India’s Startup Ecosystem-Evolution is before us -part 3

Collective Efforts by Government and Agencies to boost startups

While on one hand supportive ecosystem and agencies like NASSCOM, CII, TIE, with others played a crucial role, on the other hand, micro level ecosystem players, incubators, friendly startup policies, government’s motivation, and others commendably added the blend.

Roll back to 2013 where the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) kicked off its ‘10,000 Startups’ initiative. The aim was to aid the growth of 10,000 startups in the country over the next 10 years. The objective was to foster the startup ecosystem, build entrepreneurial capabilities and bring in considerable value and change in the tech startup ecosystem. All this was made under the F.A.M.E. model:

• Funding:The shortlisted startups were given assistance from the NASSCOM. 10,000 Startups were selected under this programme where NASSCOM helped them raise money from a wide range of investors. This includes procuring funding angels, VCs, micro VCs, and Government funds.
• Acceleration:Once shortlisted under this program, these startups begin working with the top accelerators. This NASSCOM 10,000 Startups programme offers exceptional prospects and an ideal way towards working all the way up to top accelerators.
• Mentoring: Another important aspect of here is to avail the focused group workshops specially designed for the shortlisted companies. The workshops were conducted on Product Management, Go-to-Market Strategy, Pitching and Industry Insights from the experts.
• Enterprise Connect:Here’s when the selected startups will get the opportunity to display and explain their offerings in front of the top executives across industries. The idea is to let these set of startup explore strategic alliances, partnerships,  M&As

Speak of spreading the reach and you won’t find CII missing out on its contributions anywhere. Recently, it endeavoured to promote startups in Jammu and Kashmir. Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) successfully planned and conducted the first startup clinic at Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora.

This purpose of this startup clinic initiative is to explore new opportunities. The sessions were conducted previously this year by Iqram Shafiee, cochairman CII panel. This involved giving important insights to students on business, exploring business opportunities and possibilities, and the legal requirements for starting a new business with practicalities. This effort itself speaks volume of startup culture proliferation and its gradual adoption in India.

Government’s initiatives related to startup is also a big boost for budding entrepreneurs. One such initiative is Startup India:

Standup India:

Perhaps, the Indian Startup Evolution experienced something that was so specific to their business with Prime Minister’s aim to build systems for enabling ease of business for startups.

In August 2015, Narendra Modi announced the “Standup India” campaign to aid startups in getting the bank funding and thereby encouraging young Indians to take up the entrepreneurial route. It is important to note that he also urged all the 1.25 lakh bank branches across India to fund at least one startup especially founded by tribal and Dalit individuals.

Standup India: Another bold event saw in January 2016 saw Union Cabinet approving the Standup India campaign aimed towards promoting entrepreneurship among women and scheduled castes and tribes. Few of the scheme highlights are:

• Providing loans for greenfield projects in the non-farm sector
• One bank branch facilitating at least one such projects

Another significant move towards springing the startup economy includes schemes like Make in India and Digital India.

Emergence of Co-working space

91Springboard is considered as one of the oldest co-working spaces in India that started in 2012. The primary idea was to fund and connect rising businesses with mentors and investors. Over a period of time, it emerged as a heterogeneous working space for budding entrepreneurs.

The startup evolution is nothing short of any revolution since a single space, 91Springboard has over 4,000 companies at its centres. This includes startups like The Laundry Basket, and even the large companies like Glocal HR Solutions, Lucideus Technologies, and Bedouin Systems.

a report published by CBRE Group suggests that the segment of co-working space in India may well touch around 10 million sq ft by 2020. Last year, India witnessed the absorption of 1.5 million sq ft of co-working space. This pushed the leasing activities as well. The number of shared office operators tripled, and even more, over the course of the last three years reaching the figures of 0.7+ million sq ft.

According to a recent JLL study, what drives co-working spaces in India are —cost, infrastructure and networking opportunities. India’s top cities for co-working space are Delhi National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai, Bangalore and Pune where the penetration of startup is relatively higher than the other cities. Opting for co-working space assures cost savings, a rewarding 20–25%, especially against leasing a traditional office floor.

Startups are constantly on a hunt for a working space gets office spaces like business centers, co-working space, incubation space, and virtual offices. The networking opportunity is a big plus where they can collaborate with freelancers and consultants to get them onboard.

A typical co-working space is just an open floor that has dedicated places for meetings, collaborations, and networking. The occupancy level at such places shows how much of an in-demand thing it is. Most of these co-working spaces are occupied under a single roof and has about 85% of healthy occupancy levels.

The start-up ecosphere is blooming at its best in India, barring the occasional deeps; the global players too are attracted to the co-working idea. This helps lean Startups of today’s age to cut down on massive operational costs which include renting or owning exclusive spaces and designing and equipment costs. This in turn works in their favor, allowing startups to invest the ‘opportunity’ funds in a more pressing requirement that can drive great results.

 The road ahead…

From a trading dominated nation to a co-working space with full of ideas and executions by millennials, there is a long for Indian startups to go. Though the arena has evolved and transformed drastically since its inception and startups expanding the horizon with an innovative approach, the suitability is still an issue. A quick look at the study of “Entrepreneurial India” by the IBM Institute for Business Value and Oxford Economics will get you to the ground reality. It is observed that 90% of Indian startups fail within the first five years. Tracing the reason revealed that the lack of innovation and new technologies contribute to the failure. But with time, this too shall evolve to an extent wherein the new startups entering the battlefield shall change the face of Indian startup ecosystem to leverage numerous benefits and eventually attain impeccable benchmarks.

There’s just one thing you need to keep in mind. Be passionate and never restrict your imagination. Your investors and customers are looking for some change, something that can blow their heads off.