Chamara Peiris

Buddhist, Business mentor, Consultant, Designer, Entrepreneur, Global soul, Idea generator, Marketer, Parent, Startup, Technologist

I'm Head of Ecosystem at Launchpad by LIBT in the Isle of Man, and co-organiser of TEDxLIBT. I'm also Founder and CEO of Leeg, a skill-based gaming platform I am building in Sri Lanka and Singapore. Before Douglas, I built my career in Colombo. I am a global mentor for Founder Institute and UAE's Ignyte.ae. I'm the Lead Organiser of Techstars Startup Weekend Douglas, the first-ever Startup Weekend in the Isle of Man and the Crown Dependencies. Founder Institute named me the Most Supportive Mentor in South and Southeast Asia at the 2022 Global Startup Mentor Awards.

Startups. Mentoring pre-seed founders. Building ecosystems in small markets. Connecting people who'd never otherwise meet. Cricket. Telling stories about all of it online, every day.

Small ecosystems beat big ones at one thing: connection. In a place like the Isle of Man or Colombo, one introduction can change a founder's whole trajectory. Build the connections and the startups follow.

Simon Sinek's "Start with why" found me early in my startup journey in Colombo. It flipped how I looked at founders. The best ones weren't selling a product. They were selling a reason to care. I've tested that idea on mine and then every founder I've mentored since, and it holds. That talk turned me from someone watching TED talks into someone who wanted to build the room where they happen.

Singing. And cricket. I helped run a premier club cricket setup for my city club in Sri Lanka, which taught me more about managing egos than any startup ever did.