New Delhi, Feb. 8 -- Kannan Hari walked onto the Startup Singam set carrying karupatti-palm jaggery-made from the palmyra, the state tree of Tamil Nadu. He runs Palm Era, a palm jaggery and natural sweeteners brand.

Startup Singam is a Tamil pitch show on Star Vijay (Vijay TV), also streaming on JioHotstar.

The show's title track slips an instruction into the chorus: "To reach the dream, knock on the door". Its premise is that the knock can be in Tamil-but it still opens the door to people who speak in English, in metros.

Kannan, an electronics and instrumentation engineering graduate (class of 2008), spent almost 15 years in IT before quitting on 18 May 2025, when his monthly salary was about Rs.5 lakh.

In 2021, back home for a templ...