Saturday, November 7, 2015

Startups - A new trend..





Before you start reading this post

I would like to say ,if you want to "startup", the basic criteria is,you have to  understand these jargons which are often used in the startup world.

Trust me folks you are disqualified if you are not aware of all these which are given below ;).

Growth hacking - Pitching - GMV - Word of mouth - Seeding funding - Series funding - Venture capitalist - Private equity partners - "Disruptive" (my favourite one ;)) - Customer acquiring - Foodtech - Healthcare - "Realistic/Achievable targets" - Innovation/Reverse engineering  - Healthcare - B2B - B2C - E-commerce/Anti e-commerce - Social - Digital - Mobile - Shares/stocks/RSUs - Market Share - layoffs - IoT - Wearables  and many more..


Last night I came across a new YouTube channel called TVF.

There was a series called "PITCHERS". It was a kind of web-series with 5 episodes.

(I keep reading about startups online and I firmly believe that these budding startups are gonna change this country's economy,but we should also accept the fact that things are in nascent stage,there is a lot more that has to be done by the government to bring a better startup ecosystem and growth environment, policy changes etc).

India is still way behind in the ease of doing business rank


Ironically,India is also a right place to do business, because there are lot of problems in India which has to be solved.

You get a chance to solve lot of problems in a country like India but are we finding a right problem, at the right time ?

Before you shout "Lets Startup"..ask these questions yourself..

-What you really wanna do with this life?
-Who you are?
-Are you solving a real time problem?
-Is your product/idea disruptive?
-Do you have a team which believes in the idea and ready to do anything for it ? (CTO/CFO/CMO,COO etc)
-Do you have a promising and sustainable revenue model?
-Can you pay your employees with the revenue generated without depending on funding over a period of time?


These days everyone wants to sell product online,everyone wants to become founders and co-founders.

I must say,the web-series "PITCHERS" clearly portrays the current startup scenario in India.
Every Tom ,Dick and Harry from India working in IT at some point of time wants to become an entrepreneur,especially those few geeks who are from IITs/IIMs.

I always had this question in mind why only IITian backed startups gets funding easily or someone from IIMA,B,C gets funding easily.
Maybe from outside it might look easy,but there is a lot of perseverance and dedication behind these well funded startups.

Why there is a sudden startup/technology boom in India?
Why VCs from outside are investing hell lot of money here in India?
How e-commerce is penetrating so much?

There is a cliche answer for all these questions..
Population, lot of customers..Big Market..
Smartphone costs have reduced drastically..
Smartphone and Internet penetration is increasing...
Compaines like Microsoft,Google,Facebook wanna invest more in India..But it is both a good and bad news folks...

Companies like Flipkart,Practo,Redbus,Carewale,,Zomato,Musigma, have really influenced and inspired a lot of youngsters..It is true..

Maybe this is because majority of working class are not happy with the 9 AM-5 PM jobs (They have got only weekends to freak-out,rejoice and live).
Even though few get paid more than what they deserve still they find themselves not much satisfied with their jobs.

Please don't try to start something just because your friend is a founder/Co-founder of some XYZ e-commerce or dot com company.

Couple of days ago i saw one of my friend joining a Foodtech startup as CTO.
All the best for him..There are already enough players in this area...;ets see how they are gonna scale-up.

Recently many food delivery startups closed their operations due to low margin and without a sustainable revenue model.
Investors are smart these days .. they don't want to invest in a company that sells napkins or pillows or car/bus pooling.

I personally feel ,there is a lot of scope in Healthcare and Agriculture side.

Also,startups working in the following areas are gonna make lot of money in the near future.

Logistics/warehouse automation/electric vehicles/solar/renewable energy/waste management.

I dont want to write more.. there is enough that has been written by digital magazines like Yourstory/Scroll/Scoopwhoop etc.

My suggestion would, be think thousand times before joining or starting up..

Think about the word "layoffs"

There is a lot of risk involved.. lot of sacrifice has to be done..it demands a lot of dedication,trust & hard work.

Every month,you have to pay your rent,spend on food,credit card bills etc..

I am great fan of  Elon musk .. read about him to know what it takes to build a world class company..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTJt547--AM


I have pasted the link of the web-series "PITCHERS', try watching it...it has a lot to say for those who like to 'startup"