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The Rediff Business Special/ Gisele Regatao

Three young men in their early 20s opening a dotcom company shouldn't even deserve a story anymore. But in this case, it does.

Anshuman Bapna, 22, Mayank Jain, 22,
and Kashyap Deorah, 21, the founders of RightHalf.com, are neither based in the United States's Silicon Valley nor in Bangalore. They are in Mumbai, more precisely at the Indian Institute of Technology.

What made possible the development of an Internet company out of the big high-tech centres was a project called business incubator. Created by IIT, Bombay, almost one year ago, this project aims to give support and infrastructure to start-ups.

RightHalf is the first company created inside the IIT, Bombay, incubator. There are already six of them. They will be 10 to 15 soon. And Professor Deepak Phatak, responsible for the business incubator project and called Dreamer Phatak by his colleagues, thinks the IIT, Bombay, incubator will support 50 companies in the near future when it will have its own building. "We are bringing these companies to life," says Professor Phatak. "Hopefully, larger and larger companies will come from this building and act globally."

IIT, Bombay, was the pioneer of the incubator project in India, an idea that is spreading throughout the other IITs. Its goal is to prevent Indian talent and would-be entrepreneurs from leaving the country. According to a survey conducted by IIT, Bombay, in the mid-1980s, on the basis of the last data available, one third of its graduates moved abroad. Considering that the high tech boom started in the mid-1990s, this number must be higher now. In Silicon Valley itself, for instance, there are 200,000 Indians working in high tech companies, according to Siliconindia magazine.

The incubators and the young entrepreneurs aim to create the next Microsoft or, "The next Yahoo!", says Mayank Jain, one of the founders of RightHalf.com. It won't be easy though.

"Indian entrepreneurs have a long way to cover," says Rajiv Vaishnav, director of The Indus Entrepreneurs -- TiE -- the Sillicon Valley's largest Indian networking group in Mumbai. "There are few resources, poor infrastructure and heavy taxation." Add to this the fierce competition and things can get really tough for the start-ups. "Only those companies with strong fundamentals will survive," predicts Vaishnav.

Started last September, RightHalf.com wants to be an Internet space where people can express their creative sides. Poems, inventions, all thoughts developed on the right side of the brain -- which explains the company's name -- will be welcome.

RightHalf.com gets the space, computers, Internet access and intellectual support from IIT, Bombay's incubator. From Rakesh Mathur, founder of Junglee.com, the start-up got US $ 250,000 in exchange for 15 per cent of the company. RightHalf already employs 22 people, but they have not been able to launch the web site yet. Maybe next month, the entrepreneurs say.

What if the RightHalf idea doesn't work out? The three founders, all of whom are graduating in August and have declined job offers in the US, are not concerned. "Money is not all we can make," says Anshuman Bapna. "We learn a lot here."

What matters for these three young students and for IIT, Bombay's business incubator is that they are getting a chance to try. That was the idea behind the incubator project. When Professor Phatak began looking for support for a school of information technology two years ago, he thought this new school should be able to give the students a chance to develop new products and new technologies.

Professor Phatak got the money for the school -- which is expected to be ready early next year -- but did not want to wait for the infrastructure to create the incubator. He analysed some students' ideas and gave them all the institute had at that time for them to start working -- three vacant faculty offices, a hundred square feet each.

IIT, Bombay's business incubator attracted sympathisers soon. Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and president of the software consulting Infosys Technologies Limited and a former student of IIT, Bombay, donated US $ 250,000. With this money, the incubator bought more computers and furniture to support three other entrepreneurs. The physics department at IIT-B offered the extra space.

Although the students who are being supported by the incubator do not pay anything right now, they will in the near future. Professor Phatak says the idea is to keep it free for the first year and then charge a certain amount (how much has not been decided yet) for the second year. After two years, those who are not able to get money from other resources will have to back out. Another idea is to obligate the incubator's companies to donate three per cent of their shares to IIT, Bombay.

Besides the charges, the IIT, Bombay incubator will not become a business venture. "We want to support pre-venture capital ideas, those that are not ready yet to convince external sources," says Professor Phatak. "That is why we justify having an incubator inside the institute and not as a business, like in the US"

The professor and the students are full of energy. But having enthusiasm is not enough in a very competitive market. At the IIT, Bombay, incubator, the students can get very qualified advisors and free infrastructure to be able to start. But after they are able to walk by themselves, whether or not they will survive remains to be seen.

Photographs: Jewella C Miranda

Gisele Regatao, a graduate student of business journalism at City University of New York, is spending six weeks at rediff.com, after winning a Reuters Foundation fellowship in journalism.

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