Efforts are being made to elevate Bangalore from its current global ranking of 19 among startup destinations. So, what’s not been going right for entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley of India of late? Priyanka Golikeri finds out.

wentythree-year-old Aruj Garg has two roles to juggle. Being a fifth year student at the National Law School in Nagarb-havi calls for a rigorous curriculum and projects. And running a food venture simultaneously proves equally daunt-ing.

Alongside attending lectures at NLS, he has to run around getting supplies at wholesale rates, ensure that his staff is manning the food outlet properly, chalk out expansion plans, and run after in-vestors for funding.

But Garg enjoys it all. His venture Bhukkad, a food outlet in the NLS cam-pus ends up raking in Rs2,000 per day by selling an array of sandwiches, smoothies and burgers to students. He now has plans of expanding Bhukkad to other campuses in the city and is in talks with college administrations to lend him some campus space.

Getting started, however, was quite a mean task, recollects Garg. Forget the external funding, or lobbying for space in the campus, or even hiring personnel to man the outlet. It’s firstly about con-vincing the family into accepting entre-preneurship, he contends.

“Like most Indian parents, even mine wanted their son to have a secure job, especially after I got enrolled in NLS. So, it was a hard time convincing them ,” says Garg. In his case, not only was he starting his own little business, but was breaking away completely from the le-gal profession.

“Unlike abroad, where being an en-trepreneur does not result in raised eyebrows, in India it is still a nascent phenomenon. People say from a bud-ding lawyer I ended up becoming a du-kandaar (shopkeeper),” points out Garg, adding it will still be some time before society in general adopts a more wel-coming approach towards entrepre-

neurship.Bangalore, nonetheless, sees far more

startups mushrooming around each year compared to any other city in the country. Rough estimates suggest any-where between 1000-1200 new ven-tures take shape annually in the city, across verticals like clean technology, food, education, healthcare, microfi-nance, transport, cloud, mobile and of course technology.

“Bangalore leads with 36 per cent of the total startups in India emerging here,” says Vlad Dubovskiy, founder of Unstoppable.in, a group which helps build entrepreneurial ecosystems. Globally, the city’s ranking is a decent 19 as per a recent study (see table).

‘Startup’ has become the new party word, says Kush Medhora, co-founder, Dream:In, an organisation which sup-ports entrepreneurs. “Right now it is just scratching the surface.”

“A lot has to be done if Bangalore is to break into the top 10 or top 5 league globally. The whole ecosystem has to be built that can encourage entrepreneur-ship,” argues Dubovskiy.

EcosystemWhile Bangalore is busy getting itself the title, Silicon Valley of India, the city should look deeper into the other as-pect on which Silicon Valley in Califor-nia thrives.

“Silicon Valley no doubt is the No 1 startup destination globally as they re-ally foster the spirit of entrepreneur-ship,” says Dubovskiy. Like Silicon Val-ley, Bangalore should establish “startup centres”, where all the basic facilities and infrastructure is provided to up-coming ventures at minimal rates, say experts.

“When I visited Silicon Valley, there

were these centres exclusively for start-ups,” says Phanindra Sama, CEO of on-line bus ticketing firm redBus.

Such centres have a reception, inter-net facility, post box, audio-video con-ferencing facilities where all those start-ing out can come and work in a condu-cive environment.

Almost all startups get shaped up with initial funding from the entrepre-neurs themselves and thus in the begin-ning, money is a key concern. So are rentals and other costs associated with internet connection, getting various softwares like photoflash and dream-weaver, as well as putting up audio-video conferencing systems etc.

“Often, budding entrepreneurs have to run from pillar to post to get a high bandwidth internet connection. It proves expensive to get a good net con-nection and find a decent place to put up the first office,” rues Sama. Since space and rentals prove another major headache, most ventures start from the homes of the entrepreneurs.

KK Cariapa, chief buddy, Opsbuds Solutions, who has started four compa-nies in the city, says his first firm Main-stay Teleconsultancy began from a dog house located under the staircase of his home. “But as the venture grows gradu-ally, there is a need for a conference room, among other things. This, very often, is not possible if the venture is getting operated out of someone’s home,” explains Sama.

