection was up and running, explains Vasudevan about the initial hiccups. He believes that things like this can really deter the passionate entrepreneur and its really important to weather out the storm whenever you encounter one. According to Vasudevan, it is much harder to execute a rural venture rather than a venture in a city. We need to take into account the rural dynamics rural people have, special set of needs and aspirations which have to be nurtured and protected. The employer-employee relationship can become very volatile since we are bringing employment to their doorsteps. Also, rural areas are majorly politicised environments which mean having to deal with emotionally charged people. With recession kicking in, I think there will be more focus on greener ideas and ideas that focus on social entrepreneurship, believes Vasudevan. Mahatma Gandhi said the soul of India lies in the villages and these entrepreneurs are going by his words and are trying to provide better lives for the millions in small towns, thereby benefiting the country at large.