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Balaram Uprety describes himself as a corporate culture coach who provides valuable advice to top honchos of Nepal’s business houses and institutions. His client list includes Guna Group, Jyoti Group of Companies and Frontline Hospital. He also serves as the director of AP1 TV and Kathmandu Engineering College.

A law graduate, Uprety entered the world of business as a marketing agent and worked his way up to where he is today. He is the quintessential self-made person. He shares some business advices for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Work hard and stay curious

Uprety says he achieved his success through the dint of sheer hard work and eagerness to learn.

“If you work hard and if you are patient enough, success will follow,” he says.

But hard work must be complemented by maintaining an eagerness to always learn new things.   

Although Uprety studied law at college, his first job was that of a marketing agent. When he started out, he had no marketing background whatsoever. He says it was hard work and his spirit of curiosity that brought him success while working for Sign Graphics, his first place of employment.

“My employer was not sure if I was fit for the job because I was a law student,” Uprety says. “But I convinced him to at least give me a chance, judge me by my performance and pay me accordingly.”

Uprety went on to make many clients for his company because he was willing to put in extra work and get out of his comfort zone to learn new things. He later went on to establish his own marketing firm, Advertising In Use.

Be practical, always

Most businesses in Nepal, Uprety says, fail due to lack of market research.

“One cannot succeed in business or any other field just with theoretical knowledge.” 

Every business idea, he adds, “must be put to the test in the real world”.

Uprety believes in the importance of real life interactions with things and people to know their true worth. “It teaches you how different the real world is.”

He learned this while working as a marketing agent.

Uprety says marketing and advertising firms can be a great place for anyone who wishes to learn how the real business world operates and to hone their soft skills.

“All parents should send their children to work as a marketing intern when they graduate from school,” he says

Prioritize your clients

That all businesses should put the needs of their clients first is a no-brainer and yet, many of them fail to do so. Uprety says the measure of any successful business is how satisfied its clients are.

“I have always prioritized my clients and put their needs before mine,” he says. “My objective is to meet their expectations in whatever way I could.”

That old business dictum ‘Customer is King’ holds true even today.

If you are in a business, Uprety suggests, always prioritize your clients, without exception.  

“Always assume that your clients are as good as you think you are in your line of business,” he says. “Always assume that you and your clients have the same knowledge and set of skills.” 

Aim for natural growth

This one is closely linked to the first two points on working hard and being practical. Uprety reiterates success follows hard work.

So his advice to all new entrepreneurs is to work diligently and be sincerely.

“If you have worked hard, you will be rewarded. Be patient and believe in yourself.”

“One must be realistic and aim for natural growth and steady returns,” says Uprety. “There are no shortcuts to success, really.”

“At Skill Sewa, we treat homes like human beings,” says Ramesh Timilsina, one of the  co-founder of the start-up home inspection business. Like humans have various organs with particular functions, he goes on, homes have plumbing, electricity, painting and furnishing. “All of which together make our homes habitable.”

Skill Sewa provides “doctors” for homes that need inspection, repair and maintenance. 

Timalsina, 28, started this company alongside his two college friends Ramsharan Bikram Thapa and Mahesh Timilsina. They started the business the day after graduating from an engineering college.

“We wanted to create something of new value in the market, so we didn’t waste time,” Timilsina says.

The three friends already had the business idea, which they had come up together while working on two projects in their final year of college. What they lacked in the early days of business was market research and a working business plan. Naturally, the idea—though the trio believed was superb—did not catch on. So they made a few changes to their business plan and model. “We decided to work around the already existing services,” Timilsina says. 

The concept of home inspection is completely new in Nepal, but it is a widespread practice in western countries. In fact, visual inspection is a separate career in foreign countries, which is made compulsory by their governments. 

Skill Sewa has grown since it was launched a little over three years ago. Today, it provides jobs to 45 full time and 400 part-time employees. The company is currently working within Kathmandu Valley and plans to expand its services to Butwal and Pokhara. The company gets around 14-15 daily bookings daily. 

