There was a saying once in Kerala – You throw a stone and 90% of the time it’ll hit an engineer. Fast forward to today and you hear a modified version of the same – You throw a stone and 90% of the time it’ll hit a startup entrepreneur.
Kerala has seen a huge boost in the number of startups being formed and the number of entrepreneurs taking reins of their self-made career. While it is definitely a positive sign, the increased frequency of students turning to entrepreneurs is alarming. So much so that, the extra sweetness is rotting the teeth.
Here is what I mean.
When me and most of my entrepreneur friends started off with our respective startups, Entrepreneurship was seen as voodoo and a career choice for people who “couldn’t secure another job”. From there, came a time mainly around 2012-2013, where entrepreneurship started getting the respect it deserved and entrepreneurs were no longer looked upon with as much contempt as compared to the years before – thanks to initiatives likes the Startup Village and other policies by the State Government. People started accepting the “heroism” associated with entrepreneurship and it became the new hype.
Every single college student (especially engineering students), started dreaming of being the next Jobs or the next Zuckerberg.
And the hype continued. Fuelled by various factors and certain institutions like the Startup Village, the hype grew. Owing to this hype, instead of wanting to turn a solution or a product into an organized structure in the form of a firm, entrepreneurship came to be interpreted as starting a company first and then finding the answer to what it is we have to do. Kerala started seeing its first bunch of Business Card CEOs.
This is not to say that the right people weren’t getting into entrepreneurship! The support provided by the incubation centers and the mentoring by various esteemed organizations like TiE, did help build a few good ones – ones who sustained, ones who grew, ones who were more focused on solving the business problem rather than focused on updating their FB Profile as the CXO of XYZ Pvt Ltd.
On talking with couple of my clients, almost every second person is of the mentality that these are a bunch of college kids running a startup for the hype sake and they’d just shut town in a few months. Many of them have had their hands burned when they trusted some work of theirs with a startup company only to know that they had shut down in a couple of months time. In some cases the work remains incomplete whereas in some cases one of the founders of the so called “startup company” works freelance and completes the work for namesake. By then, the client is famished with the experience and they decide never to trust work with these minuscule startups again.
Yes, you see in the news that all is rosy and red for the startup community with VC Funding, mentoring, assistance, Govt. Funding and what not. Medias shine with the glimmer of each new startup on their Page 3 everyday, only to never ask the question of “What Happened to them?”, in a couple of month’s time. The startup entrepreneurs are also happy to see their smiling faces on the sheets of the newspaper, whereas a revenue model for their firm would be the least of their worries. Parents and neighbours are happy to say “Mera beta TV main aaya!“, but they do not care to ask whether the beta has a clear vision in mind about his startup.
And to put it frankly, though the steps taken by the government in promoting entrepreneurship are applaudable, the implementation cuts a sorry figure. Crores are being rolled out. To whom and where, heaven knows.
I still remember the announcement made at YES Kerala last year where Hon. Minister for Industries and IT (Kerala), launched the KSIDC Angel Fund of Rs 20 Crores for development of startups in the state, which saw Mr. Yusuf Ali, MD, Emke Group, adding his contribution of Rs 2 Crores seed fund. No update has been heard about it ever since. Or about the Rs 500 Crores set aside for promoting Entrepreneurship, as announced by the CM of Kerala in 2013.
The issue is that in the process of trying to get the numbers going high, the policy makers and the mentioned incubation centers have rather diluted the concept of entrepreneurship to a good extent. As people in-charge of the implementation, I’d say it’s their duty to ensure that the spirit of entrepreneurship is showcased in the right way.
Stop glorifying it with gold and glitter. That phase comes much later on.
Stop showcasing entrepreneurs as gods. They are humans who survived shit and still kept going.
Stop focusing on highlighting only the positives when you very well know that the initial years can be hell in a frying pan for a startup.
Most of all, STOP sending the wrong vibes to the student community. They are easily influenced by the pomp and glamour you put in front of them – It’s not their fault per se. It’s how their psychology is!
If this trend keeps going forward, what Kerala will see in 2-3 years time is a whole bunch of unemployed youth, who only hold the experience of designing PowerPoint Presentations and explaining imaginary bar graphs. God forbid that happens, but if it does, that just might be the end of the entrepreneurship mindset amongst the youth in the state.
Disclaimer : I do not claim to be a successful startup entrepreneur, nor a wise mentor. All thoughts are personal and based on the common sense with which I have analysed the things happening around me. The pointers shared here are my views, formed as a result of a series of cumulative discussions I have had with various startup entrepreneurs, senior personnel from the industry – including Startup Mentors, HR Managers, Tech Leads and CXO Level Executives. There are many institutions/organizations trying to promote entrepreneurship the right way, but since the wrong way is the one gaining prominence, I felt it as my responsibility to point it out. You are free to agree/disagree.
[Note: The article was first published here, and has been slightly edited by author]
Well said, Vijay S Paul you said the absolute truth of this about overhyped Entrepreneurship. Look at those bunch of merely called ‘Software Engineers’ crap guys wont know anything about business. They think they created a website so can do a startup what the nonsense? Everyone in india wants to become celebrity, wants attention, wants get rich quick scheme it wont work that way. Its not about glammor or glitters its about sweat, blood and sacrifice which our young indians wont have at all the apetite for sacrifice. They want showoff, style and status feeling and SUV cars to compare with others in society.
Your article was so true and applies to throughout india. showoff people will only do startups, actual visionaries build the companies like wildhorse with full of sacrifices and no luxury at all.