Successful Young Woman Entrepreneur

Miss Jaruza Jayachandran Partner of the ezBooking

Introduction for Entrepreneur

This is a risk taker who possesses skills, such as knowledge and self-confidence. This individual
bears the risk of starting a business venture, in the face of uncertainty about future conditions.
Most successful entrepreneurs are self-motivated. Entrepreneurs start their own businesses
because they do not like to work for others, but prefer to be their own boss and be responsible for
the decisions they make. Entrepreneurs have the ability to spot a business opportunity and utilize
it, with the hope of succeeding, rather than failing.

Entrepreneurship is a creative activity, as it tries new methods, rather than following routine
methods. Entrepreneurship is closely related to innovation, as the success of entrepreneurship,
largely, depends on the ability to respond to innovation. It has its objective of economic success,
based on the utilization of new means of production. Entrepreneurship is a result-oriented
activity, since it emphasizes high levels of achievement and performance. The qualities of an
entrepreneur are acquired; thus, an entrepreneur need not be born as one, but can become one
through progressive learning.

History of Jaruza Jeyachandran

Jaruza Jayachandran states with no embarrassment that she didn’t do well at school. When she
used to go for parent-teacher meetings at one of Jaffna’s leading schools, Vembadi Girls High
School, Jaruza’s mother would ask to be warned which teachers would be complaining. Now that
young girl who says she failed to pass her A’levels is the 50% owner of a promising tourism
startup, ezBooking.io. A startup that has already built a client base in the Northern and Eastern
Provinces and plans to spread its service across South and South East Asia. From sorry
schoolgirl Jaruza, now a young woman, is growing into a promising tech entrepreneur treading
the path towards great success.

Born in Chankanai, a village a few miles North of Jaffna Town, Jaruza has two younger brothers.
While her mother looks after the family her father is a small businessman. He entered business
by a family tragedy. Her father had been working as a driver in Singapore. But when his brother
was killed in the violence of the Sri Lankan Civil War her father returned to take over his bakery
business. A business her father continues to run to this day.
After completing school, Jaruza joined a college in Chankanai to get training in software
development. She then joined Innovay as an administrative assistant. This proved to be a very
fortunate step for her. Innovay was founded in Jaffna by Robinson B Prashanthan. From its
offices in Jaffna and Colombo Innovay provides services and software development in the web,
mobile apps and social media sectors. Prashanthan recognized the potential in Jaruza, and sent
her to Colombo on a 6 month training course at SLIIT focused on Quality Assurance.
She returned from this training to spend a further four years at Innovay with responsibility for
QA, design, and social media.

In 2017 Jaruza attended the first Startup Weekend in Jaffna. She didn’t actually go as one of the
eager young entrepreneurs hoping to break into the big time. She says her unsuccessful
schooldays had left her lacking the self-confidence to be so daring. Jaruza went as part of the
media team, to take photographs of the event. But while she was taking the snaps, she was also
listening and learning and being inspired. And so, watching from the sidelines, Jaruza decided to
take an entrepreneurial leap.

For her good fortune, Prashanthan believed in her. Together Jaruza and Prashanthan formed an
equal partnership to setup ezBooking.io which provides systems for small and medium hotels
and restaurants. The ezBooking systems, developed and maintained by Innovay, provide website;
online booking; customer management database; invoice generation and other facilities.
Customers can access the system from PC, tablet and from mobile phones. The system can also
handle walk-in and telephone bookings, and so provides a virtually complete IT solution for
small hotels. The ezBooking organization does the marketing, customer support, drives the
ongoing development of the systems, and owns the customer relationship. In its first year
ezBooking has launched systems for nearly a hundred hotels in the Northern and Eastern
Provinces. Over 1,000 bookings have been made via the system. Examples of the websites built
by ezBooking include:

 www.jkabbeachresort.com in Trincomalee
 www.delftsamudra.com on Delft Island, Jaffna
 www.gajaresthousejaffna.com in Jaffna
 www.jkabparkhotel.com in Trincomalee

