Are incubators and accelrators making any impact? I know Y-combinator has done well but is their model repeatable? Is there any study showing that they are an efefctive way to produce succesful startups?

GOI’s Startup India Program has bet the farm on them. It has beaurocratic simplicity and elegance. Fund the incubators and accelrators, startup will start to sprout. More the merrier!

I have never been enthusiastic about any formulaic approach. I am much more into sink or swim. I believe in stampeding the herd, so to speak, so thousands and thousands of people will start the companies. Most of them will fail but a hardy bunch will succeed. Making it easy for them by greasing the skid is just not efefctive.

Much better to induce/seduce the investors to put up the risk capital more easily. Most VCs/Angel investors lose money anyway. Allure of making it big makes them invest in the first place. Make it even more attractive. I say, get rid of the Capital Gains taxes if you invest in these risky ventures

I was a buff of old west shows that were very common when I first got to US in 1967. One thing I remember is cowboys triying to buck broncos(tame wild horses). Broncos have a mind of their own and they jump wildly and try to throw the rider off while ride struggles to stay on. This battle of will lasts several sessions before both the rider and horses start to understand each other.

I think of entrepreneurs as cowboys and markets broncos. It takes a while for them to understand each other. What does market really want? What is it willing to pay? What does it value? Speed, price or quality? Of course a very high quality product, priced real low delivered yesterday will be a winner any day of the week!

A methodology called a lean startup has developed in SV over the years, It says that entrepreneurs should get out with a Minimally Viable Product (MVP) as soon as possible and start testing (riding) the market. The product should then evolve and perfects in market under commercial conditions. Entreprenure should understands what market wants and what it is willing to pay.

No scaling should happen before that. Any other method is just playing with fire.

Indian middle class ethos are pretty clear. There are constant exhortations: Beta Doctor Bano ( Son become a doctor); Beta engineer Bano (son become an engineer). No parent ever says “Beta entrepreneur Bano”. There is further advice to settle down, find a good job, time to get married, become responsible. Not to forget the advice to have discipline, meaning do what is expected of you. A job with a MNC and a marriage with a family picked girl are seen as smart things to do.

The problem is that these are things that steer you away from listening to your heart and do your own thing; like becoming an entrepreneur. Becoming an entrepreneur goes against every thing that is expected of you.

Further, it is a very lonely and hard journey if you chose to go down that path. You should not expect and will not get any sympathy anybody. People will laugh at you for being foolish. So why do people become entrepreneurs any way? Because they have to prove something, to themselves. You have to sustain that fire from inside. Nobody from outside should encourage you to put yourself through the hardship. Desire to make money is not enough to sustain it, as it will be a while before you get back to make a market salary.

It is for sure not for everybody.

Only one in fifty people in general population succeeds as an entrepreneur. Not very good odds, I must say. No wonder parents are not in favor of it. But if you take the first step of leaving your job and sustaing your dream for about a year, your odds improve 10 fold, That is because you are now a part of select few, about 10%, who have opted in. Your odds of success have gone from about 2% to 20%! Those odds are not so bad when a win could mean that you are set for life.

In any case, most entreprenurs succeed on second or a third try. I was lucky. I made it on my first try.

So, are entreprenurs gamblers? In a sense yes, but they are taking a calculated risk. Logic alone is not enough. One has to make a leap of faith. Entreprenurs combine primal and intellectual in a unique chutney; instead of finding 10 reasons why they can’t do it or shouldn’t do it, they find one reason to go for it.

Longer you wait, harder it is to do it. You start to become more sensible, more practical, more responsible and more set in your ways.

You still have to a bit foolish to do it.