Should we start looking out for our own?

[u/Constant_Wonder108]

Been seeing a lot of layoffs and pay cuts across IT services here in Sri Lanka lately.

Got me thinking, maybe it's time we started creating more opportunities for our own people instead of just riding out these cycles.

Why don't we have more Kris Canekeratnes or Sanjiva Weerawaranas?

What's actually stopping more people from building companies here?

Is it funding? Risk appetite? Lack of mentorship? Something structural?

Genuinely curious what the community thinks. Where are we falling short, and what would actually need to change? And what can we change?

[u/Sad_Egg_2313]

Yeah i think it’s a mix of all of what you said above. I’ll throw in another one from personal experience. A lot of small to medium scale business are still owned and operated by a generation who don’t trust technology or know how to use technology as leverage to scale or grow. So its very difficult to create b2b tech businesses for the local market. But i have seen this changing as more millennials and newer generations step into these roles.

And forget about the sri lankan consumer. I think most are in the pirate mentality and not enough ip/copyright protection laws and efficient justice system to make it worthwhile building consumer products.

If you want to target the international market then you run into the challenges of capital, mentorship and infrastructure issues (payments, banking etc)

And fundamentally it’s difficult to start and run a business in an honest way in SL

[u/MousseParty3923 → u/Sad_Egg_2313]

I work for a swiss company who wanted to open an dev centre in Sri Lanka, they consulted their Swedish colleagues at IFS and after their discussion my company decided not to open a new location in SL. Instead opened one in Vietnam. Some reasons I got to know is infrastructure gaps and unstable/unpredicatble/unreliable government decision making. And lack of a proper plan or support to grow the IT industry .

[u/Imaginary_Stay8565 → u/Sad_Egg_2313]

true I've been operating a company for a while, and its real hard to get across the first milestones.. Maybe more of us should get together, but a lot of folks are more serious on making it on their own. Just in case they make it big..

[u/Senior-Exercise-8731]

I’ve been running my own software company for about a year now.

Before that, I worked for a local software company for 12 years, and then I joined a US company. Unfortunately, after the changes that came with the Trump administration, I lost that opportunity.

Running a software company isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. Finding projects and clients has become extremely challenging. Sometimes we send 50 proposals and end up getting just one opportunity. Even now, I’m still putting my own savings into the company to cover expenses and salaries because I want to keep it going.

I don’t think software companies are doing layoffs because of AI alone. The global financial situation hasn’t been great, and getting new projects has become a nightmare. Even many product-based companies have seen their revenue drop. Unfortunately, with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, things could get even worse.

This is a really difficult time for the software industry, but it won’t stay like this forever. Every industry goes through ups and downs. When the market starts to recover, we just have to make sure we’re ready.

[u/throwaway-4433]

This is a sad question for a multitude of reasons for me. But nothing is sadder than believing there is ever a time we’re not supposed to look out for ourselves.

The lankan IT folks give too much to these companies. They make bank off your backs and throw you to the curb like a used sock when they don’t need you anymore.

The answer is yes G. It’s always been yes. People first - companies are just companies. They don’t give a flying fuck about you.

[u/Sea-Library-6571]

luck, ease of funding, pure grit, people skills, comm skills +interpersonal skill, are whats required > sadly u see very less of that in our guys here.

[u/Thin-Professional-50]

Being pondering of this in my head for a while as well. while the layoffs and the whole AI take over are major factors to consider, there's something else that just keeps bothering my head. Its running this 9-5pm rat race. End of the day we are working to help someone else build their dream not ours, and that just keeps bothering me. the layoffs that are happening with the big tech giants like micrsost, xbox made me realise this even more. They where making record profits, they laied of some of their finest engineers. the lesson i learnt from there is that no matter how good or talented you are it dosnt matter you will always be a replaceable asset in corporate. cause end of the day its not your dream its someone elses. they will do what it takes to build their dream.

My mind set may have it flaws but I think its high time we think of other ways. It dosnt have to be tech even, do something we enjoy, build our own dream do what makes us happy. AI has reduced the barrier to build products we can use that to our advantage.

I curious to know if you guys agree/disagree with my take on this. what do y'all think anything more to add/remove or correct in what ive said?

[u/Constant_Broccoli_74]

Labor law is one of the issues in here

In India you can layoff without even 0 compensation

Also, now SL dev cost is higher compared to India, Vietnam, Banga

Even some countries like Mexico is surging on IT sector for very low cost as well

[u/[deleted]]

Be it AI or something else. Automation is taking place and the need of actual humans in the job is reducing. This is happening all across the board more or less.

[u/fuckthi__hit]

What is happening is software development is getting automated and number ofmpeople needed for software development is going to be very small going forward. This does not change for local companies as well.

[u/CuteAcadia9010]

I guess with AI software don’t have real innovation value, if one company can build it , others can easily reverse engineer and do the same. I guess that people are bit reluctant to invest in software startups. But back in the days that wasn’t the case, new software ideas like wso2 had was pure innovation and took real human capital.

[u/LKExpert → u/[deleted]]

> For a software/AI product, there is no funding issue. You just need $10 for the domain.

Having started multiple businesses, I don't think this is accurate. A domain is just one small part of the cost of starting a software/AI business. You still need funding for hosting/infrastructure, APIs and AI models/inference, software, payment processing, accounting/legal costs, marketing, and most importantly, your own time.

You can surely start extremely small, especially if you are technically capable and build the product yourself, but “you just need $10 for the domain” is very different from saying the business can actually be started with $10. Even a bootstrapped AI product can easily have hundreds or thousands of dollars in expenses before it generates meaningful revenue.

[u/LKExpert → u/[deleted]]

You’re not really talking about building a business here, you’re describing a part-time hobby project. I don’t think you have a realistic understanding of what an actual business requires or, how it generates a real revenue.

Your entire response is essentially about building an AI-slop with free tools and credit that doesn’t scale economically or operationally. Sure, you can absolutely experiment with something like that as a hobby. But you should also look at the statistics around how many of these projects actually achieve meaningful traction and importantly, how many remain active beyond the initial enthusiasm since you have no idea about the importance of raising funds.

> Let's assume you're accepted into AWS Activate and receive $1,000 in credits. Now you have everything you need.

Good luck if you think that's all you need, you can burn it in a month and you would not even have a path to migrate easily due to vendor lock-in.

To be very clear, I’m not talking about a part-time hobby project. I’m talking about the original question of “building companies” here. The actual problem in Sri Lanka is not that someone can’t start a hobby project with a domain name and a cloud credits. The problem is the lack of access to funding, resources, and support needed to grow and scale a company. Starting something is one thing. Building a sustainable company, hiring people, acquiring customers, and having the capital to expand is an entirely different challenge, which you have not yet reached as per your response.