Journey To Startups: Avoidable Pitfalls

This article is based on author's interactions with a number of small scale entrepreneurs with varying degree of success. Based on their inputs, he has identified some pitfalls in the journey towards entrepreneurship. Though the author has not recounted systemic issues like cumbersome regulations, long - drawn registration/clearance process, delayed or scant funding etc. rather, he has attempted to highlight issues which are more fundamental, specific and, therefore can be controlled better by the incumbent.

- Dr. Amit Shukla, Asst. Prof. (OB & HRM), Industrial and Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

A couple of years back, Suresh, a young MBA aspirant, quite passionately shared his new business idea with me! He wanted to commercialize the idea quickly and was planning to start his new venture. The idea was to develop a remote-controlled multi-plug socket. The utility, as per Suresh, was two folds: one, the gadget would ease the trouble of going near to main switch board every time one wanted to switch it on/off; two, as a result, it would save on electricity bill. He produced some hard facts: expected price post commercialization was about INR 1200, and savings on electricity bill was about INR 100 per annum. Since price of intangible gains (comfort of avoiding a few meters) is always subjective, I leave it to readers' discretion to decide on utility and viability of this new idea.

Unfortunately, Suresh could not raise requisite seed fund and, instead, undertook higher studies; his dream remains unfulfilled till date. However, our brief interaction did provide me fresh fodder to ruminate on. It resulted in 'discovery' of certain factors that potentially make difference between success and failure of a new venture. And this article is an attempt to organize my thought succinctly.