Soon, reality show for TN entrepreneurs

CHENNAI: If you can sing, dance and cook your way to glory, can’t you taste the same success by embarking on entrepreneurship? Keen to nurture the entrepreneurial wealth of the State, the TN government is launching a reality show, aimed at providing impetus to entrepreneurs, slated for Pongal release.

The idea behind the show, ‘Startup Tamizha’, is not novel. Shark Tank, for instance, is an internationally popular entrepreneurship reality show that has come to India, too. What makes this initiative by TN Startup and Innovation Mission (StartupTN) different is that the platform to perform is provided by a nodal agency of the government, and it is exclusive for budding start-up founders from the State.

“This will be a different format, though the end goal remains the same. We’ll have prominent persons on the jury panel, and like ‘Super Singers’ programme, the audience will comprise real-time angel investors. There will be a third component in the form of the diaspora from across the globe as online participants,” Sivarajah Ramanathan, Mission Director-CEO, StartupTN, told DT Next.

Unlike the West where entrepreneurship is ingrained in culture, almost 99 per cent of TN college pass-outs typically end up pursuing a job.

“That is not wrong, but even if we are able to convert two per cent of them to think about entrepreneurship, it would be good,” he said.

Realising the role of family in entrepreneurial leap, the show aims to influence the families, which are typically conservative, Sivarajah said.

The mission is to transform the traditional risk-averse approach into one that encourages, and showcase the new-age investment options available for potential investors who are unaware of such novel growth avenues.

While the broad contours are still being finalised, Brand Avatar has won the bid to produce the show that would have 13 episodes, he added.