Startup School

Startup scene in India

When I'm talking of the startup scene in India, I am, somehow, doing a close comparison between the Silicon Valley startups with their Indian counterparts to get the message clear. So here is the good, bad and the ugly.

The "Startup" tag

For some reason, most of the Indian startups love to be a startup, and take pride in being one FOR YEARS. I recently met a guy who runs a medium-scale web development company in Rajastan, India. I was surprized when he introduced himself as the CEO of a 6 year old startup! Now that's like calling someone a 40 year old baby! I am yet to understand the reason behind it, but I dont see any logic. If that was a successful marketing trick, why would Google leave it's "startup" status after 4 months of it's inception?

Wikipedia says:

“A startup company or start-up is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets. They have an uncertain future, and may result in a spectacular success, or failure”

We, at Startup School, try our best to help startups turn into successful businesses, but the case if reverse in India. The startups are sort of emotionally attached to their startup status. Wierd.

Funding

Another surprising thing about Indian entrepreneurs is that they start thinking about getting VC funding and finding angel investors even before they register the company. Or even worse, the founder takes a personal loan to fund the business. One main reason behind this maybe the mindset of making quick money with their ventures.Most entrepreneurs visit startup events simply because it gives them easy access to the VCs.

What they need to learn is that they should try to sustain with their personal savings, at least for the first couple of months. Look for investments only if they are really under-equipped, and not because they think having a fancy office in a metro is cool.

Most of the startups I know, do not need funding. What they really need is mentorship. And if they disagree to it, it's because they don't believe in their product themselves.

Entrepreneurship

Merely registering a company (or just a $10 domain) doesn't make a good business. This is again something Indian startups need to learn. Some of the startups are started by people who are working in other companies! They work for their startup part time, and on weekends. That's definitely not going to work. I am not against trying, but am against calling those ‘casual’ ventures a startup. To me, it’s an insult to all those entrepreneurs who are taking the venture full time at the risk of personal/professional life (no matter how good/bad the venture is).

Honestly, except for a few startups, most of them don’t even seem to be a serious effort at all. Infact, it won’t be wrong to say that most of the startups (or lets call then dotcoms) are like “Look mom! I am a CEO now!” sites and lack the basic thought process that should go inside building a great product.

Thanks to ready made CMS tools, primarily Wordpress & Joomla, many of these startups don’t care to exercise their creativity and have a half-baked offering (which will eventually die out).

Will we ever see a global consumer product from India? Forget about global, lets get local – Will we ever see a successful “local” consumer product from India (or will it be the same old Google/Yahoo?)

Piracy

Now it gets interesting. Most of the startups I have worked with, were using pirated softwares illegally. And I'm sure it's rampant all over India. What's shocking is, in an interview for system administror, the first question he is asked is whether he knows how to "crack" Adobe CS or MS Visual Studio. This is indeed a cost cutting measure, but this makes a bad start. I wont write much about it.

Payscale

Another important aspect of Indian startups is their reluctance to pay well. They hide facts about the pay range and badly negotiate with the job applicants. In fact the major job of the HR executives is to hunt down candidates working currently on a low CTC and offer them a 10-15% hike. That's way lower than the industry standards. The average annual salary of startup employees hovers around $5000. That's ridiculously low and results in substandard performance of the employee, and in turn, the company.

Recently, the companies have started taking advantage of the recession. Lowering salaries and blaming it on the economy/market conditions. They know that their employees won't quit fearing the market situation, where getting a decent job can be difficult. And they stick to the company for job security.

Working Hours

Most startups work 6 days a week and force their employee to work for 10 hours a day, or even more. Being a startup, they keep their offices open 7 days a week and sometimes the employees have to work on weekends too. What the startups do NOT realise is that overworking breeds underperformance.

Did i miss something?

I am sure there is a lot more to Indian startups then what I have mentioned. If you have something in your mind, let me know via comments.

UPDATE: There is a second part of the story here, written exactly a year later.

Cheers!
Arun Pattnaik.
Supercool School

What makes you an entrepreneur?

Entrepreneur can be described as a person who has possession over an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneur) In common understanding it is taken as describing a dynamic personality and someone who attempts to organize resources in new and more valuable ways and once more, completely accepts full responsibility for the outcome. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/entrepreneur).

Now I have 2 basic questions:-

1. Are you really an entrepreneur?
2. Is it the true definition of an entrepreneur?

No, I'm not trying to find answers. I am sure 90% of my readers are entrepreneurs (or are already on the way to become one). But the bigger question is :-

• What makes you an entrepreneur?

Money? A business? An idea? A cruel but real answer will be NO, none of these can make you an entrepreneur. Here's why:-

• Money - Gamblers, mafia have money, tons of cash. But they aren't entrepreneurs.
• A Business - Your father had a business, he will pass it on to you. That doesn't make you an entrepreneur, does it?
• An Idea - Well, everyone has one. And for everyone, his/her idea is the greatest one ever came to anyone's mind. You get the idea.

