To be successful and stay in the forefront of your industry, delivering an exceptional service is not enough.

Meeting and networking with like-minded people, sharing your ideas, learning from giants in the industry and stepping outside your world is essential if you are planning on expanding and growing. What better place is there to accomplish these objectives than an ‘event’.

Recently, ExtremeSEO had the opportunity to attend to a startup event- one of the biggest event in the region, ECHELON Asia Summit 2017.

 Why ECHELON?

Empowering the entrepreneurs in the Asian region the summit is a real business opportunity amplifier for newborn businesses who have big dreams to grow. Powered by E 27(https://e27.co ), Asia’ latest tech media platform which was born in 2007, partnering up with the biggest brands in the world including Google and IBM the event is one of the biggest in Asia’s tech ecosystem. The Summit which held annually is a perfect place for tech and digital startups to grow, learn, share ideas, build beneficiary contacts and look into trends. (This year the summit was held from 28th to 30th of June in Singapore)

 

Featuring an array of events the three-day summit provides a variety of golden opportunities for startups. Whether you are looking for more business, fundraising or knowledge, the ECHELON Asia summit will not disappoint you. The summit comprised of an exhibition, speaking events and a startup fight club where the best 100 tech masterminds in the region is chosen.

 

Benefits of attending the next ECHELON Asia Summit

Giving you the access to a wealth of resources, the summit helps businesses step up their game.

• Up to date knowledge

Giving you the best speaking events to attend to, for entire three days the summit offers access to the latest industry insights and expertise of the leaders of your industry while enabling you to share and learn from like-minded people.

• Beneficial connections

Networking with like-minded and beneficiary people pays off in the long run in a way you can’t imagine if you know to approach the right guy at the right time. Facilitating you a world of opportunities to connect and partner up with, the summit provides a perfect ground for like-minded people to meet and connect on an international level.

• More exposure

Go fight in the top 100 startup fight club or participate in the Exhibition…They exposure you can receive by attending the summit is something you can’t ever achieve with 100 marketing campaigns. With the attendance of a highly targeted crowd at the summit, entering into new potential customers and investors radar has never been easier.

• Funding opportunities.

Every year the event gets concentrated with investors of all kinds looking for new profitable investments. If you have a great business plan written and printed on your hand and perfect elevated pitch, the summit won’t let you walk away without you succeeding.

 

 Who attends ECHELON Asia Summit 2017?

A range of personnel connected to the tech industry attends the summit from all over the world. From government ministries and agencies who help the Asian tech ecosystem to thrive, investors looking for places to invest, business from all sizes who seek new ways to expand their reach, industry professionals who are keen to share their knowledge to media who looking for features attend the summit every year, making it a perfect little ecosystem within the tech ecosystem of the.

We attended ECHELON.

Returning back from the summit with the wisdom of new knowledge and insight, ExtremeSEO is ready to amp up the quality of our services even more and deliver a result-focused experience for our clients driving their business towards success.

 

The ECHELON Asia Summit gives you access to some of the latest findings and thoughts in the industry while providing you with ample opportunities to expand, is definitely worth considering attending next time, if you seeking new opportunities to improve and grow as an entrepreneur.

SLT ZeroOne Digital Awards

The First-Ever Digital Excellence Award Ceremony

No matter the size or the years of experience you have in the industry, an award can help you take a leap of success allowing you to access the front line of your industry -which means more high-paying clients and better industry authority. Now, businesses and individuals in the digital sphere in Sri Lanka also have the opportunity to get recognized for their excellence making an instant impact in their business success. This golden opportunity is the SLT ZeroOne Awards. Identifying the necessity of an award ceremony in the digital industry in Sri Lanka, SLT launched the countries’ first-ever digital excellence award ceremony as SLT ZeroOne Awards in 2016 filling the gap of the industry.

 

 

Image Credit: Sundayobserver.lk

As a country with surging digital and online practices, such gestures encourage individuals and businesses to push themselves to a more competitive ground -which will gradually enhance the quality of the digital arena even more. Honouring the digital projects, campaigns and innovative solutions, the award ceremony which was held in the Grand Ballroom in the Hilton Colombo on 22nd of June 2017 provided the visibility and the reputations brands deserve for the first time in Sri Lanka.

The Award ceremony is a great encouragement and appreciation from the government for the sweat and tears businesses and individuals shed in introducing and strengthening a new industry in Sri Lanka while opening doors to receive the benefits of this new technology to Sri Lankan’s. It is a substantial admiration for the existing businesses to hold on to for a longer time in reaching new heights.  And it is a significant inspiration for the future generation who has hope in joining the digital and online world for their carrier.

