Sri Lanka is no Silicon Valley, but in the recent years, we happen to see a lot of startups in the environment. There are even events that help young generations to focus on innovative startups to develop this ecosystem. According to SLASSCOM’s survey report, there are 225 entrepreneurs in with 75% of them are just between the age of 25-35. It is also noticeable that such startups have influenced the economy pattern of the nation in a positive way as well. Not to mention, the revenue of such entrepreneurs is above LKR150M.

With 18 investors in the country, many entrepreneurs are coming up with their innovative ideas that lead them to the business of that innovations as well. It is also to be told that according to the Budget proposal by the Sri Lankan government for the year 2017, it is clearly shown that the government wants more startups around the country, especially in North and East. And that is partly why they have decided to get 200% Capital Allowances for Northern Province Investors, and 100% Capital Allowance for Eastern Province Investors.

It is not only about the role these startups play in the economy but also about the progress the following startups have seen in their milestones and achievements. Although there are successful startups, I think startups that have recently set their foot into it need some recognition among the locals.

I have chosen 20 of the startups in Sri Lanka among the 100s of the startups that are fast growing and that need to be encouraged in the market to innovate and achieve more.

 1. PickMe

PickMe is the Sri Lankan version of Uber. Being intrigued by the technology behind Uber, Jiffry Zulfer, the founder of PickMe, worked on to know more about GPS and GIS system. Along with the knowledge of the technology and good business mind, Jiffry and two other worked together in bringing the similar concept for the locals. But the process of bringing the product to live was hard. Jiffry and the team had to work on the concept, convincing the investors and being something new, something unique on what Uber didn’t have then. Moreover, the team wanted to revolutionze the tuk tuk system in Sri Lanka. The features of PickMe was what that interested the people here, and  The assistance of Google Maps and GPS system made things easier to calculate the fare as well. Since Uber is pretty late in Sri Lanka, it is currently a “PickMe Vs Uber” that is taking over the taxi industry in Sri Lanka.

2. Takas.lk

Takas.lk is a product of a young man who dared to oppose his family to achieve what he wants. Being a psychology student in the US, Lahiru Pathmal quit his studies and came back home to start this online portal, Takas with others  Dilendra Wimalasekara and Murtaza Moosajee. Since he wouldn’t get a job from any of the corporate companies on the island, he decided to get his dream company born. Takas is a platform that will get electronics orders in their portal to be delivered to the doorstep. Since there are warranties for the goods bought and the sources of goods are from the reputed stores which the customers find quite supportive.

3. 24/7 Techies.com

The man behind the tech support startup is Dilendra Wimalasekere who decided to provide an online portal to those in needs with technical supports in handling the latest technology. Dilendra stepped into this technology sector back in 1996 through his first company Eureka Technology Partners. Following that, he began 24/7 Techies as an online tech support which is also a part of Eureka Technologies. Right now, the company is an “accredited partner of Cisco and VMware.”

4. Liveroom

Liveroom is an Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality platform development for those who wants their imagination turned into reality. Sameera Nilupul and Chameera Wijebandara were at the university when they developed this product as their final project. Finishing their Graduation they established it into a business through the money they have collected from their family and friends. The Liveroom is basically to make sure that you never buy a bad product!

5. Senzmate.com

Johnirajh Antoncrisis and Jeyjenthan Tharmakulasingam are two outputs of the University of Moratuwa, who are actually from Jaffna. They have grown up seeing continuous climatic change especially drought which made them think of using their passion in electronics to assist the farmers during drought. Their first product was an automated sprinkler system called Digital Irrigation Automation (DIA) which would detect the environment and water the plants according to the environment. Following their innovation, they decided to build more similar products which enterprises and business would use. That was the birth of this startup, Senzmate– an IoT-based startup in Sri Lanka.

6. Erbenlab

Unlike the other famous startups of Silicon Valley which began with garages, the story of Erbenlab began from Sachira Fernando’s bedroom. Sachira, who started coding since the age of 10, has set up a forum site, ElaKiri.com, with his friends and started it as an e-mag. And in 2009, it was ranked as the 11th site that got more traffic. At that time, there are was no Facebook event, but the site has been covering and running events.

The fun forum site gradually brought up this idea, Cloudsense ERP. Sachira decided to give up on WordPress and started on cloud computing which also focused on Sri Lankan IoT Market. This project is based on the artificial intelligent cloud-based application system development which will be a resource management and planning system for the SMEs. It is notable that this product represented Sri Lanka for the 4Y4N 2016 at Barcelona, and was recognized by AWWARDS.

