Successful local companies can help stop mass exodus of Nepalis: Rockstart founder Kneppers

Oscar Kneppers, Founder of Rockstart, a startup
accelerator which also has a programme in
Nepal, created the first Dutch internet magazine ‘Net
Magazine’ in 1994. He was also behind the
successful technology channel Webwereld (1995). In
1998 Kneppers started his first business and
launched Emerce, a magazine, and website on e-
business, marketing and technology. Emerce is still
considered the most prominent Internet and e-
commerce media brand in the Netherlands. After
launching and selling off more media ventures in
preceding years, Kneppers founded Rockstart to
helps startups through funding, mentorship,
community and office space and relevant startup
events. In Nepal Rockstart Impact has accelerated
29 companies, and received FDI pledges for 21 of
them ranging from €100–500K. Onlinekhabar
recently talked to Kneppers about the programme in
Nepal.
Excerpts from an interview:
Is this your first time in Nepal?
Yes, this is my first time in Nepal. I came in
yesterday morning, but Rockstart has been here in
Nepal for over three years now. We have had
people on the ground here since 2014. I have also
been in contact with all the Rockstart alumni in
Nepal as they have come to Amsterdam for Demo
Day (the day on which they make their pitch to
potential investors).
You have said that the main manifesto of
Rockstrat is financial freedom and independence.
How does it relate to Nepal?
Yes, to be more precise, it’s about independence,
self-sustenance, and freedom to make choices.
We were just discussing a few hours ago how
1,700 people are leaving this country every day.
That’s a large number of people, bigger than what
we can imagine.
I believe that for a country or a city, it is important
to build a local community of people who want to
build something in the country rather than go
abroad to send money back the country. The best
way to do that is to build companies and when
the companies become successful, people either
join them or get inspired by them to start
something on their own. When starting a
company becomes the default option, why would
anyone want to go abroad for work? That is why
it is super important to build companies.
You are based in Amsterdam, where you a
startup on every block of the city. Big names
such as Uber are also based there. But if you
look at Nepal, everyone is leaving. The two cities
appear to be on opposite poles.. What’s
happening in Kathmandu?
The Netherlands is a small country, we have half
the population of Nepal and as we are a small
country, we need to go out and try out new
things. That is why the international focus is our
default. Over time, we have become an importer
of talent and exporter of entrepreneurship. We
have learnt to overcome international barriers.
There may be a big difference between
Amsterdam and Kathmandu, but there is also a
huge difference between Amsterdam and Utrecht,
the next city in the Netherlands. People have
always been attracted to capitals. A lot of people
might be leaving Nepal, but those in Kathmandu
may not be leaving in the same numbers. I don’t
know, Google does not have an office here, but
that does not matter. Every city has its one thing.
Kathmandu’s thing could be to become the global
centre for agriculture innovation. You have fertile
land here, and the people are ambitious and
knowledgeable.
Rockstart has been around for quite a while in
South America
and. ..
We opened up in Colombia recently. We have a
tech accelerator there. But Nepal was our first
foreign adventure.
How did the whole idea of starting in Nepal come
about?
A few years ago I met Dutch investors who had
invested in a milk factory here in Nepal. He told
me that what was going on was amazing and I
should talk to one of the two guys looking after
his investment here. The Dutch guy had made his
money in telecom and he had invested some
money in Nepal. I talked to Willem Grimminc, who
was looking after the investment and we instantly
recognised each other. We decided to come to
Nepal. We decided that for Nepali startups, the
criteria would be a bit different, and they would
not necessarily have to be globally scalable, but
they need to have an impact. We said let’s do it,
and we had the first batch.
You said that you approach to Nepal is a bit
different from your accelerator programme in the
Netherlands. How so?
Globally, we look for tech-driven companies that
are globally scalable. In Nepal, we also focus on
innovation, but instead of global scalability, we
look for companies that are impact-oriented so
that they create a fertile ground for people driven
companies.
Investors are worried about getting returns, why
would they care about impact?
In the startup world, what happens is that an
entrepreneur builds a successful company and
sells it to someone else, and then his has money.