The importance of the SLT ZeroOne Awards

1. Differentiation: For brands, the SLT ZeroOne Awards helps in verifying the differentness and quality of its achievements from the others.
2. Visibility: The awards help digital personnel to make their brand or title more visible which can help them in attracting new customers and investors.
3. Validate: All the awards categories of SLT ZeroOne Awards speak volumes about the quality provided by the brands placing the award winners, nominees, and shortlisted brands at the forefront of the Sri Lankan digital arena.
4. Competition: SLT ZeroOne Awards offers a new benchmark for the quest for excellence in the field increasing the competitiveness of the industry resulting in an increase in the quality of the services even more.
5. Hope: For those who are looking forward to entering this new world, such ceremonies provide, strengthen and validate the possibility of in succeeding their ambitions, hope, and goals for the future.

Dedicated to recognizing, honouring, and encouraging excellence in digital initiatives the ceremony presents awards for mainly under three categories as follows,

• Industrial Awards
• Individual Awards
• Lifetime Awards

The ceremony provided recognition opportunities for 154 brands, shedding a spotlight on 47 award winners in the industry in a range of categories including,

• Financial Industry
• Information Industry
• Travel and Leisure
• Media and Publishing
• Health Care and Personal Services
• Professional Services
• Retail
• Manufacturing, Transportation, Storage, and Logistics
• Government Institutions and NGOs

We Won the best Digital Media Agency Award As Well

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With the exceptional quality of our service which is mainly focused on data and results, we at Prime One Global were awarded for the ‘Best Digital Media Agency’ under the ‘Media and Publishing’ category. Providing an array of services from SEO, social media marketing, conversion optimization, and reputation management services for a  local and global client base, Prime One Global was able to conquer this significant achievement competing with more than 400 best brands in the industry.

The constant investment in imagination, creativity, and innovation, challenging the common and accepted practices and methods, and delivering a higher ROI along with the maximum outcome for our clients, have paid off once again for Prime One Global with this newly added SLT ZeroOne Award to our award collection.

Our Sincere Thankfulness To The SLT

Ensuring only the best work is recognized, we are honoured and grateful to the distinguished panel of jury for recognizing our achievements and would like to thank SLT for taking the time to give the recognition and appreciation for brands and individuals deserve uplifting the local talent in the digital media world.

Final thoughts on SLT ZeroOne Awards

Fulfilling the timely need in the digital industry on the island, SLT’s organization of the SLT ZeroOne Awards is an absolute encouragement for businesses, brands, and individuals in the industry. We hope this thoughtful event will continue for many years improving and expanding, honouring more and more brands and individuals who deserve it the most

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For how many years are you telling yourself that you are going to start your own business and quit your job one day?

For how many more years are you going to live with the job that you don’t like at all, as you don’t have the gut to put your bright business idea ( If you are actionable ) out there? Whether it’s fear of failure, lack of confidence or resources or not being able to go against your loving parents to give up on your safe job, you are pushing your freedom of money, life’s happiness and entrepreneurial dream further away.

Today is that ‘one day’ you stop procrastinating and start working on the next step to bring your startup dream closer. Because in this post I’ll show you why ‘Today’ is the best day and ‘Now’ is the best time to nurture your startup seed..

After 2015, Sri Lanka’s startup ecosystem started to burgeon steadily with newly emerged opportunities for young tech freaks to take their innovative ideas to the commercial level.

With a growth index of 7.4 aspiring startup ecosystem of Sri Lanka(Source- Startup Sri Lanka Report | SLASSCOM) rise year by year prospering the island with more and more startup seeds while generating new career opportunities and contributing to the economy of Sri Lanka

For the determined individuals with innovative ideas and zero interest for typical day jobs, Sri Lanka provides you with everything a startup needs to thrive at your figure tip. It will only cost a strong will power to hustle off until you succeed and a wise strategy in place.

While many complain the government about the policies, financial matters and other challenges, Sri Lankan startup environment has grown immensely. Today, Sri Lanka proudly owns 150-300 tech startups in the ecosystem and 65% of these entrepreneurs exceed 150 million revenue (Source- which is indeed a considerable growth compared to the past years.

With the attention of the government, other organizations, new emerging investors and young successful entrepreneurs with hearts willing to give a hand to the new startups, the startup ecosystem keeps expanding and evolving creating more and more space for ambitious Sri Lankan techies.

Here are 5 things that testify that ‘Now’ is the best time to start your Sri Lanka startup’.
For those who are still waiting for everything to become perfect to put your business idea to action.

