Young founders are not waiting for permission anymore. That was one of the clearest takeaways from TiE Colombo's Next Gen Chat, held at Elegance, Cinnamon Life Office Spaces, Colombo 02 on September 26th.

Codax Founder Dineth Ratnayake joined veteran entrepreneur Hariharan Padmanaban for a session titled "The Youth Lens: Understanding The Future We Are Creating." The conversation covered how young founders are approaching AI differently from their predecessors — not as a tool to learn, but as a native environment to build in.

What the conversation covered

Dineth spoke on how AI is collapsing the time between idea and execution, giving small teams the leverage that previously required large organisations. Where a previous generation of founders had to hire before they could build, today's founders can move from concept to working product in weeks, often days.

The session drew a packed room of entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors who were as interested in asking questions as they were in the answers. There was a real tension in the room between those who see the pace of change as an opportunity and those still figuring out where to stand.

Why this matters

TiE Colombo has been one of the most consistent platforms for entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka for years. The Next Gen Chat format brings something different — less structured panel, more genuine conversation. This session delivered exactly that.

What came through most clearly was not a set of predictions about where AI is heading, but a demonstration that the next generation of Sri Lankan founders is already operating at a level the broader ecosystem is still catching up to.

Most startup advice lives online in frameworks that look clean on paper but fall apart in practice. The Codax team went to the University of Colombo's IEEE Student Branch to cut through that noise.

Dineth Ratnayake, Founder of Codax, led the session alongside Niketh De Silva, Co-Founder and Head of Delivery. The workshop walked students through the real mechanics of getting a product to market: how to identify who your first customer actually is, how to build a GTM motion that does not require a large budget, and what B2B marketing looks like when you are starting from zero.

What the workshop covered

The session broke into three core areas. First, Go-To-Market thinking for technical founders — how to move from a product that works to a product that sells. Second, customer acquisition — how to find and close your first paying customer without a sales team or a large network. Third, effective B2B marketing strategy — what channels, messaging, and sequencing actually move the needle at the earliest stage of a company.

Niketh covered the delivery side: how teams structure execution after a product ships, how to avoid building things nobody asked for, and what separates companies that gain traction from those that do not.

The room

The session was attended by engineering and computing students who are increasingly looking to build their own ventures alongside their degrees. The questions coming out of the room were not abstract. Students wanted to know how to handle a client who asks for equity instead of payment, how to price a product when there is no market reference, and how to know when to pivot.

Students who came in thinking about theory left with a practical lens on the business side of building.

Account-Based Marketing has moved from buzzword to boardroom priority for B2B organisations worldwide. Codax was brought in by Deloitte Sri Lanka to run a focused workshop with their marketing team on what ABM actually looks like in practice.

The session covered the fundamentals: what ABM is versus what most companies think it is, how to build and prioritise target account lists, and the tooling stack that supports a serious ABM programme. The workshop moved quickly from theory into hands-on territory, walking the team through intent data platforms, CRM integration, and how to execute personalisation at scale.

What ABM actually means in practice

The common misunderstanding about ABM is that it is a form of advertising. At its core, ABM is a strategic alignment between sales and marketing around a defined set of target accounts. Every piece of content, every outreach, every campaign is built around moving those specific accounts through a pipeline rather than generating broad awareness and waiting for inbound leads.

The workshop covered the full framework: how to build an Ideal Customer Profile, how to score and prioritise accounts based on fit and intent signals, and how to sequence multi-touch campaigns across email, LinkedIn, and direct channels. The Deloitte team left with a working ABM playbook they could begin applying immediately.

A broader signal

The collaboration between Codax and Deloitte reflects a broader shift in how enterprise marketing teams in Sri Lanka are approaching capability building. Rather than sending teams abroad for generic training, companies are increasingly looking for domain-specific workshops that connect global frameworks to local market realities.

For Codax, working with the Deloitte Sri Lanka marketing team was a chance to operate at the enterprise level and bring the same rigour they apply to their own B2B growth to a team that is serious about building real pipeline.