The Startup Journey

Writing in Founding Fuel , Baba Prasad, CEO of Vivekin Group who teaches entrepreneurship in B-Schools, bemoans the fact that a lot of the students would like to emulate the founders of companies like Facebook and Amazon and do not even bring up names like Narayana Murthy of Infosys or Azim Premji of Wipro, leave alone like Laxmanrao Kirloskar or Jamsetji Tata. "So, if business models for Indian entrepreneurs are fashioned in the West, and business heroes are not Indian, the question comes up: What is Indian about the Indian entrepreneur?," he asks. According to the article, the crux of an Indian Entrepreneur is: 1. Balancing profit-making with the burdens it is imposing on society and the benefits it can deliver to society 2.  The entrepreneur is solving problems, that are not uniquely Indian, but the scale is Indian.   Contrasting the Western/Capitalist model and a not-too-practical Gandhian/Socialist model, the author provides Aravind Eye Hospital as a bala...

Extracts from Suvir's recent blog post on how entrepreneurs & investors should determine timing of a strategic sale. 1. People - There is fatigue or lack of passion at the founder or leadership level.  Or  it is hard to attract or retain key talent in the company. Or there is a strong disagreement amongst the various stakeholders on the way forward. 2. Approach - The approach to solving the problem is either not working or not scaling. Revenues cannot scale without scaling costs proportionately 3. Market - The market is either not large enough, or the competitive dynamics in the market puts pressure on current business model Venture Intelligence  is India's longest serving provider of data and analysis on Private Company Financials, Transactions (private equity, venture capital and M&A) & their Valuations in India.