 

1.Government support

By witnessing the success, job opportunities created and the economic support startups can add in strengthening the island’s economy, Sri Lankan government has started to pay their attention to help the thriving youngster techies around the island with new policies, law enforcement, banking facilities and more. Though the reliefs are not even close to what they can amend to help young entrepreneurs, it’s safe to say that it’s a good start. Here are some of the best examples that provide testaments that government encourage startups to thrive.

• Government’s announcement of 200% Capital Allowances for business making investments in the Northern Province and 100% Capital Allowance for Eastern Province Investors.(Source-National Budget Proposal 2017 )

 

 

• “Sri Lanka Export Development Board (SLEDB) has implemented a budget proposal on Start-up funding in 2016, where 26 Startups had been recommended by a committee appointed by the EDB for concessionary loans provided by State Banks”(Source -EDB)

• Dedicating segment name ‘Start-Up Pavilion’ for startups and innovators to showcase their products and solutions in ‘INFOTEL,’ one of the biggest tech exhibition in Sri Lanka organize by EDB, providing more exposure for startups and innovators.

2.More funding opportunities

Apart from, investing your personal money, applying for a bank loan and asking money from your rich parents and friends, there are several ways to fund your business idea. These are few of them.

• Startup programs
• Crowdfunding
• Angel Investors and Venture Capitalists
• Grants
• Zero Interest MSME Loans
• Catalyst support

Enriched with investors of Sri Lanka and from around the world, Sri Lanka’s startup ecosystem now offers you better funding opportunities than ever. With the immense growth and significant achievements and success of Sri Lankan entrepreneurs, the ecosystem is grabbing more and more attention of local investors while other international investors are realizing that Sri Lanka is a safe place to invest with favourable geopolitics and healthy economic growth and stability. This has increased funding opportunities for determined tech-stars out there.

3.Supportive organizations and events

Today, if you have the courage to daydream your startup dream, commit to spend weeks of sleepless nights and dare to get burned and rise from the ashes, figuring out the ‘How to‘ part is not that hard with all the newly born supportive organization and events available in Sri Lanka. BOV Capital and  SLASSCOM are some of the organizations that help startups to grow and ‘Startup Weekend’ and ‘Startup boot camps’ are some of the startup events out there waiting to support young people who are looking forward to taking their business idea to the next level.

4.Better Mentoring

No matter how great your business idea or product is, lack of knowledge on doing business and management and experience in managing a business take no time to take you down the hill. Which makes getting mentored and receiving guidance extremely important for a startup success.

With the collaborative and supportive community of startup founders and co-founders, experienced industry professionals and successful entrepreneurs who once were individuals with doubt and a business plan, finding mentoring and guidance are not extremely hard in Sri Lankan startup ecosystem as it used to be. In addition, there are many programs that provide guidance and insight in implementing and executing strategies and expanding.

5.More incubation opportunities

This is something many startups find tricky with their tight budgets. As the startup current is still immerging in Sri Lanka, every factor isn’t fully completed yet. And incubation is one of them. From finding a working space to accessing resources 0from developing their prototype to taking it to the market, finding facilities and resources are definitely a great challenge for Sri Lankan startups. But, thanks to few of the industry giants in Sri Lanka and some international companies, Sri Lankan startup ecosystem is receiving more incubation opportunities now. Slingshot , a startup incubator/ seed accelerator developed by Hemas PLC, John Keels X and Yarl IT Hub are few good example for this.

Here is a list of people and organizations who are willing to nourish your seed in various ways including, funding, market reach, resources, mentoring, business skills, strategy and more.

Startup incubators

• Lankan Angel Network
• Venture Engine
• BOV Capital
• Startup X Foundry
• Yarl IT Hub
• Crowdisland
• Youth Business Sri Lanka
• East West Capital Group
• Spiralation
• John Keells
• Lanka Ventures PLC

Conclusion

Without no argument, Sri Lanka is still not a healthy place for startups comparing what we have in Sri Lanka with Silicon Valley or other regional startup hubs. Yet, Sri Lanka offers enough resources and facilities to ensure successful startup seed growth.

When considering all the market opportunities and flourishing funding, mentoring and other essential startup opportunities and most importantly all the inspiring startup successes born in Sri Lanka it’s clear that startups culture will grow faster and faster year by year.

So, it’s crystal clear that ’Now’ is the best time to do the research it takes, makes a solid business plan, practices your pitch and launch a mission to bring your business idea to life before the ecosystem gets too competitive.