Hyderabad, January 06, 2025…Many successful entrepreneurs have come from small places and humble backgrounds. Many started with little to nothing said panelists while participating in a panel discussion on ‘Scaling Up: From $ 1M to $ 100 M Revenue-Strategies for Success” at APTA KATALYST at Hitex in Madhapur.

The panel was moderated by Murali Bukkapatnam, a well-known Hyderabad entrepreneur, who is just elected as Chair of the TiE Global Board of Trustees for 2025

In the journey of scaling up, we must make our employees our partners, said one of the panelists, Bhaskar Gangipamula, President and Co-founder of Quadrant Technologies. If you want to run long, you must take the team along. Human Resources are the biggest asset in this journey. So I keep interviewing people all through the year whether I need to or not. When the right time comes, I onboard them and he revealed his secret as he was aiming to build a dollar company.

Another insight revealed by the panelists was to give responsibility and ownership to your team so that they are more dedicated.

Earlier delivering a keynote address on entrepreneurship Murali said entrepreneurs are magical thinkers. Entrepreneurship can be a combination of nature and nurture, and whether it comes naturally depends on the individual. But there is an entrepreneur in every one of us.

Participating in another panel ‘India’s Semiconductor Push: Building a Robust Chip Manufacturing Ecosystem’ Chandrudu Sambashiva Rao of Quadgen Wireless asked if can India produce Wi-Fi chip, a hardware component that allows devices to connect to the internet or other devices wirelessly and as well as wireless IoT gateway.

Manufacturing WiFi chips is important because they are the core component that enables wireless connectivity in a wide range of devices. Similarly, can we produce a Wireless IoT Gateway? Wireless IoT gateways are used to improve the efficiency, security, and reliability of their IoT systems, he said.

Semiconductors are not rocket science. If you take the top ten most valued companies, 9 out of 10 companies such as Apple, Tesla, Google and others are run by semiconductors. The 10th company is a Chip manufacturer TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). Its business is in trillion US dollars.

Bheemudu Pasupuleti, a self-made technocrat said there is an entrepreneur in every human being. I did not go to any school during the first 15 years of my childhood, then studied 7th, continued my education and ended up doing Engineering from BITS Pilani. I am in the business of Polymer Insulators. Today the turnover of my company is INR 100 crore and aiming for INR 300 crore in the next three years, he shared.

Entrepreneurs are a rare breed. It takes a heterogeneous mix of confidence, focus, risk tolerance, self-discipline, determination and competitiveness to start a business and see it through to success. You don’t need a business management degree to be an entrepreneur, he said.

Babji of SVS Projects India said you need an original idea, a disruptive idea, which is an investment. Money is not an investment. The idea is the investment. Entrepreneurs are the ones who come out with ideas to solve problems.

There was another interesting panel. It was about women in the cinema. If the story and narration are good in a film, then it will be appreciated, said film producer and actress Niharika Konidela in a panel on Women in Cinema.

We make films if the story and narration are good, the Telugu audience will fall in love with the film and the chances of such films losing money are very low. She spoke on various issues along with film producer Sunitha Tati on the topic ‘women in the Business.

In films like ‘Gundamma Katha’, the roles of women were very strong. There, the story was the king. Women were crucial in that story. Such roles are not coming. The heroine is seen only as a negotiator when the hero and villain face each other. It is said that now there is no heroine even on half a page in the film script.

Cinema is a money-making business, so it is difficult to go about it, and one must also have passion, she said

Women are underrepresented in the film industry, observed the Panelists. It is predominantly created by men, for men they said.

APTA has organised a signature event called APTA KATALYST BUSINESS PITCH CONTEST. This was organised as part of the business conference. The top 5 startups made it to the final of the Katalyst Business Pitch Competition and pitched their business ideas to the house full of 1000 plus audience and VCs. They made it to the final out of 54 submissions. From these five who made it to the final three will be judged as the top 3 winners. The top five finalists were.