“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison
Start-ups are often hard-up. One invests one’s time, money and life into an idea and then watches it unfold almost with no power to turn around things even if one wants to. Sometimes, these small ideas soar, and bloom into billion-pound businesses — think Spotify, think Facebook, think Amazon. But then, on the other side, there are the thousands and thousands of start-ups that don’t quite make it. The companies that just miss their stride, launch at the wrong time or build themselves on an untenable business model. However, history is filled with entrepreneurs, politicians and innovators alike whose eventual success is predicated upon years of failure
In any journey that we embark upon, there are uncertainties. We cannot chalk out the exact conclusion of our efforts. But what we can do is to be prepared for it and accept any failures that come our way. Entrepreneurship is something close to a sense of accomplishment that comes with some perks and pitfalls. In India, we have seen a rise of entrepreneurs and businesses carving their success stories from the last decade. It is the hard work and sleepless nights that dictates the success of an entrepreneur.
Today, India is writing its own brochure of success, as the country has assumed the third place as the best ecosystem provider for start-ups after the US and China. This relies strongly on the demographic support of our country. India is providing a diverse market for a product to seek its targeted audience. There are companies and their founders who defined the success of the nation in business and development with innovative and fresh ideas. Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan founded Urban Company, formerly known as Urban Clap. Few years ago, if someone told you that getting premium salon services at home at an affordable rate is impressive, you would have laughed. But Urban Company made it a reality. The founders took the project as their brainchild and worked on improving their concept and within years, the idea paid off. The only reason is they put rational with necessity together. People will avail a product or a service if it has some usage in their daily lives. The company also expanded into two divisions, where a part dealt with maintaining and repairing home essentials and the other concentrated on beauty and client wellness. Urban Company gained unicorn status as it recorded a net valuation of $ 2.1 billion in 2021.
Falguni Nayar is another beacon of entrepreneurial success as she created the brand ‘Nykaa’ with nothing but her passion and the grit for sustenance in the cosmetic industry. Falguni Nayar understood the pain points of the cosmetic and skin care industry. The products that were available in the market were not satisfactory for the customers, although the demand for the industry was huge. Nykaa was created with an ideology to make women feel special even in the simplest ways. She was highly conscious about strengthening the logistics and supply chain of Nykaa, and thus the company does business only with the manufacturer without the intervention of any third-party sellers. After working in Kotak Mahindra Company for about 18 years, she decided to dive into her entrepreneurial dream and created Nykaa. Nykaa, being a unicorn company in India, has a net valuation of $ 2.3 billion. The rest is a beautiful legacy being created.
In the Financial Year 2021-2022, about 14,000 new start-ups were recognized by the Indian government. Back in 2016, there were only about 733 of them. This number is significantly huge as it portrays the country’s mindset towards setting up India for further advancement in varied niches. These start-ups vary in domains. They are from the tech sector that researches on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and in other technology fields, ecommerce industry growing and scaling to offer competitive services in the market, healthcare start-ups digitizing services for better quality of life, automotive companies which sells vehicles without the hassle of long paperwork, edtech platforms offering high quality mentoring and coaching for an improved academic success and the list goes on. The most contributing factor is that the public is now well aware of the world around them due to the easy availability of data.
Nobody knows the future, and there are probabilities in the failure of these projects. Some big companies making millions in annual revenue started out with ups and downs. Dhirubhai Ambani was the founder of Reliance Industries. He was born to a regular family in Gujarat and received regular education. The success of Reliance lies on the perseverance and dedication of this regular man. After failures, hurdles and living a regular life in a two-bedroom apartment in Mumbai, Dhirubhai Ambani took Reliance to great heights. All of these were possible as he believed in his dreams.
The history of Ratan Tata is another tale to tell. He failed in his concept of the car ‘Indica’ and ‘Tata Nano’. But that did not stop him from making Tata Motors from acquiring a market share of 14.17% and offering cars with brilliant design and top-notch features. Currently, Tata Motors is aiming to promote electric mobility and support the global green revolution
The values and objectives created for individuals in entrepreneurship are required to creatively replace old business models with dynamically new ones for the economic growth and sustenance of the business. In every corner of this journey, there will be risks and an ideal leader like these entrepreneurs recognized the pain points and acted on it with the help of reliable human resources and was aversive towards pessimism. Economist Joseph Schumpeter related entrepreneurship with ‘creative destruction’, where old industries will pave the way for fresh approaches.
With every possible entrepreneurial attitude, the support of the government is beneficial. This will go a long way, coupled with a collaboration from venture capitalist, angel investors and other benefactors who wish to grow along with the business and scale their profits. Exploiting unchartered territories with a positive market opportunity often makes entrepreneurs take the plunge into the field with their innovative idea. A successful entrepreneurship will come with well-planned business, the ability to adapt to changing marketing conditions and recognize the strengths and reduce the weaknesses. India today is building a new dream for the world to see. We have taken our lead and we have miles to go before we sleep!