What he does next is to invest in the e-commerce
website of the daughter of his friend and some
other startup of someone he knows. A couple of
thousand euros and a bruised ego later, he feels
that he is not a good investor. That is where
Rockstart comes in, We make the startups we
work with investment-ready, in the case of Nepal,
in 100 days. Then the investors get credibility and
the structure to put their money in
Nepal was an NGO darling for many years. NGOs
would come here and start throwing money at
people with initiatives that do not work. Similarly,
in Africa, the continent has become sick simply
because people want someone else to come in
with the money. In Nepal when you make an
investment, you just don’t want to give money,
you are committing to something; you can talk to
the startups you are investing in, be at the
meetings, talk with them, you have way more grip
on the investment,
Globally, accelerator programme operators feel
that their model of investing in the equity of
startups is not doing well. Your accelerator is a
bit different as it focuses on networking. You
have said that not a single entrepreneur became
an entrepreneur without talking to anyone. Does
the network that you have give you the edge over
other accelerators?
In the context of Nepal, we don’t take equity. This
is not about money, it’s about peer-to-peer
mentoring. It’s about having people who are
building companies share workspace with others
who are doing the same. No other programme
has the network, the mentors and the access the
capital that we have.
We do not charge the startups for the
programme. In Nepal, we ask startups who have
received funding to gives us 10,000 euros from
their investment so that we can fund the next
batch. In Amsterdam and in Colombia, we take
minority stakes in the companies. But here in
Nepal, we are not allowed in invest in such a way,
but what we do is connect the startups with the
investors.
You have said that you want to build the biggest
startup machine on earth. Are you on track to
achieving that?
We just started. We are not saying we want to
become the biggest, we want to become the
greatest that’s the most attractive to startup
founders. We are not even halfway there. We are
on three continents, and we want to expand to
more continents, except for North America now,
which we want to leave for the Americans. Our
next Rocksart Impact programme, which we first
organised in Nepal, will be Myanmar. In the next
few years, we are looking at other countries in the
region.
What are some of the problems your programme
has faced in Nepal?
It’s not just Nepal, it’s in many countries. There’s
a lot of bureaucracy, and capital is hard to get. I
have always believed that a good accelerator
porgramme needs three things: great startups,
good mentors and money, which is always hard
to find. Fortunately, we have been able to find a
pool of good mentors here in Nepal
When you select a startup for you accelerator
and they end up without an investment pledge,
they would be disappointed…
What we do is make the startups investment-
ready. The startups have to make their story. We
have had companies that had expected to sign
deals on Demo Day, but they could not do it. They
were a bit disappointed. But there are times in the
life of an entrepreneur where things do not go as
planned, what you need to do is be ready to start
over again, It’s easy to blame others when you
are in difficult times.
We’ve seen globally that eight out of ten tech
startups around the world fail in their early days,
but in the case of Rockstart, eight out of 10
companies have gone on to receive funding. That
is an indication of where we are placed.
What would be your message to startups in
Nepal?
It’s easy, step forward star. That is what we learn
from startups every day. I am so much impressed
by the optimism here in Nepal in the 48 hours that
I have been here. There is a hunger to do better
here, and that is one the key ingredients for a
good entrepreneurial environment. Local
entrepreneurs have found solutions to so many
problems. Of course, there are other problems
that have not been solved: there cables all over
the street and I almost fell and got electrocuted.
But I have been impressed. There are places in
Eastern Europe, where you come in and think
someone has just died. But in Nepal, things are
different. We recently visited one of the Bloom
Schools, which had the worst kind of starts. They
lost their building in the quake, and two people
were killed. They had to rebuild everything. I
would have given up already if I were in their
shoes. There’s a lot to learn from Nepal.
The final question. What about ‘startup yoga’?
I took up yoga after an accident I had a few years
ago. Yoga is one of the foundations of Rockstart.
By practising yoga, you can hold on much longer
than you think. It brings calmness to everything.
We teach yoga at Rockstart, we have three
teachers. Many entrepreneurs may not do it, but if
they have access to it, at some point, they’ll try it
and they will feel that it will really help them out
when they are in this tunnel of pain and suffering
of building a company.