Thus, there is a pressing need for a startup centre in the city where all budding businesses can work and avail of common infrastructure as well as have access to lawyers, chartered ac-countants who can help them with the legal and accounting practices. If these nitty-gritties associated with infra-structure and rentals are taken care of,

for startups it is like winning one-third of the battle.

MentorshipFurther to setting up startup centres, foremost among the requirements is a strong set of mentors who can guide the projects in their initial stages.

Cariapa says mentors with their vast knowledge and experience not just ad-vice startups, they also help structure the ideas in a manner that appears at-tractive to investors and provide the initial hand-holding.

“ I may have a base idea in mind like starting food chains for college stu-dents. This idea has to be structured in a way that the food chain will become popular not just with the target student community, but also with investors as well as the college administrations who can lend me space,” says Garg. The In-dus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and Dream:In recently held activities across the city where upcoming entrepreneurs could interact with mentors.

Brij Bhasin from GSF India, another organisation fostering entrepreneur-ship, says they hold accelerator pro-grammes twice a year for startups where mentorship is provided. “We hold two batches of five startups each, wherein they are assisted to figure out their business model.”

TalentEven though ventures begin as the idea of a bunch of enthusiastic individuals, they soon need a pool of talent to steer the idea ahead. And getting talent to work for something that is yet to even get officially recognised is a Herculean task. “In India, the option of working for a startup is virtually non-existent for

youngsters. Most are encouraged only to join well-known firms,” says Naga-nand Doraswamy, president, TiE.

Startups need people not just at the fresher level, but also experienced minds to take care of domains like fi-nance, accounting, technology, market-ing, etc. Sama says initially they had to rope in their peers and get people through word of mouth.

Again, a mindset change is needed whereby individuals start thinking of startups as a serious career choice and perceive them at par with any other firm when it comes to job safety and security, says Bhasin. Moreover, each startup today employs anything be-tween 5 and 250 people. “When talk of job scarcity is at its peak, startups are able to provide a breather to jobseek-ers,” says Medhora.

Regarding provisions like health cover and provident fund, several start-ups incorporate these segments under the health allowance and other allow-ance components of the pay structure.

Says Rangan Varadan, founder of mi-crofinance startup MircoGraam, “As per government rules, a firm can allot PF only if it has more than 25 employees. So instead of reserving certain amount separately as PF, startups tend to give it along with the salary as part of the various allowances.”

To encourage talent infusion in start-ups, regular round job exchange pro-grammes will be held in Bangalore starting this year, that will be a platform for both job seekers and the startups to meet at a common level. Shashikiran, associate director with TiE, says job-seekers and freshers need more aware-ness about the career opportunities that exist in start-up firms. “We will hold job exchange programmes say once a month or once in three months so that

start-ups that are on the look-out for talent and job seekers can meet, discuss and get to know the opportunities.”

InvestorsAnother big, and expected, headache is getting funding. All startups commence operations after the founders shell out money from their savings. Garg worked for four months and used the Rs 25,000 he earned in the process to launch Bhukkad.

Sama says investors would ask them about the market size of the domain they operate in. “We had no data on that. Later on, we did find venture cap-ital firms who sat with us, heard us out, believed in our idea and agreed to pump in funds.” Experts say there is a need for more platforms wherein up-coming firms can acquaint themselves with investors.

According to Bhasin, when startups join their accelerator programme, they are provided with a seed funding of up to $ 30,000. “Towards the completion of the programme that runs for two to three months, startups get to present themselves before a group of 300-400 investors.”

The pathway to entrepreneurship in the city might be riddled with hurdles. But that fire to do something on your own is the key driver of all the ventures.

“Belief in certain concepts and the ability to deliver them is important,” says Cariapa, explaining that a risk tak-ing appetite, focus, patience and cour-age to face challenging situations is all that is needed to give birth and nurture a professional baby.

Sama has the last word, “An entre-preneur has to keep figuring our solu-tions to problems and never lose hope.”

g_priyanka@dnaindia.net

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