Much academic research has been conducted to define the characteristics of an entrepreneur. Like an animal in the zoo they have been studied at length by economists, anthropologists, management academics, psychologists, sociologists, historians, finance experts and organisational scholars.

Who are these creatures? Why do these persistent people never know when to give up? What drives them to take risks that ordinary folk find overwhelming? Where do they get that energy? How do they create value from nothing and most importantly … what are the characteristics that define them as an entrepreneur.

We, at Startup School, help hundreds of innovators refine their entrepreneural skills. They learn the very basics of entrepreneurship and teach them to others. We believe that the most common characteristic among all the entrepreneurs is the reluctance to give up. We help them build businesses, realize the extent of their full potential and nurture it. In short, we help you know why you are an entrepreneur and what makes you one!

If you have the answers, we are waiting for you to guide hundreds of young minds to the path of success. And if you are one of them, there is plenty of stuff going on, at any moment, which can answer whatever you always wanted to know. Here is a big society of elite entrepreneurs waiting for you.

Welcome to Startup School.

Arun Pattnaik
Supercool School Evangelist, INDIA

Social Media Learning

No, this post is not about how to make money using social networks. It's something else. Now that we have made it clear, read on.

We have been hearing about education 2.0 , e-learning, e-education for long. And most of the countries, if not all, have already implemented this mode of education which has been readily accepted worldwide. Now what on earth is Social Media Learning?

Well, let's think of a simple situation where you are stuck in a simple task like creating a layer in photoshop, or upgrading your operating system, or you just aren't sure how to install a component in Joomla. Think what would you do first. If this I were at your place, I would first check if any of my "geek" friends (We always have one, don't we ;) ?) is online to help me out. If I don't find any, I will simply "tweet" the question and head over to Google and search for the same. And not-so-surprisingly, I find some very easy tutorials posted on various forums and blogs. Or even in form of videos in Youtube or maybe easy step by step slideshows in Slideshare. Sounds familiar? Exactly! Now we're actually talking. We didn't find the answer on university books in Google, nor we learnt from our professors. We learnt socially.

How many times have you been to your professors for such simple (sometimes silly) questions? Let me guess, never! And this is what I call Social Media Learning. We are so used to it that we don't even care to buy guides and DIY books anymore. If you login to facebook, you can easily find about half of your "friends" posting simple questions, same for twitter. We learn easily when taught by a friend or someone like ourselves, who has learnt from his own experience, appreciates the question and is genuinely willing to help, rather than by university professors who, well...whatever.

And at Supercool School, we appreciate and actively encourage Social Media Learning. We invite people with experience who are willing to guide many other people who want to learn, socially. We arrange classes where people around the world can see, talk and listen to one another, still being in the place they're most comfortable at, right in front of their home computers. There are ALWAYS some interesting classes going on. We invite you to be a part of the session. Learn or teach fellow individuals like you.

We, at Startup School, are proud to present a platform to you where you can share your knowledge and learn new interesting things apart from meeting great individuals and businesses. All while sitting in front of your computer screens, without spending a dime! If you believe you have some knowledge to share, it may be anything, come forward and take a class. You never know how many people can be benefitted when you teach something which might seem to you as a very simple task.

What would you like to teach today?

Good Luck!

Arun Pattnaik
Startup School Evangelist
http://startup.supercoolschool.com

From Startup to Business in 5 Minutes

Are you a startup/entrepreneur?
Do you have a product to promote?
Do you have a service to offer?
Do you have a big idea?
Want to meet other startups/entrepreneurs?
Looking for sponsors/VC ?

If there is a resounding YES for any of the above, we have a special session for you to pitch, promote and get inspiration. Dozens of killer startups dive into the market every week and some of them succeed in making it big. The others end up being plugged out. It’s not mainly because they fail to perform. We can easily blame it on the failure to understand market demographics and strategies. Some go unnoticed and some run out of funds in the early (and the most crucial) days. Why do the projects fail?

And then, there are some startups which manage to come out vicrorious. They succeed because they were seen, and tried, and appreciated. And they became successful businesses in course of time.

And now we, at Supercool School, offer you a platform to pitch your product/venture/idea to a group of like minded people LIVE and get feedbacks and critiques in REAL TIME! There will be REAL people reviewing your product/service , who come from different backgrounds and different countries. You get 5 minutes to show your product/service to a worldwide audience. If you make it here , you’ll make it to the market!

And if you do not have a product yet, then you can join the session as audience and give your inputs and thoughts on the presentations. And you’ll get to learn about the perfect pitch!

Grab your seat for the "Pitch Your Startup" session this Sunday here.

I encourage you to see the recorded session of "Selling a Dream - Startup Evangelism" on Startup School for inspiration and ideas.

In the true sense show us what you have got and become a business in 5 mins! ;)

Good Luck!
 - Arun, Startup School Evangelist

Startup.SupercoolSchool.com