The NEW Breed (of Startups)
Yesterday evening I had two equally attractive choices.
One was to attend a get together cum motivational program and second – to attend the ‘Startup Vadodara Conclave’. Incidentally the timing for both was the same – 4.30pm and I had a difficult choice.
I opted for the latter and I hope and presume it was the optimal choice.
Tracking , understanding and knowing about the ‘new’ breed of Indians and the bold new world of Start-ups is something I have been interested since a long time and I am (irregularly ) regular at Start-up Saturdays held at IIM- Ahmedabad . My few years of following the success or otherwise of start-ups started out of curiosity and graduated to a hobby and slowly it is turning into a passion. It is heartening to realise that today’s twenty-something’s are much more vibrant and creative and enthusiastic compared to the past generation (But that happens in all generations, I presume). Their innovative thoughts and tech savvy-ness thrills me.
Take for instance this start-up yesterday , which has found out a ‘use’ for an unusable movie / drama ticket or food coupons; or that other start-up which wants to sell farm fresh vegetables to its customers and enrich the farmer in the process - a win-win for all. Another innovative start-up (according to me) was the health conscious Salad maker and also those others who wanted to make kids aware about Robotics.
Sitting there I reflected on one thing. These start-ups had cleared stage one of the process – Ideating and POC (proof of concept). The real challenge, however, lay in the second stage – scaling up! The failure rate of start-ups actually increases in this second stage and that is where they will need the maximum hand-holding and correct guidance and advice. My own interactions in the past few years with many start-ups and also angel investors have supported this argument.
Another fact which often eludes me is that despite living in the same place, why people are not aware of their fellow start-ups? My suggestion, which I put up during the meeting, was that all the start-ups can involve into ‘collaborative marketing’ – Each start up promotes the others who in turn reciprocate, thereby creating a burst of awareness for all start-ups . The Sum of the Parts here will surely be more than the whole!
A community like the ‘Startup Vadodara Conclave’ (SVC) will surely act as a catalyst assuming that the SVC gets itself formalised. An informal structure may not probably be able to give the required ‘value-addition’, as one of the learned panel members pointed out yesterday. The Indian start-up ecosystem is highly dependent on such communities & networking and is likely to remain so for some time, till we have an ‘Israel –type or Valley-type’ ecosystem where governments and industry are pro-active rather than reactive to start-ups.
Overall a good two and half hour spent on a Saturday evening and having a peek into the mind of young India.
I thank the organisers and look forward to more value creating Saturdays!
CA Rajiv D Khatlawala
AUTHOR, FinTrainer & Consultant
