Every Last Thursday of Gregorian month, Bikalpa – an Alternative jointly organize the “Last Thursday’s” event at Biratnagar in collaboration with Hotel Namaskar, Makalu Television and Merryland College (BBA) Biratnagar. Objective of the program is to disseminate the ideas and knowledge about entrepreneurship through the personal sharing of successful entrepreneurs. Also the program creates an opportunity to do networking and share ideas among the participants.
The 44th Last Thursday with an Entrepreneur held on 30th August, 2018 was held in Hotel Namaskar Biratnagar. The Guest Speaker for the program was Mr. Denis Karki, Vice-Chairman of Birat Medical College and CEO of Birat Group.
Birat Groups Vice Chairman Denis Karki enthralled the audience with a lighthearted chat at The Last Thursday’s event. Denis delighted the audience with stories around his early days in Russia, life at Kathmandu, Australia and the initial days of Biratnagar. With a penchant for learning, he gravitated towards entrepreneurship after finishing his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Melbourne Australia. “I was not passionate about Studies but was okay in studies,” said Denis, until he went to Australia to study the subject he liked. The days he spent at Australia, were some of his best years he added. With no clear definition of a ‘career’ back then, Denis wanted to do something meaningful here in Nepal. Seeing risk differently, he admits that, working in Australia would have been a luxury for him, as against doing something on his own here in Nepal. He thought that creating value would add meaning to life rather than settling for a cozy job.
While studying abroad, he realized that everything happening in the world was not happening here in Nepal. He thought that if he could tailor that trend into the population of Nepal. I think it would work. It was one of the biggest eye-openers for him because from then onwards he started to think about the future. “Where I could come back to Nepal and implement whatever I learned from my studies here in Nepal. That was the easiest thing for me to do. I started keeping diaries and where ever I went. Whatever I saw, whatever, it was working anything that was developing. I would think about how could I tailored to Market of Nepal. How could I benefit from what they are doing and bring it back to Nepal and see it would work in Nepal.” he recalled. He further added “The business idea doesn’t have to be completely new. We need to play the same game that other are doing and we need to do it in different and better way.”
Giving audience some advice, Denis said. “I think in the early stages, 80% of small business today failed because they lack planning and they lack investing their efforts. A lot of young entrepreneurs who are just starting off. One of the hardest things for them is self-belief. They are restricted by what they think is an ability to generate capital. A lot of Younger generations here in Nepal they believe that business is easy. They want to take shortcuts to start a business and start generating funds. We need to understand that it takes a long period of time to grow a business. It takes huge amount of efforts which you have to put into it. If you have a dream and the effort; if you think you can do something better in the market, then you definitely can achieve it.”
He stressed on the fact that the main reason that is limiting enterprise here in Nepal are the policies that the government has created. There is a need for improvement in every business sectors of Nepal and from that everyone can benefit.
