“The needs of the startup ecosystem are very high and the government cannot pull this off,” Sambandam said. “If you look at ecosystems like Silicon Valley such as in Bangalore, it is growing purely because of private, non-governmental activities. So, the government alone cannot make it successful.”
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Sambandam said that the role of the government instead was to foster and facilitate the ecosystem so that it could sustain – with or without the government. He said that for the last 15 years, the Tamil Nadu government was not as focused on startups but said there had been a revival of efforts towards growing the startup ecosystem in the state.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had released the ‘Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Policy 2023’ on September 20, which constituted over 50 action points aiming to make the state a leading Startup Ecosystem. The Policy is touted to form the base to propel the role of Startups in realizing the State’s vision of emerging as a trillion-dollar economy by 2030 and being one of the top 20 global Startup destinations by 2032.
Sambandam said that funds like TANSEED (Tamil Nadu Startup Seed Grant Fund) and grants for Scheduled castes and tribes would create a lot of momentum and inclusiveness around the mindset of entrepreneurship. Tamil Nadu Startup Seed Grant Fund is the flagship initiative of the Government of Tamil Nadu to support early-stage Startups with Seed Funds of 10 Lakh Rs each to up to twenty startups.
However, he reiterated that while these efforts were significant, it was important for startups to be at the centre of the decision making. “A classic example is how the SaasBoomi community is run. It is run by the founders, thereby bringing the expertise,” he said. SaaSBoomi is a pay-it-forward community of over 3000 founders, led by some of India’s top SaaS founders.
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Sambandam said that he had proposed the one trillion-dollar economy idea in 2018-2019 as part of the Dream Tamil Nadu Foundation (DreamTN), which the current government adopted in 2021.“We have a program called Kanavu under DreamTN where we have come up with 275 unique ideas for each district across all the 38 districts of Tamil Nadu on how they can take resources in that district to build startups and businesses worth crores. Like this, some of our projects are directly connected to the state’s trillion-dollar economy vision,” he said.
DreamTN is described as a For-Purpose Organization by their website, co-created by a group of entrepreneurs, professionals, academics, and members of civil society working towards the goal of a prosperous and self-reliant Tamil Nadu.
“One of the recommendations was to build big brands. But right now, there is very little knowledge and expertise in the government, to be able to build such brands in the startup ecosystem,” he said.
Sambandam added that the underemployment of graduates was a big concern that should also be addressed.
“I see that a lot of Engineering graduates, who have invested in education, are reduced to manual labor jobs such as in the textile industry. This should change”, he said.