Oh Womaniya! She is a techie, an entrepreneur, and her own boss!

Rashi V

NEW DELHI: Women are making giant strides across all the sectors and there is no reason why the entrepreneurial ecosystem should be left out. Before the forthcoming Women’s Day, we caught up with some of the leading women founders from the tech startup community and quizzed them about how is it to be an entrepreneur, what are the challenges, or is it difficult or easy to raise funds in startups by women etc. Read on…

ANISHA SINGH, FOUNDER AND CEO, MYDALA.COM

“Generally people say it’s tough being a woman entrepreneur, but it is not. If you talk sense, people will listen to you, and things will fall in your favor,” said Anisha Singh, founder and CEO of MyDala.com, a daily deals site.

She also added that there are so many positive sides to it too, as women can juggle more things, balance work life and personal life in a much better way. However, she feels that there are not enough women on the field.

“There is a need for more women  examples. We don’t have enough women entrepreneurs especially in tech. For instance, sometimes in a conference room, I happen to be the only woman present or speaking. We need to see more women in the field,” she added.

Singh is also an optimist and hence has never felt that she is being underestimated and has been challenged just because she is a woman. Rather she has observed an advantage of being a woman, “Sometimes I am the only woman speaking. So, I get that extra attention,” she added.

Anisha Singh is a mother of two, and has gone for fund raising when she was eight-month pregnant. “I had heard something nasty in that fund-raising meeting, but that is once in a blue moon situation,” she told.

Multitasking is something a woman is known for, but, this is a positive and as well as a negative, according to Singh. “Sometimes she wants to do everything, be it at work or in family, which is a plus point for women. But a negative as well, a man can switch off but a woman cannot,” she added. Singh can easily multitask as a yoga instructor, professional cake decorator and a pro snooker player.

Info Edge –backed Mydala.com is a coupon site which was founded in 2009 and has turned profitable and claims to be largest players in its space.

Easy or difficult with investors: “At the end what matters for an investor is ‘returns’, if you can show that to him then he doesn’t mind of what gender you are.”

Success Mantra: “Not quitting, keep going”

AMBIKA SHARMA, FOUNDER & MANAGING DIRECTOR, PULP STRATEGY COMMUNICATIONS

“Entrepreneurship is a state of mind, and the best part is that the best is always yet to come. It’s been an interesting journey for me. I have had an amazing learning experience and fun at every minute of it,” said Ambika Sharma, Founder & Managing Director, Pulp Strategy Communications, a digital marketing solutions provider.

Bike-enthusiast Sharma also said that Entrepreneur hat is a tough one to don; and one must give up a lot of personal time and many other things to drive a business up from scratch. “Challenges have been and will continue to be in the path just as the fact that they shall be overcome; but which are past are behind me, and the ones in the future shall be tackled,” she added.

Pulp Strategy provides digital marketing solutions to companies like Google, Yahoo India, Nokia, Philips and Renault, and the company has won 45 global and national awards

Easy or difficult with investors: “I believe that we have just begun to explore the magnitude of entrepreneurship and when it comes to a successfully nurtured idea, investors will back you irrespective of your gender. In the era of customer centricity, one needs to innovate to reach and capture not just a need, but also the imagination of the consumers. Standing out from the clutter is a constant endeavor.”

Success mantra: I believe in making my own destiny, via integrity, hard work and with the blessings of the almighty.

PRUKALPA SANKAR, CO-FOUNDER, SOCIAL COPS

“The challenges for me or a woman entrepreneur is no different than the challenges faced by a woman at any work place. But, if you make sense and show commitment, then nobody cares if you are a woman or a man. Luckily, my co-founder is a male, so probably because of that I haven’t faced any particular challenges,” feels Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of Social Cops, a data company.

Sankar is a serial entrepreneur, she pioneered the first of its kind Startup Case Challenge competition in Singapore in conjunction with NTU's Entrepreneurship & Innovation week, involving 150+ startups –which is now an annual part of the university calendar. She also founded, Project Green Entrepreneurship (AIESEC Singapore) to get students to build businesses for sustainability.

SocialCops is a data company that aims to power decision making through better data sourced from the grassroots to solve problems facing humanity. The startup raised $320k in seed funding from 500 Startups, Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India) and Manoj Menon (MD, Frost & Sullivan APAC).

Easy or difficult with investors: “Business is what matters to an investor.”

Success Mantra: “Find the right team, if you do that right then things will fall in place”

MADHUMITA HALDER, CO-FOUNDER, DIRECTOR, MADRAT GAMES

“I have faced challenges in the beginning,  like during meetings people don’t register that you are in the room, because they are not used to see a women at founder level or so,” told Madhumita Halder, co-founder and director of a board and mobile games company, MadRat games. But she has been able to prove herself with hard work and understanding of business and now she faces no such situations.

The journey for Halder has been indescribably enriching as the kind of learning she is having creates a sense of achievement inside her, she told.

“It feels great right now because of the learning I am having, I am handling legal, finance, marketing, productions and what not- I would have never learned it if I was not running a company,” Halder said.

Started in 2012, Bangalore-based MadRat Games had raised funding of $1 million from a copule of investors, including Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal co-founders of e-commerce giant Flipkart.com. MadRat makes board games, learning puzzles, toys and mobile games.

Easy or difficult with investors: “Fund-raising is not a challenge if you have done your homework, investors are comfortable investing in business which have revenues and large market size.”

Success Mantra: “Train hard, fight easy”. If one is trained real hard then work will seem easy, She explained.

All in all, it looks like that an evolution is happening around the globe and in India as well. The entrepreneur ecosystem is asking women to come forward and is taking their ambitions more seriously. As Prukalpa Sankar put it, “India is seeing a lot of woman leaders as examples, of late.”