Entrepreneurship in India

Editor-in-chief of MiLLENNiAL magazine, Britt Hysen, writes - 60 percent Millenials think of themselves as entrepreneurs, and 90 percent of them consider entrepreneurship to be a mentality.

Let's take a look at the latter half of the sentence. Entrepreneurship as a mentality. This is what Entrepreneurship is perceived as in today's day and age. New, innovative and unique ideas are flowing everywhere, and those bringing these ideas to life are millenials, creative and fearless, looking for the double bottom line of making profit as well as providing a valuable service.

Look back two or three decades, and the picture is completely different. It was a time when most college graduates were satisfied with the safety of a well-paid job, and didn't dare to look outside of it. Entrepreneurship was considered a phenomenon only pursued by the ambitious Steve Jobses of the world.

So what has changed in the short span of twenty, thirty years? The Technology Boom, to state the obvious. Internet as well as the ubiquity of mobile-phone has not only ensured connectivity, but also created opportunities for innovative minds. Now we don't mean to say that technology has somehow created innovation. Instead, technology has worked as a means to an end. There is a line between Technological Invention and Technological Innovation. Let’s call this line Entrepreneurship. One might say that technology is an accelerator in the process of innovation. Technology has opened vistas. The paradigm shift from desktop to mobile phone apps has served as a platform for innovators to showcase their ideas. There are apps for every product and service imaginable.  Studies reveal that the number of mobile app downloads are estimated to reach 268 billion in 2017. Successful entrepreneurs are usually tech-savvy and know how to leverage such platforms in the correct way. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that most entrepreneurs in India are engineers, especially from top institutes like IITs.

Of course, technology alone can’t be credited for the entrepreneurial boom. Talking about IIT, the institutes, along with IIMs and other top engineering and management schools have introduced the concept of deferred placements for students pursuing an entrepreneurial path. Other concepts have been adopted by the government of India to encourage entrepreneurship. For example, Kerala Government is willing to provide a one-year break in between studies to engineering students aspiring to build their own start-ups.

Young students who are inspired by the start-up fiasco, however, sometimes fail to realise that entrepreneurship isn't as easy and glamorous as its image has been projected. It comes with its own set of challenges. New, budding entrepreneurs have to face and overcome hurdles different from those faced by experienced ones: Gaining access to capital, meeting the right people and making contacts, finding the right mentors for guidance, support and training, to name a few. Of course, there is the issue of funding and financing. Investors are usually more interested in a fully functional prototype of your idea, not the idea itself.

Since the entrepreneurship culture in India is still at its infancy, support by the government is a big step to ensure a bright, robust future for the entrepreneurs of our country. Our Prime Minister himself is a proponent of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activities. He has undertaken numerous initiatives in his Start-up India Policy, like opening incubation centres, slashing patent costs by 80 percent, reducing the tax burden and opening special schemes for female entrepreneurs. There are many Start-up communities like Headstart and TiE that offer support and guidance to upcoming entrepreneurs, and offer them some other benefits as well as crowdsourcing opportunities.

Such initiatives encourage and help entrepreneurs make their products and services globally competent. Keeping in mind that financing in India is hard to come by, Mr. Modi has also set up a dedicated fund worth ₹ 10,000 crores for the entrepreneurs. Currently, our country boasts around 48 million small businesses, more than twice that of the number in the United States, which stands at 23 million. Not only that, these 48 million small businesses in India create 1.3 million employment opportunities per annum, which is now the second largest job creator in India after agriculture. 

Needless to say, the current and soon to be entrepreneurs in India have some exceptional ideas. Despite numerous challenges and shortcomings, an entrepreneurial culture is being built in India, and there lies a long, long road ahead for our country to reach a mature entrepreneurial stage. There are a number of opportunities for budding entrepreneurs in our country, and it has been predicted that the future of India is likely to be shaped by its entrepreneurs.