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I have seen many start-ups growing from their
initial stage to the stage of recognitions and status, however these stories
were not written in the study room but executed on the ground, thus witnessing
many ups and downs by many startup founders. Despite all this, we can say that
those who got good traction they became unicorns like gems of luck.
The Indian startup ecosystem produced 100+
unicorns across different segments which shows strong traction in terms of
getting funding, making the enterprise scalable and creating valuations. All is happening because there is a bond
between founders and investors which shows trust that both will be benefited if
the venture scales the business.
More than 85 unicorn built a large sphere in the following sector and
many more are in the line to touch the unicorn status by end of September,
2022.
Sector wise: Broad Level
1. Enterprises Tech
2.
Health
Tech
3.
Educational
Tech
4.
Financial Tech including Equity market
5.
Retail Tech more onto b2b side
6.
Consumer
Tech – E-commerce
7.
HR
Tech
8.
Tour
& Travel
9.
Real
Estate Tech
10.
Media
& Entertainment
11.
Advertisement
& Marketing
12.
SCM
& Logistics (Transport Tech)
13.
Other
sectors
14.
Biotechnology
Sector wise – Micro Level
Just
to refresh the current knowledge there
are three sectors which has produced more Unicorn in India and those are in
Enterprises Tech, Financial Tech and Retail Tech including E-commerce, about
62% of total startup in India comes from the said sectors.
Let’s
figure out the sectors where they got a good status and further more they will
be profitable apart from scalable point of view. They are purely basis on adoption where
startup has to burn money to bring the adoption in long run so that they will
have more top line and bottom line to make themselves sustainable. I will put such startups in Business skill
category where each entrepreneur is committed to bring sustainability in the
company and accordingly working on it by taking ample risks. Business skill always comes through
experience, and it teach us to handle the situations in wiser and it helps us
to understand it in more responsible way.
Sometime we assume that business sense will come with the experience,
yes it is true but more likely it is inherently god gifted within us that
cannot be replaced easily by any management trainee or technocrat. To some extent it is true but we can’t ignore
the modern way of management lessons which is being taught by the renowned
institutes and those are aligned with the modern techniques of technologies.
You
can figure out that 99% of unicorn startups were built by the Technocrates or
masters of management from top management institutes. So, the fact of business
skill is taken over by the Skill set is true that Skill set is stronger.
Facts
of Skill set is technology that is helping them to think beyond periphery. 80% startups are working on IT driven solutions
so they are from skill set i.e. technocrats.
They are most trusted by the investors because they are master of management
where they have analysis and gut feeling that skill set will take over the
Business skill.
In
support of the above fact, let’s take example of Flipkart, BYJUS, PayTM,
Swiggy, Polygon, OYO Rooms, Dream11,
RazorPay, Ola Cabs, CRED, Postman, PharmEasy, PhonePe,
Zomato, Icertis, Ola Electric, Pine Labs,
Dailyhunt,
OfBusiness, Meesho, ShareChat, Lenskart.
Above
mentioned startups have created great valuations and are in the club of over $5
billion valuation. If you take a look on their founders and co-founders, you
will understand why they built an empire in a few years. They were not from a
business background, so I would say that most of their business mindset was not
in line with the original and not naturally formed, but they built unicorns.
And
more than 15 tech based startups are in line to become unicorns in the coming
months. The founders of these unicorns are either masters of management
administration or they are technocrats. The same is with investors. VC funds
are owned by the network management administrators of LPs, PE funds or angel
investors. Overall they are driving by the skill set in the industry they are
in. But one aspect is more relevant which I will mention in the following way,
and that is the business mindset. Business mindset is very much needed in
business where the movement of goods is directly managed by the founders of the
startup. Here more emphasis will be with the fundamental side and the market
conditions.
Why Business mindset is important?
Entrepreneurs
are more refined word when we talk about building an organisation by a person
because he uses skill set wisely with business mindset. He is the man who find certain problem in the
business ecosystem and through great ideation they build an organisation.
Certain parameters of industries have to be complied while working on the
solution side. Now a days we are giving
these organisation new name “ Startup”.
Two
years ago the co-founder of a B2B marketplace came to my Jaipur office. When I
asked him about business thesis and fundamentals. He said with confidence that I
really do not know the business and about its mindset. We are technocrats so we
know our technology better that it will do business. I was astounded to hear
the answer that responded so quickly how could anyone say "I don't know
business". The said founder was from a large funded eB2B Seller platform. With
due respect I said, you are doing good in B2B retail. In this reference would
like to say about Ofbusiness, a startup. OFB is a tech-enabled platform
that facilitates
raw material procurement and credit for SMEs with focus in the manufacturing
and infrastructure sectors. Founders of OFB comes in the skillset group but the
way they gave directions to their business, I must say that they are using
business mindset somewhere to align the executions. When physical movement of
goods directly comes into business then one must go with business mindset approach.
That's how I'm trying to understand.
Again,
I met some investors in LPS from Sequoia, Accel, Tiger Global and several VC
funds and I asked the same question. Is the business mindset worth them or are
they part of a cartel of skillset? I asked them why they are investing in such
and such sectors and what cartel they are part of? They said, we don’t know the business what
startup is doing, we are only concern about the solution they are providing, is
it scalable a technology driven. They are concern with the returns and risk
they are expecting. I am highly inspired by Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder
of Info Edge, a successful VC fund in the ecosystem because he is a successful
businessman who build naukri.com and many other ventures. He is full of
business mindset. Investor should learn from him that how to find a business
mindset founders and when to invest.
I am
sure that founders of startup & LPs of investor fraternity will oppose my
thoughts on business mindset or skill mindset because most of them is using
skillset to drive their business. As per
them they are building a business empire so they are business people, True,
those are running businesses are business people. A layman will have this thought and
agreement. But, I am taking about
business mindset that is something different which has many dimensions. We cannot expect that a fresh graduate of age
20 or 30 will have those thoughts and mindset.
Just check the following and then compare it with your skillset.
Entrepreneurial
mindset is only important factor that will make or break a venture’s success
· Understand the market trend & forecast
- Know himself and market as a domain expertise – Business side
· Dare to face failure – Risk Appetite - Resilience
·
Positive
Thinker | Goal
Oriented | Creativity | Accountability | Decisiveness | Passionate | Patience |
It
is imperative to say that business owner should have business mindset first and
skill set he /she can get through taking higher /professional education or can
have it through experience. Few
characteristics are making difference in the above statements. Business mindset has some inherent tools in
his/her mind that he/she use while making decisions. It should be like that.
So never let skillset to hijack your
business mindset, rather develop it, learn it
Startup with Business mindset + Skill set = Entrepreneurs =Enterprises = Profitability =Sustainable business (Medium Term, ration of Success is 85%)
Startup with Skill Set = Scalable = Negative EBITDA (if+ Business mindset join) = Entrepreneurs=Enterprises =Profitability =Sustainable business ( Long term, ration of success is 15%)
#business #startup #mindset #entrepreneurs #sustainable #success
#retail #retailers #businessanalysis #skillset #grocery #kirana