And then there is NicNac, one of their online product. Running errands in cities can be sometimes annoying and frustrating. NicNac allows you to order anything ranging from laundry to medical, most importantly the license recovery. NicNac is going to purchase (get them) for you with some delivery cost. Everything you have ordered will be at your doorstep, simple as that.

7. BusSeat.lk

BusSeat is a product of Prasanth.The product’s prototype was first launched at Yarl Geek Challenge season 3. Their product was later invested by Lankan Angel Investors and turned into a startup. It is the potential and the dedication of the team that got recognized by the right people through the right platform to get it into the niche. What busSeat.lk does is that they give the customers and bus owners a common online platform to sell and buy bus tickets. The customer could buy tickets online through the online payment gateway or as direct cash and in return to confirm the booking, a text message with the details of the seats booked by the user will be sent. They have also developed a mobile app for the bus owners to get easy access to the seats booked online to make the manual booking easier.

8. Trackme

Trackme is another local startup that is built to track everything connected online as the user wants. The devices that are integrated with their systems can be connected and tracked through the available GPS system. Interestingly, their services are extended broadly according to the users’ need. The app is available for mobile and PC as well with the Trackme Features like “Real time location details” and fall detection. The idea is to make sure that loved ones are safe!

9. Emojot.

Emojis have taken over everywhere. Wouldn’t it be better to collect user’s feedback through emoji, rather than typing paragraphs of comments? In 2014, Emojot was founded by Shahani Markus, Manjula Dissanayake, Andun S. L. Gunewardena and Sachintha Rajith which will allow the users to express their feeling about an event. This is a duplex system that gives a real-time update to the contexts.

Emojot successfully closes Series of Seed funding round of $ 1 million from Asian and US investors. Emojot team also participated in the RISE conference that took place in Hong Kong July 31 – August 1. They got to participate in that conference because their product is the only platform for now that can ‘analyze streaming of crowd perception to meaningfully respond to targeted client segments in real-time.’

10. OMAK Technologies

How long are we to have the same routine whenever we go to a hotel or restaurant to eat? Ehantha Sirisena wanted to bring a change in the experience the customer and owner of restaurants. The result was OMAK Technologies. This startup focuses on giving the best to the diner and the owner of the restaurant. The main service is done through getting the total hotel management that is from ordering a food to getting the bill, digitized. The company provides its services through the packages like OMAK POS 360, which helps the hotels in boosting their sales and revenue and building an effective and efficient customer relationship. And then there is Reztguru that handles the reservation and online ordering. OMAK technologies is a solution for those hotel and restuarant owners who want to provide a digitized services.

11. LayUp

It is time to revolutionize the way of learning. LayUp is the new version of e-learning that implies the “Engaged Education Methodology” as an agile 3-step learning methodology. The cloud computing system allows the ones with the access to study from anywhere and collaborate anytime. Layup being the brainchild by Sheran Corera, has won the best startup award of Seedstar Colombo, 2016. And the startup will be competing for the Seedstars Summit in Switzerland in March 2017 for $1 million in equity investment.

12. HypeHash

Not everyone knows about the trending topic on social media. Trends are usually decided through the hashtags. Hyperhash is the ‘world’s first trending hashtag based merchandise platform’ where users can find the sales related trends and this gets the sellers and buyers get collaborated. The platform has 1,100 designers and sellers  from the world while the number of fans collaborating through this platform is almost 2,130. Being a Seed-star Colombo winner, the startup is the product of Ravihans Wetakepotha. The interesting startup has also been recognized through AngelHack and the team behind the startup is about to fly to the Silicon Valley’s investor pitch!

13. Katha, now known as ShortKast

Mahen Ratnayake and Mudith Uswatta are the men behind this interesting app called Katha. It is a social media app that allows its users to share or collaborate with their followers through voice casts instead of texting,and it is actually a different way of podcasting.

The journey of Katha began on 2013 by the above said youngsters for “HSBC Youth Entrepreneurship Awards.” It is during this award selection, Mahen and Mudith became friends and started working on this app for Colombo Hackathon. They became one of the winners and the judges who were from Lankan Angel networks got them into Venture Engines as well. Handshaking with Lankan angel networks, they started planning and building the app with the guidance of the investors. With the beta testing of the app in 2015, a few months later Katha came official to the wide world. And recently they have modified Katha and renamed it as ShortKast with the fully different app. An app built with the lessons learned from Katha. And its beta version is only available on Martket for now.