“Confirmation is made via call after which an engineer and a technician go to the client’s house with high-tech devices like thermal cameras, moisture meter, etc. to find out what’s wrong with the house,” Timilsina says. “Our job is to find all the possible sources of the prevalent issue, evaluate whether they can be solved, then prepare a report for the client along with the viable solutions.” 

Clients are free to choose whether or not to proceed with the repair work. Service charge for each inspection is Rs 2,000, which is refundable in case the clients are not satisfied. 

Skill Sewa’s primary focus is providing the proper and accurate technical details by using high tech devices to acquire data. 

“We don’t make assumptions, we separate black from white. If local technicians find moisture in the wall, we here find the percentage of moisture using our high-tech devices,” says Timilsina.

The company is also planning to launch its own app to provide services all across Nepal, as well as train around 3,000 people for the job of technicians in Kathmandu Valley, Butwal and Pokhara.

The ultimate goal for Skill Sewa, Ramesh says, is to reach every district and ward across Nepal through integrated partnership with skilled local managers, engineers and overseers. 

“We want to keep the flow of income within Nepal. We don’t want technicians from India and elsewhere to withhold employment opportunities for Nepali workers,” he adds. 

By distributing ownership to local Nepali technicians like plumbers, carpenters and electricians, Skill Sewa wants to empower Nepali citizens. 

Skill Sewa has got a strong grip on marketing and brand building on social media as well. It has a total of 1bn+ views and daily 300-400K views on TikTok, and not to mention the many followings on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. All these contents are aimed at increasing customer-reliance. 

Timilsina and his fellow co-founders of Skill Sewa strongly believe that in order to sustain a business in Nepal, one needs a strong team to adapt to the changing market demands. 

“There has to be a strong network of trust, cooperation and collective effort. For this, we are planning on increasing local partnership.”

Harmita Shrestha exudes confidence as she climbs down from her bike. She’d just arrived at work after dropping off her daughter at school.

The 39-year-old is one of the four female drivers for Sajha Yatayat’s new electric buses—and a proud one at that. She started her career as a tempo driver and has never looked back. From a 10-seater tempo to a 26-seater electric bus, it has been quite a ride for her.

Shrestha learned to drive when she was still a little girl growing up in Dharan. “It was my family’s white Martui van that I adored,” she says. She feels lucky that she gets to do what she loves.

She had never thought a woman could become a professional driver, a job almost exclusively associated with men even today. Then, when she came to Kathmandu, Shrestha saw women working as tempo drivers. Inspired by those women, she also got a license to drive a tempo and hit the career ground running, driving on the RNAC-Sinamangal route.

Shrestha went on to work as the driver for Durga Pokharel, former chairperson of National Women’s Commission, and for the United National Development Program (UNDP). She particularly enjoyed working with the UNDP, as she got to travel to many remote places of Nepal.

“This one time, I drove to a village in Madi for some field work and the villagers welcomed me with garlands, colors and musical instruments,” says Shrestha.

But a woman driver is seldom praised, let alone encouraged.

“Most people prefer male drivers because they are physically stronger and therefore considered more competent,” Shrestha says. She has been subjected to many stereotypes and discriminations for being a woman driver.

Within a month of joining Sajha, the city’s traffic authorities confiscated her license on four occasions. “I hadn’t breached any traffic regulation but still they tried to slap me with a 15,000-rupee fine,” she says. “My only fault was that I was a woman.”

One time a woman police officer hurled obscenities at Shrestha while she was parked at a designated bus stop in Maharajgunj. Shrestha found such behavior of one woman towards another deeply hurtful.

It was not so when she used to work for the UN. Back then, she says, traffic police were polite and considerate. “Maybe they are trained that way: to respect drivers in vehicles with blue number plates,” she says.

Shrestha is a hardworking mother of two children, whom she provides for working as a bus driver. She starts her job at 6:30 am and reaches home at around 8 pm. It is a difficult and thankless job, especially if you are a mother. All she desires is a modicum of respect while on the road. But that is hard to come by in a patriarchal society where nearly everything a woman does is a suspect.

