Is Money all that's Required to Build up Your Startup?

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Startups have become a way of life for many.

Without customers or finance, what does the future hold for those who
are engaged in these ecosystems?

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One idea is
ALL it took for companies to form and look at where they stand now! Ola Cabs,
Flipcart, PayTM, MakeMyTrip, Zomato, Swiggy, BigBasket, Gaana, BookMyShow,
Grofers, Perpperfry, Babyoye and many others. India has witnessed a significant
growth of startups in its ecosystem and they make their presence felt both
domestically and internationally.

One of the
main reasons for their success is the fact that they are insanely focused on
customer experience, right from day one!

It is clear-cut that the funds that are available to startups are limited and perhaps Steve Jobs words it well – “You‘ve got to start with the customer experience and work back toward the technology – not the other way around”.

For
instance, if you take a look at some of the startups such as Air BnB, Oyo Rooms
and Slack you can easily spot a commonality in the company culture – and that
is that they are extremely consumer centric.

Another
addition and crucial aspect for startups is funding and fund raising. There’s
no business going to get done without any money!

Any startup
has to serve its business objective. Both funding and fundraising have the potential
to contribute to the growth of the startup. Now, one may
wonder can a startup exist without customers and without finance? What future
could one possibly expect?

The answer is simple and its bootstrapping- which
means to start a business without any external capital or help. In fact, some
of the largest companies today such as Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard, Coca
cola, etc yet follow this road.

What is a start-up?

A start up
culture can be described as a workplace that has an environment, which creates
values in creating problem solving, a flat hierarchy and open
communication. It is a high-risk
business that has in fact high chances of failure in its early stages.

The sources
of funding for startups can vary from angel investors, venture capital
companies, crowd funding, early stage investors or even accelerators.

It is a huge
source of encouragement for budding entrepreneurs and young people to work on
their own ideas.

For a long
time, thinking about the term office or even office culture usually conjured up
a similar image of rows of cubicles and variations on an uncomfortable chair.
However, nowadays office culture is a lot more about the intangibles that we
cannot we – i.e. the ideas. Startups, also known as young companies and are in
its first stage of operations- i.e. beginning to develop.

Startup
India was instituted to provide strength to the youth of the country.

It is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, that is intended to build a strong eco-system for nurturing innovation and Startups in the country and that will drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. Through this initiative, the Government aims to empower Startups to grow through innovation and design.

The Indian
youth is transforming from job seekers to job creators. With 65% of the
population below the age of 35 – most of which are student innovators,
incubators, tinkering labs and startups.

With
capital, connections and courage being the three main pre-requisites for
setting up a business the PM Modi has made efforts towards providing that under
the Startup India programme.

The Golden
age for startups in India has truly changed business models within the country,
With new ideas exploding unto business models, investors everywhere are all
lined up to provide the requisite mentoring and finance; that is required to
take the start up to the next level if higher valuations and funding.

Successful
startups that have valuations ballooning just within the first five years of
its operation include Naukri.com, Make My Trip, Just Dial and Shaadi.com.

International
organisations such as Hubspot, Twitter, Moz and Buffer explain how company
culture especially in its early stages is often found as unwritten company
values.

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Darmesh Shah, Co-founder and CTO of
the popular HubSpot believes that it is important that
both your hires and how the the founders think are important to culture.

“The
culture of a startup is defined by three things:

1. How the founders behave

2.
Who they recruit, reward and recognise.

3. Who they release (let go).as
said by him..

Bizstone (Christopher Isaac ‘Biz’ Stone), who is known as the co-founder of Twitter, says says “Startups have a unique ability to create a
culture of compassion that helps us improve and in so doing, we are more likely
to make a difference in the lives of others. It’s possible to build a business,
help people, and enjoy our work. How we approach our work is often as important
as the work itself because the way we treat each other, our shared environment,
and the way we cooperate shapes us as people.”

Even Rand
Fishkin, the Founder and CEO
of Moz, states “If you’re trying to figure out what a company’s values really
are, look at the decisions management makes when lots of money, risk, or loss
of face for executives is at odds with the stated values. Want to know the
company’s mission & vision?

Look at what they’ve
intentionally chosen not to do, even though it could be lucrative. And if
you’re seeking answers to why a company hires & fires, talk to the managers
about their most unorthodox hires that have worked out, and the most regret
they’ve felt when letting someone go (and why).”

However it was Joel Gascoigne, co-founder and CEO of the exceptional
social media start-up, Buffer, who says “There’s no right or wrong with
culture, it is simply a combination of natural personality of the founding team
in addition to proactive work to push the culture in a desired direction and to
maintain certain values.

I think to build a culture that can inspire people to want to
work for you, you will want to take the time to make specific changes to shape
it. At Buffer, culture is definitely something we’re starting to be more
deliberate about.”

Being an independent professional myself, I have been exposed to the startup ecosystem in many ways. I delivered a lecture on social media for startups in “Greed is Good” conference that was organised by GNIMS (Guru Nanak Institute of Management Studies) and IBF (Icon Business Forum).

I also delivered a talk about the digital ecosystem at Headstart Foundation. I was also invited to give a talk at “‘Reshaping India Through Startups” and visited the facility set up by Venture Catalysts. Besides that I have written content for a web app and written the content for several startups that have made an established mark.

There are many factors, questions to ask yourself and things to consider before you think of starting your own startup.It is very important to research, evaluate and validate your startup idea – whatever it may be.

3 Comments

Anonymous on January 16, 2019 4:29 am

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Anonymous on April 10, 2019 8:48 am

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Anonymous on September 20, 2019 11:22 am

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