The Down Side Of Start Ups

The Down Side Of Start Ups

Dear Sir.

This refers to your engrossing cover story on “ India ’s Coolest Start-ups” (BT 31st July 2016) and your interesting Editorial ”Tracking Start-ups.”

While steady growth of new start-ups with innovative ideas, products and services is appreciable as it opens new vistas for entrepreneurs and business houses and since it makes efforts to tap the hitherto un-tapped markets and capture a big chunk of interested customers, the moot question remains is about the survival rate of such start-ups in the long run.

While highlighting the mushrooming growth of start-ups it is equally important to take a stock of such start-ups which came up with a lot of fan fare but soon went into oblivion for one or the other reasons. Lot of academic and research studies have been done and published from time to time on topics like reasons why start-ups fail, guide-lines for survival of start-ups in tough market conditions etc. According to such studies, some of the reasons leading to failure are as under: (at random not in serial order)

a) Market Problems b) Business Model Failure c) Poor Management Team c) Running out of Cash d) Product Problems e) The team not having what it takes to succeed f) The idea not serving the market needs g) Not being able to support growth h) Poor allocation of resources i) Not realizing the competition in the market j) Ignoring customers k) Entrepreneurs living in a vacuum l) The idea not uniquely solving a big problem m) Inventing concepts, not complete products n) There being big gaps in strategy o) Competitors with existing solutions not giving up so easily p) Listening to bad advice from wrong people.

BT has been supporting the cause of start-ups and publishing their success stories since 2007 to cater to its discerning readers. Perhaps after 9 years now it is time for BT and its team to carry out a survey about start-ups which have survived the test of times(like Reliance and Infosys referred to in the editorial for example) over the period or have miserably flopped or not come up to the expectations of all the stake holders for various reasons. Such a survey would help future entrants to be guided by the findings of your survey and take corrective action before venturing into new start-ups.     J S Broca, New Delhi 19th July 2016

THIS RESPONSE SENT BY ME TO BT HAS NOT BEEN PUBLISHED SINCE I POINTED OUT SOMETHING THEY DID NOT LIKE. JSB 15TH AUGUST 2016

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