Since the startup-entrepreneurship ecosystem in India hasnt fully developed, folks are bound to have questions – genuine questions related to VC funding, entrepreneurship, technical questions, operational questions etc.
However, I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend amongst the younger, college going demographic, who are aspiring to become entrepreneurs. They’re looking for way too much hand holding and probably misinterpreting what entrepreneurship really means. Let me elaborate. I frequently get emails (generalized below) of the type
- “Have a Web 2.0 idea. How do I go about implenting it ?”
- “Want to start a social networking company. How to do it ?”
- “Interested in starting gaming company. How to proceed ?”
I thought these were one-off occurrences and ignored them. However, I started noticing more of such questions pop up else where. For instance, check the “Ask the expert” section on the NEN website. There are a lot of open-ended questions and it seems as if several of them are looking for like the procedural guide to starting a business.
Let me clarify that there’s no “How-To” guide for entrepreneurship. There are some common operational steps like “how to incorporate a business”, “how to register trademark”, “how to hire right people” etc…but that’s it. If you want to start a gaming company or a biotech startup, there isnt any secret step-by-step document for it. If entrepreneurship would be so simple and certain that it could be compiled as a How-to document, not only would it be a best-seller, everyone would have gone and started their own business.
It is quite normal to have questions – after all, no one knows everything. However, you should have at least done some research – homework about your idea, your market etc. This speaks volumes about how sincere you are about entrepreneurship and your idea in particular. Sites like NEN, events like Proto and blogs like mine are useful channels to seek out answers. But none of us are going to hand hold you. No one will do the research for you and hand it on a platter to you.
As an example, consider the below two questions – “How do I go about funding my idea” && “which VC’s do early stage funding in the gaming sector”. Which one of the above do you think has a higher probability of getting noticed and answered ?
Whether its ignorance or sheer laziness – if you are not doing this grunt work yourself, there are slim chances that you will be successful as an entrepreneur – after all, entrepreneurship is all about uncertainty. From a quote I heard / read somewhere (cant recollect where) – “The only thing certain about entrepreneurship is the uncertainty”.
Fostering and nurturing entrepreneurship is one thing, but babysitting is a completely different thing. Feel free to chime in if you feel otherwise.
Pranav,
I do get quite a few emails as such as well and usually i do end up responding to them – maybe its me who is used to such questions in the incubation centre anyways. Most of them are not looking for a detailed procedure though – just give them a general guideline that they need to have a sample customer base in mind, validate their idea, do a prelim bplan, identify a team etc, and they are quite okay with it.
And I think you missed out a very crucial info resource point – Open Coffee Clubs. They are popping all over the place – Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi(rather Noida) and I hear Kolkatta has started one. They are filled with a lot of patient folks who can even handhold.
They also say, the only uncertain thing is life. For everything else there is a guidebook somewhere
Nice post though otherwise. Agree on most points, but as you rightly said the info on starting up hasnt permeated to the masses yet… until such time, the mails will keep flowing in.
Vijay,
thanks for dropping by and sharing your perspective. As a key Proto organizer, your opinion is truly valued.
I have no qualms in helping out..and every chance I get, I do. but time constraints generally weed out answers to such open ended questions.
The guidelines you list out above ..a little internet research and you can uncover most of them. Instead of providing them such basic guidelines, they should be encouraged to research such basic info on their own. Rather than answering all emails for such basic info, we should try to make them more independent.
In the short term, handholding may sound fine..but there’s a possibility that in the long term, the person may become used to such handholding for the most basic steps..and may not be able to efficiently handle a situation singlehandedly, if need be, later down the line.
Pranav,
Good article – I think you make an important point – every entrepreneur needs hand holding at some point or the other – but it should not be with the basics, especially in this day and age, when a reasonable amount of information is out there including some step-by-step stuff – not just in the blogosphere, but from VCs, angels and other folks motivated to help entrepreneurs.
I have tried to address some of these very questions in a series I am writing for the Hindu Business Line – that would help folks considering starting something. Much like Vijay states, with a few folks I have tried to answer every question they raise, but soon you wonder why some of these folks don’t start with a Google search! As my children are teaching me, sometimes the right answer is a good question or good many questions that teach “how to fish” rather than “feeding fish”
Ya..I agree that theres lot of information, if U googled to find relevant that.My self landed in this site on that way to find the stuff I need..Actually for a single person or a student to bootstrap everything will take ages to start.Consider my self I think I’ve my idea..I evaluate it and I googled for it is there any thing similar concept is already there and if it is what its drawbacks.Luckily I’ve some competition from others no problem It’s a large Pie So I can have my share..And then I think If I’ve to start single how can I maintain infrastructure so sign up for Google app engine account..but already limited sign ups are reached I’ve to wait for it..(http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/whatisgoogleappengine.html)
Writing lab programs for me a niche ..coming to this I’ve to understand their platform and Python works Oh my god..so I need help because need programming and for infrastructure matters there’s our Big Boss Google is there hoping for any comments(http://code.google.com/appengine/)