Make It Simple not just Make in India

#Discussion(General) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]

As a mentor, it is all about preparing a young company to get to the next stage from wherever you begin. It can be a ideation, funding, go to market preparation, pivoting, scale up etc etc. For student entrepreneurs its about transforming startup from the college set up to an out of college set up. I have been mentor to a BITS Pilani startup, amazing entrepreneurs. For 2nd / 3rd year Computer Science students, they are not only very smart but are very mature. And, thanks to digital infrastructure, distance has not been a show stopper.

India has emerged as a major destination for startups. I was in Japan around mid March 2019 where one of our TiE Pune startup won global championship competing with finalists from twenty other cities that included San Francisco, New York, London, Tokyo, Tel Aviv and others. Many Japanese executives I met almost assume Indian startup eco system matches the best in the world. And we all know who is the leader.

My favourite analogy for a startup entrepreneur – (s)he is a like a pregnant mother. Very focused on the well being and the growth of the child. Ideas, financial capital, team, access to potential market and most important moisture of mentoring are much needed nutrition. However, there are serious challenges to our pregnant mother. I am going to pick Government.

Governments are a big influencer on all startups. Governments can bring in regulations or pass laws to fuel or kill growth. Governments can be a big market and can single handedly build not one but an entire industry.

Governments in India (Central, State and even local) have been putting prime focus on Startups providing incentives, programs etc to promote startups. However, its like a elder in the family, well meaning but not helping where it matters most and at times being a stumbling block.

Let me take a seemingly innocent action like changing the name of a company. Imagine that our student entrepreneurs are audacious enough to try a futuristic idea and even get couple of customers in India. Encouraged, these entrepreneurs set up an entity in the United States to tap world’s most lucrative market. Students then get funding from Silicon Valley VCs as investors in India are largely reluctant to fund a disrupting idea. VCs will ask the entrepreneurs to create US Headquarter and may even suggest a name change as a rebranding exercise. Now starts the bumpy ride in India.

In US it is an very simple process. However in India, it’s like climbing an 8000 meter peak. What hits you are myriad of steps with high probability of errors. Then comes filing applications for bunch of approvals from local, State and central Government entities. In this day and age of simplifying things like Step 1 à Step 2 à Step 3, Government processes are not easy to understand and prone to errors by entrepreneurs.

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