India has been witnessing a paradigm shift in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially because of the upsurge in startups beyond the metro cities of India. Startups, with all the glorified stories floating around and a romanticised vision in the startup scenes, are often inundated by the terms like funding, venture capitalists, valuation, exit, founder, seed money etc. And without criticising anyone it can be said that this usually calls for entrepreneurs to flock to the startup capitals like Bangalore, Mumbai, well, who would not want to have a piece of the Silicon Valleys, right?

There has never been a lack of individual talent apart from the bustling cities, rather it’s the lack of resource availability and robust support infrastructure to be blamed. Indian start-up owners start their venture soon after college, without having any practical experience with the business world. While this might have worked for some like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and even our own Ritesh Agarwal (OYO Founder), it might not work for all. It is a strong belief that the ones who start and run their venture without having real work experience can often produce inefficient leaders. In fact, 50% of Venture Capitalists in India are not interested in investing in a start-up that does not have experienced leadership.

The country is witnessing an exemplary situation of people quitting an urbane life to come back and work at the grass-roots level, building deep tech ventures in artificial intelligence, the internet of things etc. across various verticals. It may be because entrepreneurs want to solve local problems at scale, ranging across healthcare, education, agriculture, financial services etc. As if this was not inspiring enough, for some it would be a decision influenced by the pandemic. While Mumbai, Bengaluru and Delhi NCR usually take the spotlight when it comes to the startup ecosystem in India and with good reason, presently the Tier 2 Indian cities are also emerging as innovation hubs. 

One such startup that has come into prominence and has been the talk of the town is TechVariable, which beat all odds and has successfully crossed the much-coveted milestone of 5 years. A startup entirely bootstrapped since its foundation has worked with startups and corporates around the globe. From working with startup companies based out of the US to digitally transforming North-East India’s biggest Bus Service Provider, from developing Machine Learning based news aggregator platforms to creating analytics tool to evaluate and analyze the existence of Gender Misrepresentation in Myanmar, from working with a Fortune 200 giant to developing Fintech products, TechVariable is getting the laurels and commendations for all the right reasons.

As of now, Assam has been trying to catch up with other Indian states when it comes to digital innovation in business. The city still lacks a thriving technological ecosystem that would enable businesses to grow and compete favourably with their rivals across the globe. According to co-founder Nilotpal Boruah, “TechVariable’s task was already cut out for them. It was a mission to bridge that gap and make Assam a part of the ongoing tech revolution.”

TechVariable, probably the best-bootstrapped startup from Assam, aims to boost the IT ecosystem of Northeast India and to create a platform that enables at least a few talents, if not many, to come back to Assam and work closer to home. The team believes that businesses that are locally founded, and also employ local workers, can compete with other businesses globally. In fact, they have been actively hiring young talents through campus recruitments at the esteemed institutions from Assam every year and always look forward to curious, nimble and reliable talents to join their mission of delivering top-notch quality tech products and services for national as well as international clients. 

Their plan for the immediate future is pivoting to become an end-to-end product development and consultancy company for tech startups and a digital transformation studio for enterprises. Previously, their services were just software development and deployment. But this year, they have included services like product planning and interaction designing (user interface/user experience designs), custom development and product engineering. Hopefully, they seem to be optimistic about their growth from a startup to a scale-up tech company from North-East India. Also, they intend to have an international expansion into the USA in the next few years.