For hotels the ezBooking system is a tempting alternative to other tourism sites like
booking.com. Not least because these other sites can charge anything up to 25% commission. In
contrast, ezBooking makes a one-off setup charge with an annual service fee. At the time of
writing this article they were doing a special offer of less than US$400 for the one-off charge,
and US$100 per year service charge. The ezBooking system also allows hotel proprietors to
monitor their businesses from their mobile phones. Small hotel owners are not always well
heeled high rollers, greeting guests and counting profits. Many owners are doing other jobs
during the day to make ends meet. They like to be alerted when things happen at their properties.

ezBooking made a splash in Delhi last August where it was regarded as one of the best startups
in Sri Lanka at the South Asian Connect Programme run by the University Of Texas At Austin.
It also won an award for entrepreneurship from the World University Service of Canada
(WUSC) and the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka in 2018.
Jaruza won customers for ezBooking by going door-to-door from hotel to hotel to make sales
pitches. Sometimes she would take a team away from Jaffna, and spend 3-4 days working
through hotels in a region. For example, she went to Arumugam Bay and got a list from the Sri
Lanka Tourism Board and from the local Hotel Association. Her team then spent the days
visiting hotels one by one. When she has a client meeting in Trinco she will leave her home in
Chankanai north of Jaffna at 3am to take the bus to Jaffna Town, and catch another bus that
arrives in Trinco at 10.30am. After a 2 hour meeting she will take the 3pm bus back from Trinco
to Jaffna getting home at 9pm.

Challenges faced by Miss Jerusha

I asked Jaruza what challenges she faces as a female entrepreneur in Sri Lanka and in Jaffna. She
said in her experience being female has the advantage that people trust women more than men. A
reverse discrimination! She hasn’t felt worried meeting the owners of hotels, as they were
educated people who did not behave badly towards women. Jaruza actually had nothing much to
say about feeling discriminated against due to her gender. Perhaps this reflects her general
attitude to the challenges of life, as things to be overcome rather than worried about!
When she started her entrepreneurial career, her parents worried about her being out late. Family
friends and relatives too fussed for the sake of fussing, as fussing is Sri Lanka’s national sport
after cricket. Jaruza’s father said she didn’t need to go to work, as he could afford to keep her at
home until she got married! Staying at home waiting to get married is clearly not part of Jaruza’s
plan. Now her business is taking off, everyone has quietened down. They no longer ask why she
isn’t trying to get a Public Sector job. She spends so much time away from home working her
parents laughingly say she is like a visitor. She is grateful for her parents’ full support, allowing
her to focus her full energies on her business.
How to Miss Jaruza became a successful entrepreneur

 Hard work
 confidence
 Entrepreneur skill
 Managerial skills
 Technical mind
 She had a Vision

As well as her business, Jaruza works hard to promote women entrepreneurs. Last march she
started the Women’s Wing of the Jaffna Chamber of Commerce, where she is now the
Chairperson. This now has 30 members whose businesses span poultry, agriculture, and food.
One member is a grandmother in Kokuvil who makes short eats. Jaruza says one can easily find
her shop by the big queues outside.
On a visit to India, Jaruza spoke with Tech Stars, who run Startup Weekends. She talked them
into running a Startup Weekend Women’s Edition event for the first time in Sri Lanka, and was
appointed the Lead Organizer.

The event happened in the Dialog Auditorium in Colombo in February 2019. 100 women from
around Sri Lanka participated, including 20 from Jaffna. The Jaffna women won the first and
second prizes (Team Deal N’ Dine, and Team WF2E), with proposals for food and water
waste processing for hotels, and for biogas using food waste.

Jaruza has big plans for ezBooking. From the current 98 hotels, she targets to have 2,000 hotels
across Sri Lanka in the next 2 years. She has just registered a company in India, and is in talks
with partners in Bhutan and Nepal. She plans to setup marketing and franchise partnerships
across South and South East Asia. In 2 years time Jaruza targets having a total of 6,000 hotels on
the ezBooking systems. At which time ezBooking can become a network to rival booking.com in
South and South East Asia.
Conclusion:
Jaruza is one of those leading the resurgence of Northern entrepreneurs, both male and female.
She is working hard with many challenges to ensure “entrepreneur fever” takes hold among the
women of the North and East and the rest of Sri Lanka too.

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