• In conversation with 3axislabs Co-Founder Prasanth Subendran about his pandemic venture

 By Yakuta Dawood If you remember, several businesses in Sri Lanka were temporarily shut down due to the adverse effects caused during the early stages of the pandemic. But do situations like these impact the livelihood of individuals with entrepreneurial blood? Today, The Sunday Morning Business will be talking about three entrepreneurs who established a new company named “3axislabs” to overcome the difficulties faced in their professional life. Giving a brief introduction of how the journey of 3axislabs started, Co-Founder and Director Prasanth Subendran, who is also the sole Founder of BusSeat.lk stated that he was forced to close down operations of his own company with absolutely no revenue generation during the initial period when Covid-19 made its impact in Sri Lanka, due to the imposition of intern-provisional travel restriction followed by several islandwide lockdowns.  “My overall business operation was hindered due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, during that time, my sole purpose was to survive as any human being would do during difficult times. Hence, when my partner (Subudaran) suggested an idea of launching a new product to the global market, I agreed to it, noting that we would need another co-founder to share the weight of the start-up responsibility,” Subendran said.  Accordingly, the three entrepreneurs are Subendran, Jestan Nirojan Jeyapalan, and Saahithyan Vigneswaran. Today, 3axislabs caters to software development tools that specialise in web, mobile, big data applications, and cloud solutions as a bootstrapping strategic company to launch the new planned product within the next few months.  When inquired on how the entrepreneurial journey has been in a country like Sri Lanka, Subendran stated that excluding support that is given by similar and existing entrepreneurs in the country, he has come across several key negative hurdles since the beginning of the journey.  Explaining, he said that the first is the lack of opportunities in terms of investments into a product that just focused on the Sri Lankan market. According to him, if a company does a product that offers service to the international market, the traction is much higher with more investment opportunities rather than a product forced for the local market.  The second is when he came across how poorly the technology was adopted by Sri Lankan consumers before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Whereas, another was the difficulty in getting payments accepted via online transactions as the credit/debit generation was extremely low in 2015.  Fortunately, he stated that with the pandemic, these challenges faced are comparatively very less at 3axislabs operation since people now have commenced stirring towards the digital era.  “With my previous start-up experience at BusSeat.lk, I was able to set up 3axislabs much faster. Sri Lanka is a small country consisting of a small community, thereby making it easier for us to move ahead with the support of other entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, the joy and the satisfaction of bringing even a single dollar into the company is extremely high knowing that you worked rather than working as an employee in another firm,” Subendran highlighted.  What’s interesting about 3axislabs operations? Revealing specific details of the product that is being currently developed, Subendran mentioned that 3axislabs is in the process of launching a “single” website that could be used by any professional such as a doctor, teacher, journalist, or a user from any part of the world.  “This is similar to Canva, where individuals will be able to launch their preferred website by using customised templates without knowing anything about coding, development, and other technical sides of developing a website. As per our plan, we will be able to launch it by the first quarter of 2022,” he expressed.  Therefore, as previously mentioned, 3axislabs is currently bootstrapping through various services such as Web Application Development, Mobile Application Development, UI/UX Design, System Integration and Cloud Migration, Data Analytics and Machine Learning, and also Software Developer Outsourcing to other international countries.  Commenting about the services, he stated that fortunately, all services mentioned above are highly demanded by all clients not just in Sri Lanka but across the globe, thereby making it beneficial for them to intensify and expand their company operations further.  According to Subendran, the company will seek investors after the new product is launched to the market, until then the expansion and the development of existing services will be continued to all clients, locally and globally alike.  Nevertheless, what’s intriguing about 3axislabs is that, within less than a year, the company has been able to cater to all the above services, provide high-quality assistance and prices, expand the number of employees from just three to a team of six members whilst adapting to the start-up culture of working as “one team, one family”. “What stands out about our company is the high quality unlike the existing competitors in Sri Lanka and other neighbouring nations. But there is a need to create Sri Lanka as a hub to get more international clients in the future,” Subendran added. Challenges faced and goals set Excluding Sri Lanka, 3axislabs has been able to successfully tap into developed nations such as the US, Denmark, Australia Singapore, and the UK.  When inquired regarding the challenges faced in expanding services to developed nations, Subendran expressed that other than finding the “best lead”, one of the most difficult hurdles is proving to clients that 3axislabs is a much better company catering to high-quality services in comparison to existing cheaper alternatives from other developing countries, namely India.  “Clients prefer cheaper products that are available from other countries. So, to not lose our opportunity in the international market, we show the client what we can do, negotiate the price, and then confirm the service that will be rendered,” he explained.  Adding further, Subendran also stated that as a start-up company that is also operating from Jaffna, the recruitment process of the “right talent” is quite a difficult task as skilled people are now reluctant to commence work.  “Even though we are offering a good salary and other benefits that come along with joining a firm, people with the right talent are now seeking job opportunities in reputed Sri Lankan companies or even seeking jobs at international companies. This is why recruitment is challenging for us, but we are planning to further grow the team by the next year 2022,” he said.  Meanwhile, commenting on the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic, Subendran stated that it has been extremely beneficial for them to grow their client base. Firstly, because all meetings are conducted online without any external hindrance, thereby saving time and money that would be used for traveling outside Jaffna or to any other country if not for the technological advancement shift due to the pandemic.  Secondly, because now employees are comfortable working from anywhere across the country rather than gathering in one location. This is beneficial for 3axislabs as they are a firm operating from Jaffna, which could have led to more operational costs and a further increase in the chances of finding skilled employees for a start-up.  “Pandemic has taught people to learn and adapt to technology unlike what it was five years ago. Due to this, meetings have become easier to conduct with clients anywhere around the world, which saves a lot of time and money for all stakeholders involved,” he stated.  Further, when inquired about the upcoming goals that the company was focusing on, Subendran said that the short-term goal is to completely focus on development and the launch of the new product that is expected to come within next year.  Whereas, the long-term goal is to scale the company by expanding the client base in terms of individual numbers, and also by tapping into other developed nations.  “We see ourselves bringing a very high percentage of revenue to Sri Lanka within the next five years and this will be achieved by bringing more international projects into the country. In terms of employees, this will also further expand with a larger number of skilled labour,” he concluded.