BUSINESS
Start-Up Street | Do investors in Indian start-ups prefer younger entrepreneurs?
A study by Harvard Business Review said VCs are operating under a ‘mistaken belief that youth is the elixir of successful entrepreneurship'
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: What it takes to create a prudent angel investment portfolio
Losses are often the default in angel investing, considering the high failure rate of start-ups. While there is no winning strategy, here are some tips to better success
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Start-up advisory boards – boon or bane?
Challenging the founders and leadership on key issues, constructive criticism along with pointed suggestions help make for a good advisor
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Strategies need to strike an offline-online balance
Hybrid models are likely to be the way forward for start-up players as life returns to near normal post the pandemic
BUSINESS
Startup Street | Watch out for these red flags before investing in startups
A high failure rate means an investor could lose everything. Keeping an eye on these red flags from the start could improve the odds of success
BUSINESS
Start Up Street: Turning a business into an investible start-up
Entrepreneurs must know that a good business may not necessarily mean it is an investible business. Investors – be they seed funds or VCs are looking for 10x + potential returns on any investment.
BUSINESS
Start up Street: How important is mentoring to start ups?
Investors do admire and encourage an entrepreneur’s passion given that it drives the entrepreneur and the enterprise. But investors also are able to bring in more objectivity to business projections
BUSINESS
Startup Street: Profiting from social good
For investors, social impact investment involves giving finance, typically in the form of equity, to enterprises which tackle social issues and needs with the clear expectation of a measurable social and financial return
STARTUP
Start-up Street | Harmony between investors and entrepreneurs critical to a start-up's success
Investors and entrepreneurs may publicly make a show having aligned interests but an undercurrent of tension and conflicting interests is always present
BUSINESS
Start-up Street | Contrarian approach: Starting up in a downturn could make sense
For entrepreneurs, this is actually a great time to start a business, as distractions tend to be far fewer and the focus is on finding and delivering true customer value
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Default Alive -- the art of navigating through uncertain times
After the high of the past few years, the funding tap has suddenly dried up. For several later-stage start-ups seeking to raise larger rounds in the coming few months, the outlook is unfavourable
BUSINESS
Start-Up Street | Early exit – It happens more often than you think
Start-up entrepreneurs should be prepared for situations in which an early exit may happen
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Does India need more unicorns or democratisation of entrepreneurship?
Focus on unicorns detracts from the work done by other start-ups and MSMEs. Unicorns typically tend to be disproportionately funded, leaving little for the vast majority of start-ups that need funds
BUSINESS
Learning from the failures of funded businesses
Almost 82 per cent of businesses fail because of cash flow problems; but there are other reasons as well
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Family businesses in India are warming up to external capital
Unlike money from banks, venture capital or private equity into family businesses comes with different expectations. Here are a few points to ponder over….
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Closing down an unsuccessful start-up
The vast majority of start-ups fail. For the entrepreneur, it's an intensely emotional process that needs to be managed well, so that the learnings can serve him well in his next venture
BUSINESS
Start-up Street | Crises in start-ups and the art of managing them
The trouble with a crisis is you never know when it is going to hit you. It is therefore necessary to have adequate safeguards in place for possible situations
BUSINESS
Start-up Street | Entrepreneurship – the dark and seamy side
Unfortunately, because the enterprise is so closely linked to the entrepreneur’s identity and because quitting is often equated with failure, many entrepreneurs get blinded and drag the business into a deeper financial morass
BUSINESS
Startup Street | Beware! Fraud by entrepreneurs is a recurring phenomenon
What types of frauds that startups indulge in and why? Usual suspects are inflated billings or expenses and non-existent product, among others
BUSINESS
Startup Street | Do women entrepreneurs get the short shrift in funding?
Of the $49.23 billion raised during 2018-21, start-ups with women co-founders accounted for only 5.7 per cent, while solo women founders received just 0.90 per cent
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Why some Indian start-ups are quitting India
Less red tape, easier availability of funding and a lower compliance burden are some of the issues cited by entrepreneurs who have set up their bases abroad
BUSINESS
Start-up Street | Trying to make sense of start-up valuations
Start-up investors who come in last ensure that the company’s valuation continues to sustain at the level at which the last round of investments was made. The onus is then on the entrepreneurs and employees who have to jump through hoops to support those absurdly high valuations with performance.
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Still a long road to angel investing in India
For angel investors, what matters most is the quality of the idea and its unique, differentiated defensibility and the need for a great team
BUSINESS
Start-up Street: Getting the right investors for your start-up
It may be better to walk away from a potentially tricky investor than take money and suffer
