The way to succeed for any new start-up company in the IT services field is to focus on niche areas or small verticals and doing some unusual things, N R Narayana Murthy, chief mentor of Infosys told reporters in Mumbai on Monday.

New start-ups have to demonstrate that the idea, which they are bringing to the table are not ideas which the big companies are working on, he added.

The niche sectors could be retail, SMEs or providing mobile solutions, Murthy explained.

The new ideas have to be much more specialised, he said.

On his own venture capital fund, he said, "We are in touch with many companies and by March 15, 2010, we will be more active."

"We are evaluating the companies which are approaching us, their ideas, scalability of business, leadership of entrepreneurs, etc," Murthy added.