14. Quickee

There is nothing annoying like going into a supermarket during the rush hours, or when it is really late. As a solution to such problem comes in Quickee.lk. Ashan Whittall and Mariam Moosa are the minds behind Quickee.lk that was launched back in 2013 (and got revamped recently.) The idea of Quickee is to deliver goods you need at your doorstep. They provide their services until 3 in the morning so that you don’t have to worry about your safety in getting into a supermarket to get goods.  All you have to do is buzz them and hand them the list of things you need and they’ll get everything you need to your door.

 

15. Trekurious – This Startup Permanently Closed.

Replacing a tour guide is not an easy task, says Rukmankan Sivaloganathan and Dilendra Wimalasekere out of their experience in 2012. The result of his tour experience was Trekurious.com. Through Trekurious a tourist in Sri Lanka could find better places to dine at and to get better experiences through activities that can be done in Sri Lanka. Interestingly, you can purchase locally made gift items and book the needed experiences at Sri Lanka. You can make your vacation experiences more interesting and valuable through Trekurious that has also established its branch in Bombay.

16. Creately ( Startup now emerged as Corporate Company )

Cinergrix is a Sri Lankan company registered in Australia which is a brainchild of Chandika Jayasundra. In 2008, Cinergrix launched their software, Creately which is a diagramming tool. The concept of Creately is to give a web-based diagramming tool for those in needs of making diagrams like the flow chart. Back then it was built by a bunch coders from Borella who were into hacking. Chandika has been named in Echelon Magazine’s 40 under 40, a list of some of 2014’s biggest “risk takers and rule breakers”. Not to mention that his partner in crime, Hiraash was also very fond into technology. It is both their effort and hard-work that brought a team behind which Creately was built by. Within a year it came to a hit and is being used by the very well known companies like PayPal, Ebay, Amazon, IBM, Nat Geo, Google, Adobe, and even NASA.

17. PayHere 

With the emergence of several eCommerce platforms, there is a need for Sri Lankans to have a proper online transaction method. With no PayPal available in SriLanka, Dhanika who is the founder of Bhasha has brought Payhere as a solution to the above said problem. Bhasha wants to localize all software for Sri Lankans. And Payhere is going to act in the way how PayPal function to the world. Dhanika Perera calls it a “comprehensive solution for online payment barriers in Sri Lanka, offering Online Payment Accepting facilities to Sri Lankan Online Merchants in a convenient & affordable way, with a mission to Empower Sri Lankan eCommerce Industry.” It basically provides a platform for online payment facilities to the ones in Sri Lanka. In Spite of the charge for every transaction, you are free of charge to set up an account on Payhere, unlike the local banks. For those who worry that there is no PayPal in Sri Lanka, here is your answer.

18. ShoutOut

Wanted to stay connected to the customers, and want their real time feedback? ShoutOut is one of the solutions that is available to the local merchants to collaborate with their customers and feel more engaged than the usual collaboration. It is a data-driven collaborating platform that connects you to the customer through real-time connections and automated messages to the clients. The product is the dream of Tharindu Dassanayake who badly wanted to give the best of the best services to the customers.

19. Kadira.io

Lots of web app developing companies develop web apps through Meteor Real Time web framework. But when it comes to fixing such web application, most of the web app developers struggle. Kadira.io, the brainchild of Arunoda Susiripala is a solution to such technical issues with Meteor development. It is a Meteor Error tracking system that is transparent to the meteor based app developers that show what exactly is happening with the framework.

20. Law| Envoy

Law | Envoy is a product of  Damith Amarakoon and Kalinga Gunawardana. It is a cloud-based intelligence program that helps lawyers and other legal officers with research and various other professional practices. This doesn’t stop with getting all lawyers in a platform, but also works on helping the organizations with legal decision making through massive of information.

Conclusion.

All the above said 20 startups are still budding ones, but fast budding ones. It is notable that such startups are innovation and most of them are IT based startups. With the gradually increasing internet penetration rate, it is interesting to see these companies already onto using www as a platform to monetize their innovations. I personally feel that such immense of interest shown into innovations and startups should be appreciable for the broad view of the founders of their market.

There are several other local startups I might have happened to miss while writing. If you find something missing, why not let us know them through the comment box below so that our reader know more of them.

