Around this time, 6 years back I boarded a flight from an international metro to Mumbai (yes I was a NRI back then) to pursue Chartered Accountancy. My parents did not want to send me to Mumbai, but I was adamant, though not sure why. Eventually they gave up, thinking I will be back once I complete the course.
6 years hence, I refuse to head back. I know it’s weird and have no clue on what to tell people when they ask me, ‘How can you leave that city and stay here in Mumbai’?
Fortunately I have an answer to that today, I am a CA by qualification and an entrepreneur by profession.
Somewhere, while pursuing CA, I knew that this is not what I want to make my career out of. But since I started it, I thought I better complete it, it may add value to me. Around a year back I met my co-founder and started working around Theek Kar Do. For us, it was business as usual, meeting service providers and customers, trying to get things in place, studying the market, learning the requirements etc. During the course of the initial six months we came across certain other ‘start-ups’ in different domains. Then gradually we learnt about various start-up web-portals, media coverage, angel investors, VC’s, PE funds, start-up events and challenges, accelerators and incubators and what not. It’s been a year working around it and I am sure I may have skipped a few things which exist in the start-up ecosystem (and I still do not understand a lot of these).
When I decided to start my own business I never knew that I was going to be made an overnight hero. When I quit my cushy corporate job, most of my colleagues congratulated me on doing ‘something’ different and ‘challenging’ and were sort of proud of me doing so. My friends also thought on similar lines. It flattered me, but left me amused as well.
A year down the line, this journey of starting up has thrown up a few questions (and yes, I am still hunting for the answers).
What is the big brouhaha around being an entrepreneur or starting up? Why is it considered a major milestone in somebody’s life?
Every corporate was a startup at some point in time and over years it has grown on to become a multinational, to become what it is today, where many of our peers have decided to build their careers.
Unconventional? How come starting a business has all of a sudden became the talk of the town. In India, till recent times, 7 in 10 persons ran their own business, be it the kirana store, be it a trader or service provider or even manufacturing for that matter. Then, why all the noise around starting up today? What is that we do today that wasn’t being done earlier. Even earlier people tried something innovative around what they did. Indian markets opened up to secured job culture only in the post-liberalization era.
And for how long is a new business rightly termed as a ‘start-up’?
Please don’t tell me that now there is media and awareness around it. The point is what is the big deal? Now, some of the clichéd answers would be access to more resources, networking opportunities, availability of easy funding options, mentors, accelerators, etc
(For convenience I shall continue to use the term ‘start-up’)
Let’s now look at some of these more closely.
Networking opportunities : Where do most of the start-ups meet? At various start-up challenges and competitions. Here do start-ups even actually interact and share knowledge and domain expertise? Not really. What these events actually end up doing is pitching each startup against the other. What happens is everyone is trying to outdo the other. The only savior is nobody fortunately indulges in unfair activities. But the point is why can we not just meet over dinner discuss business as usual and go back to regular work. At all this networking sessions, every entrepreneur wants to show that their start-up is better than the rest.
How genuine is that smile when you greet each other?
The point is not that these challenges and events should not be held. But the format needs to be tweaked such that it becomes a networking session so that one can benefit from others mode of operations and not consider each other as competition to win that coveted title.
[P.S: It’s not a general thing, but more often than not this does happen. I have personally made some amazing friends from various other start-ups and we intend to work closely with each other in the days to come, so please do not feel offended 
]
Access to resources: What start-ups generally look for is funding and mentoring either directly or through accelerator/ incubation programs. The question is how many of the angel investors or VC’s are interested in you or your business. Not most of them for sure. There only concern is ‘show me the money’. True, it is not pure donation, but in a way we as entrepreneurs would prefer something more on those lines than just equity infusion and involvement to increase the valuation. Creating value for the business product or service comes secondary. Yes, money and profit making is eventually the aim but there can be alternate ways to get there. In the rat race, the business and the people behind the business lose their sheen.
By doing this, we are building a Tumblr to be acquired by Yahoo! or an Instagram to be acquired by Facebook. When will we create a Twitter, Google or Apple?
What I would suggest is that if a budding entrepreneur visits or speaks to a mentor or VC, sit with them for a session or two, understand their product or service line and see if you can add value to them. We are okay if you do not intend to invest at that point in time, but a morale booster and a transparent conversation is all what we are asking for.
I recently shot an email to a mentor (on being strongly recommended by a friend) to just have a look at our web-portal and service line. A mail was shot back which read as below:
“You have to sign up for mentoring for me to do that. It is a six month engagement and we will get you market ready. And we charge a one time upfront fee of Rs XYZ. Please let me know if this works. We can then either call or meet. Cheers”
If we had all those funds, why would we need a mentor?
