Threat to Startup Innovation

With growing ecosystem of startup around the globe brings in major threat to their innovations too. Many startups often start from living room or college canteen. Many successful startups in India indicated that few like minded innovators joins hand with strength in different domain and start the development work to showcase the proof of concept. Proof of concept with viable business case is very important to get the seed funding.

In the event of self funding or through seed funding, startup generally hire the first line of employee through reference without going through the background check.There comes the threat of human vulnerability which is maximum in the information security domain.

We generally trust our resources and treat them as family to inflict conviction and confidence within the team member but sometimes some of the resources turns hostile and hurt the company.

It is very important for startup to implement network security but the usages of basic email server to common hosting server works for the worst. As startup founders invest their life savings to effort in order to achieve the goal and it is important for all of us to implement human intelligence as first line of defense to mitigate any security breach which may cost us unavoidable failure.

Many resources complain that they are not allowed to attend phone calls, whatsapp or any other messaging application within office. Some of them complain that they are not allowed to leave the office during office hours or they are not allowed to carry laptop back home.

I do understand the concern of the resources and they suffer just because of few resources who is not ethical while performing their duties.

It's unfortunate that some of the resources intentionally or unintentionally share company information with friends or relatives or XYZ, which may lead to leaking of confidential information about product, potential business etc.

When it comes to security we talk of routers to switch to IPS/IPS, DDoS, penetration testing to Vulnerability Assessment but it does not work in startup ecosystem.

If one wants to secure the innovation till it’s released in the market, it is utmost important the founder should keep an eye on everyone based on multiple intelligence mechanism.

Real Estate Based Startup - Investor Pain Not Yet Started

In the last two years, Indian real estate sector went digital to attract rare customer base. Many startupscame out with strong ideation and claimed that they will change the dynamics of the sector. Even some of the players started listing of new properties and few of them successfully sold the inventory too. The startup root level thought process revolved around the end user pain as well as identification of end user for Companies.

Unfortunately, Indian real estate sector is predominately a resell, rental market and every startup went on and launched their portal too. All claim the different approach but the content was the same. The sector real pain point is broker segment where commitment vs. fulfillment ratio is bare minimum.

Much organization like 99acres, magic bricks, makan.com, Housing came up with their unique proposition. More interesting was the investment done by the leading investor community without realizing the reverse eagle eye pain points.

In my point of view, Investor is going to suffer more as major correction in the sector is yet to come. The recent reality check done by the leading Media House in India also exposed the weakness in the segment.

Before startups you have to keep these things in your mind. These startups started promoting the properties without checking the legal aspect of the projects and just tried to play around with the valuation.

Still the basic and most important pain point of user as well as for companies is not addressed by any of the companies operating in the segment. If they manage to tap that, It will be a instant hit hence be ready for further erosion of investment value

How Indian Startup Turned Into Devil From Darling Within Two Quarter

It is really interesting and surprising to observe the dynamic change of business viability within the investment community towards Startup. It's long before when anyone and everyone want to be part of startup bandwagon with very strong collective voice that India is going to be the center of Innovation, E-Commerce and Service.

Even more shocking that many Ex-CEO of reputed organizations started their investment fund as well as turned into MENTOR role. The virtualized form of publicity funded by big fund players even prompted Indian government to offer multiple incentives to Startup community to ensure that "New era of Employment" culture happens in India.

I, in my personal opinion always stood the other side of the table and kept raising my voice about non viable business case across sectors and many kept on giving me the news about fat E-commerce organization funding news.

One marked down of Flipkart valuation by leading investment firm, turned the perception of investment community about the profitability to sustainability of business

Isn't it laughable; how investment guru's can go wrong in their business model within weeks? That's reminds me of Mr. Rakesh Jhunjhunwala statement about business model sustainability of Indian E-Commerce Companies and that is the reason that he is one of the best in his investments.

It raises few question marks around the handling of business such as lavish office, parties, and promotions, pay package, paid PR.  The investment community kept on investing in those firms even after the gaps being clearly visible in the fear of losing side.

In my point of view, Successful investment assessment happens at Metro Station to Bus Stop to College Campus instead of Air conditioned business lounge of 5 Star Hotel's. Root level market intelligence is the foundation of business model which should be so flexible that it should be refined on the fly supported by the alternative revenue stream.

I really feel bad for the startup for being portrait as Devil from Darling within two quarter for others mistake.

I still believe that lots of good startup is still in the market place but they are not noticed because they don't believe in paying PR cost just to tell the world that they received $100k seed funding :).

It's the right time for the investor to jump in and pick the quality company to average out their losses.

Hiring Delay Mess - Self Created Trouble By Startups and Brand Impact

In recent weeks, many startups have hit the headline of print media for all wrong reasons and that is the delay of hiring new resources due to the strategic change of their business model. The whole process exposed the lack of communication skillets of the well established start up organization making the buzz around the globe.

In the last two years we observed the Bull Run by Start up to hire resources from reputed institute and treated as their pride which is now pinching them the most. As per the standard business practice, all organizations during their Annual Operation Plan (AOP) ensure that the visibility, strategy, execution process and resource requirements are locked-in and in that scenario, the failure to follow this process by many startups clearly indicate that coordination within the business unit is not seamless.

The aggressive push by the institution clearly indicate that they want to defend their reputation where their students are getting jobs in top organizations with fat pay package and at the same time supporting student's demand for the compensation for the delayed joining date which is not even confirmed joining date for them.

 It clearly indicate the early wave of downturn in many segments where well known startups operate and realized in due course that they have to train the students from scratch which ad to their cost.

The university's and college's  move to blacklist such organizations will have long term impact on the their hiring plan and as we all know about Indian Professionals that they are very cautious about their professional stability hence it would have another stretch point of retaining existing and attracting new talents.

My full sympathy is with students and wishes them all the best to get even better job at the earliest. More the hurdle more the success waiting for you.