-Sangam Singh returned back to Nepal after completing engineering education from India with an aim to start an online shopping company in the country. While doing market research, he found that all existing startups were facing one common problem: delivery of goods to customers. So, instead of starting e-commerce, he instead started a logistics company that offers Cash-On-Delivery services to Nepali e-commerce sites.

-Santosh Pandey and his friends came up with an idea of delivering gifts sent by Nepalis abroad to their families and friends here. As they began studying various business models around the world, they found out that there was something called a surprise industry and its market was really huge and rapidly expanding. On Valentine Day of 2017, they launched ‘Offering Happiness’ to provide surprise planning service in Nepal.

-Dipesh Khetan and his friends have recently started AdMana, a company that connects digital publishers with advertisers where the advertisers can pay per result basis.

-Arsalan Akhtar started Today’s Telegram in early 2017, that produces leather as well as hemp goods such as bags, duffle bags, bean bags, and ToTe Lap Tables with a unique taglines and his writings on the designs. With Today’s Telegram, he has been mixing his passion of writing to create unique products that are selling like hot cakes in the market.

NepXpress, Offering Happiness, AdMana, Today’s Telegram along with over 100 unique and innovative startups of Nepal exhibited their products and services to their prospective clients in BizFest 2019, the first of its kind startup meet held at Galaxy Public School Premises on Saturday, 5 January. The event was organized by Google Business Group Kathmandu in main collaboration with Khalti app.

According to press released issued by Google Business Group Kathmandu, Barsha Dulal, who has just returned completing her CA studies from India was one of the visitors of the expo. She was keenly interested to know about the emerging startups in Nepal and what fellow Nepali youths are up to. She looked enthused after visiting the stalls of the participating startups and witnessing their innovative works.

Similarly, Rahul Yadav, a grade 11 student in a college in Kathmandu could be seen visiting the expo with enthusiasm. Along with going through startups’ stalls, he also attended various workshops delivered by experts. He expressed happiness on learning google tools during these workshop sessions. He shared that he too wants to start something on his own in the near future and visiting the expo was very fruitful.

Like Barsha and Rahul, over 5000 enthusiastic youths visited the expo and interacted with founders of Nepali startups.

These scenes at the BizFest clearly showed that Nepali youths are increasingly inclined towards entrepreneurship.

The expo tried to bring every kind of startups together in a single platform. The participating startups ranged from online game developing companies to those working on animation production, from digital marketing to 3D printing, from online shopping startups to the companies that manage Cash-On-Delivery to these startups, from online education to online medicine, Nepali clothing brands and handicrafts to agro-startups among others. The event also provided a learning platform for students and others who want to start their own businesses in the future.

Enthused by the huge turnout of visitors and startups in the BizFest, Amit Agrawal, Manager of GBG Kathmandu shared,

“Startup is a recent phenomenon in Nepal. We can see many startups emerging to solve various need gaps existing in our society. However, not many people know about the emerging Nepali startups and there was no such expo focused on startups only. Also, it’s not possible for all recently founded startups to pay a heavy fee to exhibit in expos. Thus GBG Kathmandu took an initiation to bring all major startups of Nepal in a single platform. Through BizFest, we tried providing them a free and open platform to connect with their potential users and customers.”

The event turned out to be an ideal platform for aspiring entrepreneurs to meet and talk with fellow entrepreneurs who have already founded startups and gain knowledge and ideas. The event also provided an opportunity for exhibitors to get opinion and feedback from the people.

During the expo, four workshop sessions were also held on topics ‘Growth Hacking’, ‘Overcoming legal challenges in business’, ‘Google Sheets for Business Growth’, and ‘Ads and Analytics for Business Growth’ that were delivered by experts in the industry.

Through all these activities Google Business Group Kathmandu aimed to groom startup founders and promote entrepreneurial ecosystem in Nepal.

GBG Kathmandu has planned to make the BizFest an annual event.