[P.S: I haven’t spoken to a mentor post that to look into our model. My co-founders and I believe in our concept and have agreed to the fact that no-one understands our business better than us and our customers. And just to clarify, we haven’t applied for any incubation or accelerator programs so not sure how they exactly function but I do not expect a miracle from them either]
If we actually want to develop a decent Indian ‘start-up’ ecosystem, what we need is an open door policy, where we should be able to interact with anyone in the fraternity without hesitation may it be a co-worker, mentor, angel investor, VC, etc. It goes without saying that even entrepreneurs should respect the time, space, expertise and seniority of the other person and not exploit such an environment.
On the other hand, if we ‘start-ups’ can work closely together and share our resources, we may not need a lot of these self-proclaimed start-up events, gurus and investors.
I love the attention Theek Kar Do or I get from people around me, but is this a bubble about to burst. We talk of Silicon Valley and Bangalore as the start-up capital of India. Frankly, I have no clue how it is the world over, but why so much of buzz on starting up.
Originally published on YourStory
May 2014 Update:
Its been almost a year to this post. Not that a lot of my thinking towards this has changed but I have opened up to the reality a lot more now and accepting the way several things have been built around in the ecosystem.
But honestly, the best way out of this is to not approach self proclaimed startup gurus but meet people who have been there and done that. Meet an entrepreneur who has scaled up his/her business (need not be from your industry itself). More likely than not they will take time out to interact with you and share their upswings and downsides in a free and frank conversation and also acknowledge you in public and keep guiding you whenever possible.
asha chaudhry
neat article hardik! didn’t realise you write so well.
“starting up” is the new sexy. but as you know, there isn’t anything sexy about slogging your butt off to survive.
I recently shot an email to a mentor (on being strongly recommended by a friend) to just have a look at our web-portal and service line. A mail was shot back which read as below:
“You have to sign up for mentoring for me to do that. It is a six month engagement and we will get you market ready. And we charge a one time upfront fee of Rs XYZ. Please let me know if this works. We can then either call or meet. Cheers”
this para is really harsh, but then i guess there are people who do need to charge for their time. i reckon that’s where communities work better. there will always be someone helpful and willing to give you feedback and suggestions without “mentoring” you professionally. there will always be someone who is willing to go over the details of your website/model without worrying about the time invested in you. there will always be someone who doesn’t fake that smile.
“attention” doesn’t last forever hardik. but loyal customers do if you keep delivering!
keep writing hardik.
🙂
Aman Jha
Hi Hardik,
I am part of this Eco-system you are talking about since 7 years. Even I expected people to at least have sessions with me to make my business model strong if not fund it. As years passed, I learnt I was at fault not others.
As an Startup we look up to every big shot in our radar as an avenue to get funded. We may not say it, but we expect secretly. Rarely new entrepreneurs look for value proposition. They look for mentor at wrong places, one who funds will not try to add value to your business model but demand value. And one who will try to add value to your idea may not fund you. Also, as you said there are so many startups around, so not everyone can afford to invest their time on every startup. Also they have paid good price to reach the level where they can mentor you, so if they ask for a charge, there is nothing wrong in it. After all you are going to make money out of his suggestions later.
This is the reason why communities like THRS have come up, this is the reason we attend such events and discuss because you get free mentoring and advice. Even here, often people expect Alok Rodinhood Kejrival to mentor them personally, which is not possible for him to do for everybody and in this scenario if he quotes you some fees, it’s perfectly acceptable. (PS. By this I don’t mean Alok charges for advice, it was just an example.)
So you have to find the right community. People here belonging to food business have formed a micro group ‘Food Creatorz’, they meetup for lunch or dinner, discuss and go back to home. This is what you want, you can take initiative and form such groups, so you will have to take initiative.
And if you use this community in a right manner, you will get mentors, customers, funding, everything. Just read my post, how I was benefited by THRS.
THRS is Awesome
Sanjay Shenoy
Like Asha has mentioned here, Starting up is the new sexy now. The fact that you are able to let go off a lucrative job with a guaranteed income in your bank account is considered to be adventurous for a lot of people. And that’s what we as entrepreneurs do. Anyone who starts something on their own is called a entrepreneur but you tend to grab eyeballs ( and a few ears ) only when you do something different, something out of the box. Now doing something out of the box is risky, because you do not know whether it will succeed or not and the fact that you are willing to take that risk is what amazes people.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Hmmm, I think each one has his own expectations of what a Start Up Ecosystem is!
I for one believe therodinhoods.wpengine.com (me being a fast non active member) is an ecosystem!
You may have come with expectations that did not get met.
But for a lot of kids (folks who don’t know the E of Entrepreneurship), I have to SET THEIR EXPECTATIONS.
Example?
By putting out something like this on therodinhoods.wpengine.com:
Hardik Shah
Asha – Thank you so much for your kind words.
I totally appreciate that professionals sell time, but is it all about money always?
You may not be able to spend time with everyone who approaches you but a quick feedback is always encouraging.
Hardik Shah
Aman, did we start-up just because I want to have a hefty bank balance? Obviously not, I could easily do that with a MNC job.
