I am keeping keen observation on the situation of growth of IT startups in India and how it's helping India in empowering, from a long time and I feel not only IT startups but startups in every field adding lots of value to India's growth. In this blog, I am going to discuss how startups are empowering India, why their growth is necessary for India's development and whats the problem almost every startup is facing.
How startups are empowering India ?
If you remember the time of 2010-2012 there were no many Indian startups commonly known by people of India. In 2012 Flipkart join the race and went ahead and inspired lots of startups to join the race. In 2012 and till now there were a number of startups have come and trying their luck, creating jobs, inspiring others to start. When a startups success it creates direct and indirect employment, adds value to the economy, inspire youths of India. Innovation in service or product makes people life easy, effective, saves our time, solve lots of existing problems in society.
Why startups growth is necessary for India's development ?
No country can develop if there is unemployment, there is a disappointment, if there is no enough success story to inspire the youth, strengthen the youth. Growth of startups is the solution for unemployment, inspiration, it creates success stories for the coming generation. On the other side if a startup fails it creates disappointment, people lose jobs.
What's the problem almost every startups facing ?
We are hearing again and again Startups likes Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc are fighting their battle to survive, many startups shutting down their operations. The reason is very simple and common.
1. Failure in developing trust and credibility unlike foreign competitors.
We always hear complaints that Indian youth or customers prefer foreign brands. Yes its true people prefer foreign brands because there is a lack of Indian brands who keeps their promises in delivering quality products. People get frustrated when they get the worst quality product by spending money and effort to buy. Pushing to use Swadesi will never help until unless we are not able to deliver quality service and product, till we fail in creating Indian brands. From food to clothes, to cosmetics each and every product we are using very few is Indian brands. We are failing to replace even a coffee shop "CCD". What is wrong there with Indian brands is we want to sell a product on the low cost by compromising quality and that doesn't help much.
2. They fail to attract customer compare to other foreign competitors
I will explain this with a simple story of mine, I always used to use Ola cab. It was ok for me. But at the same time my other colleague was using Uber and they were talking service of Uber is better. Once I thought to give a try just for curiosity and I realized the same. The same happens with the Flipkart, people seams praising Amazon more than Flipkart. Trust me its not foreign name that attracting people but their service and understanding of the customers need is. The truth is customers always go for quality not for the price. By "Customer always go for quality not for price" statement I don't mean that you keep any price and customer will buy but yes if the customer can buy the same product from foreign brands in a higher price than yours, then you can try to keep your price same as foreign brands and provide better quality than them.
3. Fail to bring investments
Many startups in India failing in bringing initial investments, there are many reasons for this. Investors are not explained about ideas very well, Investors are focusing on short time benefit, Investors don't want to take the risk. In my observation, all well-funded startups are founded by IITians or IIM graduates.
Investors trusts these guys more, they feels investing in venture started by IITians or IIM graduates is less risky. But in reality it's not casing anyone can have a great idea and they need your appreciations to convert their idea into reality. Let me be clear that I am not against these guys, I don't mean you should not invest in their venture I just mean is don't even ideas brought by other founders. The initiative taken by you will help in the growth of your organization as well as India's growth.
4. Investors want more profit and not having enough patience
Investors in India always invest in startups with short time vision, they want to make more and more profit, startups are forced to make money more than their capability and they start compromising in service and quality.
5. Pressure from the investor for cost cutting
Many investors don't just invest and let startups run on their own thought but also interfere in business, many of them are not from the same field they have invested startups in. So their lack of understanding of the field also responsible for their pressure in cost-cutting.
At last, what I am trying to convince is Indian startups should not compromise in quality of the product or of service at any cost, just don't start with the aim of earning some money but start with a clear vision to make a brand, a brand that matters, a brand that can recognize in India and globally. There is an ocean of opportunity in India. There are billions of customers and they eagerly looking for Indian brands but you have to prove your credibility first. Government and Investors should also support our startups to achieve their goal, make their dream true, actually its dream of India not only individuals. You should give some time in understanding their ideas first then just make decisions based on their backgrounds, give free hand to startups to implement their ideas.
Comments
Post a Comment