Last August, I was in Kandy, one of the tourist attraction sites in Sri Lanka. It was when I happened to come across a couple from Australia. It was their first time in Sri Lanka, and they were looking a place where they could buy a local SIM card so that they could access the online travel guides when they travel around the country.

I can see them bit annoyed about not getting proper Wi-Fi at the Hotel, and thinking of the extra cost in having a local SIM card.

Even if they have a SIM card, not every part of Sri Lanka has proper internet signals.

With the overall internet penetration rate of 29.3% in Sri Lanka, traveling with no data and without tour guides is pretty annoying. Poor internet penetration is not only a trouble in Sri Lanka but in many countries with tourist attraction sites.

Breaking the trend that you have to the internet to get access to online tour guides, Google has launched Google Trips.

What is Google Trips?

Google is expanding its Kingdom in the travel sector. As a part of its expansion, it has launched a travel app, last Monday (19th September 2016), called Google Trips which would act as a trip planner and a tour guide whenever and wherever you are traveling.

If this is a part of Google, then it does need the internet connection, doesn’t it? This would be your question.
But the answer is, no.
This time, Google has designed it in the way where the user can access it offline.

What can you do with this app?

If you are a fan of making sudden trips, I would suggest you have this app in your hands.

Once you have the app, all you have to do is log in into it through your mail. Once you have logged into the mail, it would look into your mail for your pre-planned trips.

If there are no plans, or if you have planned to go on a trip after downloading the app, you can search for the place you want to go in.

You can check the place through the tab “Things to do.” This feature suggests you about the top spots you can visit in the place you have looked up for. Also, if you have any preferences on what you want to do during the tour, like hiking and visiting a museum, you can look up through the search button.

Traveling and sightseeing mean hunger. Since you are visiting a new place, you might want to look into a better place for food. Then there is the button “Food and Drink” where you can look into the restaurants nearby with better reviews.

Although it appears as if it is collecting more data about your travel, it make most of the suggestions like where you can find food, and better places to enjoy.

If you are sure that you want to visit the place, you can then click onto the ” Create a trip” which would allow you to mark your dates for the journey.

The best part is, you can download every detail you want to do during the trip. From your hotel or flight reservation to the places you want to go, you can have it downloaded in your mobile. And this downloaded data is what you can use when you don’t have the internet connection, or when you don’t want to use the internet to save battery (like me).

Since this acts more like a trip planner, you can mark the places you want to visit during the itinerary. Once a schedule for the day is over, the app will notify you about the next plan for the day.

More comforting is the “magic wand.” No, this is neither Hogwarts nor the Marauder’s Map. Here, Google uses a “magic wand” that would let you know about the nearby places you might want to check into. It is notable that this feature works only if you manage to “turn on” your location, and have cellular data.

This Google Trip is going to be your travel partner even if it is offline. With the trip planning features, it is going to be a competitor to Concor’s  TripIT, while Airbnb is trying to add this feature to its already existing setup.

It is also noticeable that the app still provides only the Panora view of the places-to-see, and has not yet tried into 360 views. In my point of view, it would be much more tough for the competitors like TripIT to compete, if Google is many steps ahead in ruling the travel-tech world, by using the very much advanced features.

With the launch of the app, I have installed it on my mobile, and I am finding it very useful for trip planning and to find a nearby place for food. If you are one of the users, how do you feel about the app, and what features would you like to have in the app?

Feel free to let your thoughts flow in the comment box.

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow is a special day 🙂 Yes, it’s our 8th Anniversary 🙂

Unbelievable! How time flies. It only feels like yesterday when I was walking down an old apartment corridor on a mission to rent a small, dusty room, which would later give birth to such a beautiful company – Prime One Global. It only feels like yesterday! But, it’s been Eight Years. Eight beautiful, incredible, challenging years.

There haven’t been many constants in my life –  The beloved partners, stakeholders, members of staff, family, friends, and well-wishers. Starting from my first day of the vision, when I stepped into the world of Digital Marketing as an aspiring Entrepreneur, when I was deeply in debt, and I had no idea where to start, from the first five-dollar I earned after a tiresome day of Link Building (thank you for being with me still, you know who you are), to the incredible milestones of 2012, 2014, and 2015 where we completed 12000, 24000 and 40000+ Digital Marketing Campaigns respectively, you all have been there. And, I for one, am grateful that you have been a part of this Journey – Our Journey.