As rightly pointed out, all entrepreneurs secretly hunt for the person who will fund there venture. That’s where the entire ecosystem fails. When we started TKD, we knew we had to fund it ourselves, I never knew that something call angel funds, early stage VC’s even existed. Once, we commenced operations we learnt of these terms. So basically how the ecosystem as a whole has developed has affected our mindset to think in that direction. I know I do not need funds today and so I have casual discussions with people but not approach them for funds. The point in simple, one gets influenced by the environment they belong to. Since the culture has been developed to seek funding, unfortunately, all entrepreneurs are seen with same perception.
Hardik Shah
Bang on.
It amazes people but it should not come with a bag full of expectations. That bag is what weighs down a person. They expect you to be doing it right from Day 1.
Hardik Shah
Yes, we all are small portions of this huge start-up ecosystem.
I had no expectations from anyone when I started TKD – rather I never knew it was such a big deal. Its just when I started learning about the existence of other components that make up this ecosystem, I realised that I was living a dream.
Sanjay Shenoy
I hear ya, when I started off people thought that I was going to be a millionaire in a year : . The fact that they equate entrepreneurs to getting rich in a few years is what frustrates me too. Its hard to explain people that its not always the case and it takes a lot of hardwork to get there and its not like you are guaranteed to get rich if you start off on your own.
Hardik Shah
#TrueStory
I can so well reciprocate your thoughts here.
Hardik Shah
True there is nothing call free lunch. But then why call yourself a mentor. Isn’t it better if you sell your services as a professional or counselor? Why misguide?
kanchan.kumar
Hardik – All I can say is that you are working with a very tiny sample size to judge the ecosystem. One encounter and you think that the ecosystem doesn’t exist or to conclude that you are better off without a mentor is unfair and fool hardy as well.
Having started 12 years ago and in my second venture now, I still go to my mentor as well as seek new mentors. Entrepreneurship is a life long journey of learning -> applying_the_learning -> back_to_learning -> back_to_applying_the_learning. Not sure whether this would carry on to the next life, but there is no escape from this loop in this life for sure 🙂
As for ecosystem – ecosystem isn’t planted by others, it isn’t imported, it is created by people like you, me and so many other entrepreneurs, investors, media – everyone together. Some provide guidance for money (service providers), some do it for equity (advisors) and some do it for the love of doing it and with the sense of gratitude (to give back).
I’d suggest meet more people with an open mind, you’d notice that the ecosystem exists, it’s pleasant and is thriving. It’s a bright sunny day 10 months of the year in Mumbai, don’t think it’s clouded all thru, just because you landed here in Monsoon 🙂
Anirudh B Balotiaa
This was very good reading Hardik. Thanks for putting this up.
Well you have clearly raised some pertinent points which many aspiring/ongoing entrepreneurs would have come across.
Why going entrepreneur or starting a start-up is a big a deal now is because for the last decade or so thanks to the IT revolution and birth of TCS/Infosys, etc everyone wanted a good IT job. Add to Doctors/Chartered Accountants/Lawyers, engineers were added on the catalog in various manufacturing companies. Every parent wanted their sons/daughters to have a good fixed regular income. Majority of these (once the initial satisfaction of having a job, good income passes) are just unhappy and frustrated. If not for bills, many would have long left. This issue even Alok mentioned on a recent NDTV Profit show. Those in jobs are frustrated.
Now suddenly people have a way out, thanks again to IT…they can venture out and do something. Hence this is a big deal. People are leaving their plush jobs and hence this is a big deal. If I take the liberty and add that those who think this is a big-deal, behind your back would be laughing at your foolishness of taking this never-before-taken path.
From what I see around, once you are married, complacency sets in and once you have kids, there goes all the risk-appetite. Everyone is happy with the regular income and if its good income then happy with the way life is going, 3-4 annual holidays, splurging on things they already have and don’t really need, but yet these would always be crying as to how boring their work is, no fun etc. Their only solace is that their bank balance is going North.
You mentioned Kirana stores, well I don’t think its a good analogy. Within a radius of 0.5 km, there are at-least 10 kirana stores where I stay in Mumbai and not a single one is empty. So the risk of Kirana store not doing well is not even comparable with the risk of start-ups in the current context. And add to the mania of funding/going public etc, its a very very uphill task. Also kirana stores business is passed from generation to generation. So there is no societal pressure. But being a start-up the societal pressure is huge unfortunately.
Other things you mentioned, I am sure many would feel the same, but since my experience is limited very limited, it wouldn’t be fair to comment for the heck of it.
Indian eco-system for entrepreneurs/start-ups is no way perfect, its nascent and ever-evolving, so I am not ready to loose hope yet.
Good luck!
Hardik Shah
Just met a well to do entrepreneur today and he helped me realise that all this while we were looking for shelter under the wrong roof.
P.S: Updated my thoughts on this piece.