Starting a IT Startup in Sri Lanka : Part 1

Here’s to that kind of crazy people in Sri Lanka, who really have gut to be different from others and chase their own dreams for the rest of their life. We are innoWIDE, also a IT start-up who are still trying to climb the ladder of success by putting everything in line. So I thought to share our experience through couple of posts on starting our own IT Company in Sri Lanka and give some guidance on ground basics that you have to cover. These are real world experiences that we came cross when we firstly starting innoWIDE. Let’s hear “Less about theory, more about actions”

When we were discussing about the idea of creating our own company and change the world, we had to think about several aspects real world scenarios. So the first thing was about getting our own place. There were two options.

1. Rent a office space directly and start from there. (So we had to find a place to stay as well)
2. Find a place, that we can use as a office space while we stay at the same place

So, if we go with the first option, we have to find another place to stay as well. You have to pay 2 rents in each month. So even though you can afford that much of money in the beginning, I strongly advice “Don’t do that”. You have to save money as much as you can at the beginning of your company. It’s is really important to think twice before you spend your money on something at the start. So we went with 2nd option which is low cost when comparing to first option. So if you don’t have that much of money in your pocket, like us at that time, 2nd one is the best option you can follow. Find a good place where you can stay as well as work for at least first year.

Finding a GOOD place is much harder than even you imagine. We wanted to find a place where near to Gall Road. So every day we gave almost dozens of call for house owners about asking their house and prices. Then we visited each place that we confirmed through the phone. But by the time we went there, most of houses were already rented by paying a advance by previous visitors. My friend and I travel almost every area of Colombo to find a GOOD place which could go with our budget. So remember as a fact that, keep advance money with your while you do the house hunting. So when you see a good place, you can reserve that right away until you do the full payment of key money. There are some factors that you have to keep in your mind when you try to find a good place to establish your start-up

1. If you call in the morning about asking a place, you have to visit that place that day itself. If you stay one more day to visit that place, forget about it :)
2. Always try to keep some amount of money (Rs 5000 — Rs 10000) where you can pay advance payment right away if you find a good place.
3. Try to find place which have less distractions. You need a place where you can keep your head straight and work all day long
4. Check whether there are places to buy foods and other necessary thing. Otherwise you will spend half of your day for finding foods.
5. Check whether you have mobile signal with 3G or 4G connectivity since you are going to live in the internet
6. Check about traveling facilities

These are pretty much basics that you have to cover when you are finding a place to start your own company. There are lot that I would have missed. You can add that on comments.

This is about finding a good place to start. Next post will cover about buying household items and other necessary things to your new place.

“Don’t fall into the rat race, follow your dreams” — Rich Dad, Poor Dad

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Originally published at innowide.wordpress.com on February 9, 2015.