Established by three civil engineering graduates, Skill Sewa is an emerging start-up that boasts of being the country's first home inspection company which also offers renovation and maintenance services by providing well-trained electricians and plumbers. Initiated in a rented room with their personal savings, the company now has 40 full-time employees and 300 on part-time basis. It recently secured an investment pledge of Rs 85 million at CNIYEF Nepal StartUp Fest 2022 organised by Confederation of Nepalese Industries Young Entrepreneurs Forum. CEO of Skill Sewa Ramesh Timilsina spoke with The Himalayan Times about the company's journey, challenges, and their future plans. Excerpts:

Could you share about the journey of Skill Sewa?

While participating in an inter-college competition, we realised that business potential in the realty sector was something that was not covered in our syllabus. We realised we had to bring something new to the market to set us apart from other real sector-related businesses. When he started our business right after college, we initially planned to offer our services by connecting homeowners with plumbers and electricians. But we were unable to achieve much success. It was only after visiting various expos that we realised that the problems faced by our potential customers went beyond simple repair and maintenance. So, we figured we should take up a more holistic approach and decided to provide a one-stop solution like home inspection services along with maintenance, repairs, and renovations. For that, we took out a loan to import high-tech equipment such as laser rebar detector, thermal camera, rebound hammer for technical supervision and inspection. The initial six months were really tough, but after that we have been taking a service charge of Rs 2,000 for each inspection. Now, the demand is quite high, with customers having to book our services at least a week in advance. So far we have solved the problems of around 2,000 buildings.

What are the major challenges you have faced?

First of all, the government is not clear on the exact definition of a start-up. Secondly, the incentives for start-ups in acquiring loans, tax clearance, funds that are announced in the budget and the government's policies and programmes are mostly only limited to paper. Thirdly, the family support is mostly lacking here. Many parents, including mine, discourage their children from starting a business, and would rather see them in a public sector job or seek employment abroad. It was a major challenge for us to convince our parents. After much haggling, they gave us a six-month ultimatum - either we prove ourselves within that time or give up our dream and look for a 'stable nine-tofive job'. Luckily, our business took off within that period and we started to make some profit.

How does an event like CNIYEF Nepal StartUp Fest help companies like yours?

For us personally, we only had limited exposure in the market before participating in the CNIYEF StartUp Fest. After participating in the fest, our network grew exponentially - from other start-up companies, investment firms, media, to government officers. At the same time, we realised that a craze of start-ups does exist in Nepal as the event attracted a crowd of 5,000 visitors. It was motivating to realise that the start-up scene in Nepal is expanding similar to that in India.

Your company secured an investment pledge of Rs 85 million at the StartUp Fest. How do you plan to use the funds if the pledge is realised?

If the commitment is realised, we plan to expand our services in three major cities outside the valley and also explore overseas markets. Likewise, we're planning to conduct free trainings to generate skilled manpower in Nepal. Also, we're looking to create young professional supervisors for the construction sites.

What are your plans going forward?

Apart from expansion, we're also looking to work on a partnership model. If someone is good at some sector, we plan to rope them in by giving certain shares of our company. This way we will have specialised team members in the company which will help it to grow faster.

A version of this article appears in the print on July 28, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.