By being on the road daily, driving her bus around the city, Shrestha has been fighting the old stereotypes. Every now and then, some of her passengers praise her work. These are the occasions that inspire her to continue.  

Shrestha strongly believes that women should be given opportunities and proper environment to succeed, both in government and non-government sectors.

“Working women face unique challenges. For instance, we might be having a particularly difficult menstruation. Having proper toilets at bus stops would certainly make things a lot easier for us,” Shrestha says.

Shrestha finds the experience of driving an electric bus safe and more comfortable. “It takes a fair bit of skill but definitely less physical effort,” she says. “With electric vehicles, you also don’t get muscle soreness, which is a big thing for professional drivers.”

She believes Kathmandu’s traffic and pollution woes could be significantly eased by having more electric buses. To boot, there would also be more jobs for women.

Asked how long she plans on working as a driver, Shrestha replies: “If I could drive only electric vehicles, I could easily do this job until I am 60.”

Since its inception 30 years ago, Alfa Beta Institute of Kathmandu has given Nepali students a forum for international education. It provides career counseling and admission support to students who want to travel abroad for further studies. 

The institute represents over 300 universities from more than 12 destination countries, including the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and Ireland, making it the largest university network representative in Nepal. Additionally, Alfa Beta conducts tests like IELTS, TOEFL, PTE and CPA, in which around 70,000 students participate annually. It also organizes short English teaching programs and bridge courses for fresh SEE graduates. 

Dwiraj Sharma, CEO and president of Alfa Beta, says he draws inspiration from Singaporean statesman Lee Kuan Yew, who once equated educating everyone to building a robust country.

“To establish our country as an international brand like Singapore, we need strong business leaders who work with honesty and diligence,” Sharma says. 

Yew transformed his country by recruiting top-skilled professional and educational geniuses and paying them handsomely so that they did not have to accept bribes. Sharma has adopted a similar approach in his institute, which not only invests a lot on staff training but also offers lucrative wages. 

The vision of Alfa Beta is to become Nepal’s leading educational institute and put the clients’ interest first. 

“Carrying out this vision is only possible through collective effort,” Sharma says. “You can deliver quality services only if you have a good and honest team.” 

Thanks to its highly motivated and professional staff, Alfa Beta was recognized as “Nepal’s Number 1 Business Partner” by IDP IELTS for three successive years between 2017 and 2019. The institute has also been recognized by global organizations like Pearson and ETS.

Asked what is unique about Alfa Beta, Sharma says adopting a customer-centric approach to service delivery has been the key to its success. 

“We prioritize quality. While this may increase the cost, we still want to deliver excellent service to our clients,” he says. 

Sharma’s involvement in the education field does not end here, he has his hands deep in diverse ventures. He holds the position of the president of the Association of Australian Education Representatives in Nepal (AAERI), a professional education agency that helps students explore higher education opportunities in Australia. He is also the trade representative of Nepal for the Trade Commissioner Services (TCS), a business promotion wing of the Canadian government that helps companies navigate international markets. 

Additionally, Sharma works as a central member of the Confederation of Nepalese Industries, assisting Nepal government in its education-policy making. 

Sharma advocates a stable and efficient system to impart quality education in all public schools. 

“Only by bridging the gap between private and public schools can Nepal achieve its goal of quality education for all,” he says. 

While formulating education plans and policies, he adds, it is important to learn from the likes of Norway, Sweden, India, Singapore and Australia and figure out what makes their education institutions so successful.

Sharma is an idealist and a realist at the same time. He has big plans for the country but also acknowledges the challenges that stand on the way to achieving them, most crucially Nepal’s unstable political environment and policy inconsistencies. 

“The government has to create a work and investment-friendly environment for businesspersons and investors alike,” Sharma says. “Our country is in dire need of experts who have brilliant ideas and international ties. Only then can Nepal sustainably grow and develop.”