NOTE: This article was written sometime around 2012 and may not be relevant anymore!
IITians and their passion for startups! The best mind of the country together under one roof and been taught time and again to look beyond the horizon, it's inevitable. Sure, the money isn't much but looking at few startups making a kill in the market is always so encouraging and there's always a few in a batch who likes to take the road less traveled by.
Startup ideas at IIT Delhi
I'm one of the very few in my college who has made a name as a freelance web designer or should I say freelance web developer over the last few years. Over time, many fellow students with their ideas have approached me. Some come with great concepts and potentials while some come just for the heck of it with the soul purpose of glittering their resumes before the placements. Many startups after investing a few thousands have come and gone in the past. Some gave up everything to chase their dreams and ended up nowhere while some never gave up but ended up in the same ditch anyways. Some got lucky with extreme hardwork and made it to million rupee companies today – flipkart, zomato, mobikwik to name a few. With startup companies popping up from every corner, ideas copied from one another, improvising the concept, it is always so encouraging seeing these young (of course, older than me) minds so eager and enthusiastic about their work.
IIT Delhi startups that failed
There were a few startups by fellow IITians that had amazing teams and leaders but didn't work for the lack of vision, funding among various other reasons. It's just sad to see them the way it is now. Some I thought had great possibilities and the teams worked with such zeal I really thought they would make it. Of course, I don't have to say, I'm no visionary and I couldn't foresee it. A lot of startups have failed in the last few years. A lot more will continue to spring up over the next few months and I'll pray they don't end up in the same boat.
Present startups in IIT Delhi
There are a few new ventures that's currently doing well and I would like to take this space to showcase some of them in a random order:
Zumbl.com: The anonymous chatroom service without an "e" and is heavily inspired from omegle is doing better than my initial expectations. The publicity and marketing team seems to be doing their job well and have so far manage to get 43k facebook likes although the number can be easily manipulated. Mark Zuckerberg, are you listening? It is however creating a buzz in the college networks and hopefully it will continue to do so. I don't have the statistics but I'm assuming the website have a good traffic flow for now. They still have lots of room for improvement and the designers and developers are hard at work to reflect on the same. It's a great place to hang out ..for free! :P
Touchtalent.com: Registered as a pvt ltd, they can be categorized as a serious bunch. A clone of pinterest (I could be wrong), the developers have made certain changes to fit their vision and idea for the young and fresh artists to showcase their work and sell in some cases. The team is hard at work as I've noticed over the last few months and perhaps make it to the likes of Deviantart someday. As observed, there has been a decent traffic flow too.
BookatDoor.com: So far, I've visited this website to look for question papers during the exams and have not had a second look. Selling or buying second hand (used) textbooks in the college just doesn't seem to be on my list of profitable ideas unless they open the market to the entire capital city with all categories of books. In my opinion, they have potentials to give flipkart a serious run for their money. We are Indians. Cheap is good. Cheap is very good. This is the kind of startup I would love to take over and handle the website backend if they can handle the groundwork, logistics among others.
There are a few more startups that aren't mentioned here for they are either in their infant stages or is in dormant period for the lack of marketing teams, leadership, funding or has served the purposes – sparkling resumes. There may be some that I might have missed out. Please buzz me so I could update on the same.
