31 July What Shape of Recovery will we have?
When the Covid-19 crisis hit us we all heard about the New Normal, but few of us really understood what it meant? As time passes, we are slowly but surely starting to come to grips with this new normal which essentially means living with uncertainty and sporadic lockdowns as the end of this pandemic remains unknown. These times have been unlike any crisis we have seen in the past, where the real challenge has been people’s fears and the impact of that on our economies.
30 May What does it mean to be an Entrepreneur in this New Normal?
Having spent weeks in some mode of Lockdown, people across the world are now having a discussion on what will life look like going forward?
23 April Is it the right time to become an Entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurship is a very personal decision, and when I get asked this question by aspiring entrepreneurs, who have a potential business idea and are exploring launching a business, my advice to them usually centers around 4 key points.
16 April Can these times bring us back to what it means to be an Entrepreneur?
I was recently reading an article on Entrepreneur.com on “Forget Unicorns. Startups Should Be Camels”. The article spoke about how “(Camels are) real, resilient and can survive in the harshest places on Earth”. This made me think about what entrepreneurship has meant for the last few generations and how that definition has changed in today’s tech start-up world.
3 April How is Technology impacting Education delivery in India in today’s times?
Today most of us are experiencing the value of technology in delivering education at home firsthand. Remote learning has suddenly become very real for most of us and for the ones that can’t do virtual schooling, Edtech companies are offering the opportunity to keep our children engaged and learning while staying indoors.
21 Feb The Recent Change in Focus from Valuation to Profitability
I was recently reading an article in The Mint newspaper on “How Startups Crack the Profits Puzzle”. The article gave a detailed account on how Indian startups are using several levers from demand generation to a tech led flexible supply change, in making sure they hit profitability as demanded by their venture capital investors.
31 Jan Why Startups continue to raise money in a challenging market environment?
Startups and venture capital backed companies raised more than Rs 1 Lakh crore during calendar year 2019, 26% more than the over Rs 81,000 crore raised by equity capital markets. In times when we see a liquidity crunch face several companies in the Indian market, and see several well-known brands face bankruptcy, many people wonder why entrepreneurial investors continue to be bullish on technology startups. As an investor myself I see several reasons for the same:
25 Jan How does an Investor Partner add value to your Venture?
In conversations with several successful entrepreneurs I’ve seen how many of them have seen a good investor partner deliver value to their venture. Investors are important stakeholders in your venture and your success creates their success. A good investor understands this and works hard to bring substantial value in whatever way they can. In this article I outline some ways I’ve seen great investor partners add value to the ventures they invest in. It will also tell you the role of an investor in a startup business.
20 Dec Why we need more Innovative Start-ups in India?
As per government data on national income, India’s per capital income for FY 2018-19 was Rs 10,534/$146 per month. While this is an improvement, we still have a long way to go, before we can say that our economic growth is positively impacting all segments of society. As we see more seed funding for startups in India, we also need to see more innovative solutions-built ground up to solve some of our biggest challenges around healthcare and education as a whole. Some of these challenges are:How to provide quality and affordable healthcare for all? *India has 9 hospital beds per...
13 Dec The role of a maturing entrepreneurial ecosystem in fostering startup growth in India
As per a recent study on the Indian startup ecosystem, * “In a country with a population of nearly 1.3 billion people, even niche products can have a significant market potential.” When one looks at combining this with a maturing entrepreneurial ecosystem and the fact that “the number of internet users is projected to reach 666.4 million in 2025”, one can see the huge potential for startup growth in India. So how does a maturing entrepreneurial ecosystem foster startup growth in India?Entrepreneurship has become a recognized career choice: With recent startup success stories, new entrepreneurial role models and high valuation...
29 Nov How to choose the right startup funding program in India?
As an entrepreneur choosing the right investor partner is one of the most important decisions you can take. I’ve seen many new entrepreneurs unclear on how they should go about choosing the right startup funding program. In this article I would like to give my thoughts on some of the different types of startup funding programs in India.Angel Investor NetworksThere are several angel investors in India who are looking to invest in good entrepreneurs and ideas. Before choosing which network to approach, do your research on them. Understand what value they would bring, how their investment process operates and do...
08 Nov Why corporate governance is something every entrepreneur should start thinking about?
I remember one of my early conversations with a leading industrialist many years back on company building. We spoke about building a company as building an institution. Something that you own as an entrepreneur but do not build for only yourself. You take into consideration the various other stakeholders that are invested in the venture i.e. your investor partners, employees, suppliers and many others, before yourself. As one reads about the many corporate governance lapses in the tech world today, one is reminded about these values of institution building vs corporation building when creating a world class organization.As an...
27 Sep The importance of managing workplace stress as an Entrepreneur
According to the Gallup Wellbeing Index, 45% of entrepreneurs report being stressed compared to 42% of other workers. In fact, a study published by Small Business Economics, found that entrepreneurs were more likely than comparison participants to experience depression.An entrepreneur needs to manage multiple roles in a growing venture and the one thing that tends to get ignored in this process, is his own mental health. Given how important a founder is to any start-up, there may be a few ways one can manage this stress. Appreciate the importance of tuning outBeing in-charge is never easy, but any successful entrepreneur will tell you how...
13 Sep Entrepreneur Funding In India
As per the IBM Institute for Business Value’s survey 90% of Indian startups fail in the first 5 years and as per the report, 65% of Venture Capitalists believe that funding is one of the major challenges for these companies. In spite of several start-up funding programs in India why is it that new ventures still struggle to raise capital...
26 Aug Role Of Venture Capital In Fostering Entrepreneurship Growth In India
“The Indian PE/VC ecosystem has grown from $200 million in 1998 to almost $39.5 Billion in 2017, a CAGR of almost 32%.” as per the PE-VC Agenda, India Trend Book – 2018 by E&Y. Venture capitalists play an important role in developing the startup ecosystem in any country as they provide the funding for entrepreneurs to setup the ventures that have more binary returns...
11 Aug Building An Entrepreneurial Culture – The Need For Entrepreneurship For Growth In India
While entrepreneurship has been a hot topic of discussion with the likes of Flipkart, Oyo rooms, Ola and several other Indian startups going global and being covered vastly in the media, here I would like to discuss what it would take to build an entrepreneurial culture in the country. The fact that entrepreneurial culture leads to economic growth is a well understood fact, especially as we look at the entrepreneurial ecosystems in US, Israel or London and the growth in those regions...
13 May Lessons On Entrepreneurship From Our Kids
The era of innovation and life changing start-ups is only just dawning upon us and we cannot even begin to imagine the type of solutions we will see in the next decade. Innovations that will not only completely change the way we live our lives as individuals, but also force us to change the way we live our lives as a society...