You have been there too in the darkest of times, when I faced lots of obstacles, I felt alone at times, and I am thankful for your presence. All our achievements would never have been possible without the beloved Prime One Global Family, friends Partners, Clients, Stakeholders, and every other person who is even remotely associated with us.

All through this journey, we have had to bid farewell to a few valued members of our team and friends, but we have also teamed up with a new, more energetic, enthusiastic army of individuals this year. No matter how much we expand, how many milestones we achieve, we at Prime One Global will be grateful to every individual who has been a part of our company. As I always say, we are what we are because of everyone who has had faith in our vision and the trust they have put in our company.

I would like to take this opportunity to invite everyone to our 8th Year Anniversary Celebrations of Prime One Global, where there will be lots of fun and entertainment and some mysteries to be unraveled.

Thank you all,
Sharanyan Sharma
Co-Worker @ Prime One Global

“Do you want to be a professional in Social Media Marketing?” is one of the phrases I come across more often when I check the websites of the institutions for Digital marketing courses. Even though many follow such degrees, social media marketing is not done effectively, as I have said in my last post.

Most of the marketers and companies want to stand out in the crowd, yet they are not sure how they could. While some struggle to use Facebook products, most of the others fail in campaigning their products.

It looks like Facebook thought the same. The effect of Facebook’s worry is this platform “Facebook Blueprint” with the tagline “Plan to do great things.” Having launched in 2015 March, and 18 months later, it has 1 Million course enrollment.

 

What is Facebook Blueprint Certification?

It is a program by Facebook to enrich knowledge on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram advertising. Interestingly, here you don’t only study and take an exam, but here you get trained. This Facebook Blueprint is a solution with individual courses and self-directed learning paths to most Social Media Marketers.

So, this is like a blueprint to Facebook and the apps it owns.

This Certificate provides two credentials:

1. Facebook Certified Planning Professional that targets digital media marketers who successfully have done Facebook Ad Campaigns.
2. Facebook Certified Buying Professional that targets the professionals at ‘creating and buying Facebook advertisements for maximum impact.’

 

What one could expect from this e-learning?

Like Facebook, this e-learning is free of charge. All you need is a Facebook account. Once you sign into, you can look into the modules. Here you would be educated on how to use Facebook and its products effectively, create better and creative ad campaigns, and how to measure your campaign reach and optimize it.

No matter what your role is in the advertising industry, Blueprint Certification can give you the edge you need – Facebook Blueprint

One of the best features I happen to notice about Blueprint is that you can learn it at your pace. No one is going to rush you or put you under pressure unless it is you.

Once you think you have learned enough, you can try out the “Practice exams” before settling for the final exams.

And, once you pass the exam, you will get your certificate, which can be used on your virtual marketing platforms.

Why should you try Facebook Blueprint?

The foremost reason is IT IS FACEBOOK. Aren’t we all pretty crazy about the platform, Facebook, itself? Although it is one of the social media platforms, it is the most popular social platform with 1.71 billion users.

Let it be the global or the local audience (3 million Sri Lankans), Facebook has a reach.

Local institutions do teach about Social Media Marketing, and of course, Facebook campaigns. But… Yes, there is a but. Wouldn’t learning from the platform creators be entirely different from what the learners teach? At Blueprint, they would be guiding you through every product of theirs and how the marketers could raise a ‘great’ advertisement campaign.

Another reason why you might want to get this certificate is that it is a new Standard recognition to the marketers. The certificates aren’t going to stop with giving you an identification for Facebook marketers. It is going to be your recognition for your skills in the following fields:

• Facebook Advertising
• Instagram Advertising
• Messenger Advertising
• Buying and Planning on Facebook properties
• Facebook Analytics and Reporting

And once you get your certificate, it is going to be a digitally verified badge that would help you stand out in the virtual world of marketing.

Apart from every other feature I have mentioned above, Blueprint live is another feature of this e-learning process. This session is unique because it is an interactive one.  Experts at Facebook conducts this workshop, and it is an ideal way of learning for marketers with 5-6 years of digital marketing experience and/or 1-2 years of Facebook-specific experience.

Although the team has conducted many workshops around the world, they are planning to take it to every possible city they could.

Finally, the coolest reason to try this is that it is all FREE. It is not only free of cost but also it gives you the freedom to choose the course and time to learn it.

Out of curiosity, I have signed myself into the learning process. If you are one of those marketers who has enrolled in Facebook Blueprint, let us have your feedback on the e-learning process.