Entrepreneurship is a process of identifying and starting a business venture and organizing all the required resources while taking risks and rewards associated with the same. – Wikipedia
In India, this word is selling like a hot cake. Everyone dreams of becoming an entrepreneur but only few people actually become successful entrepreneurs. Many people quit just at the thought of it and the others quit after trying for a while. At the end, what we see in our country is that, entrepreneurship in India isn’t successful.
Apart from the few popular Indian entrepreneurs, every Indian considers this as a waste of time and as a great risk to his career. This fact seeded a question in my mind: why is Entrepreneurship in India unsuccessful?
I didn’t check the relevancy of ‘success’ of entrepreneurship in India but on the face of it, I consider this to be unsuccessful. And here’s what I think about this:
Today, when I opened my Gmail inbox, I opened at an email with some Quora suggestions and there I saw one question: Why is there so much hate towards Flipkart?
For those who are still unaware about what Flipkart is:
Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company which holds the credit of making online shopping popular in India. It was founded by two IITians – Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and is now one of the best e-commerce companies in India offering a very tough competition to the foreign e-commerce giants like Ebay and Amazon.
What I know about Flipkart is that this company is recruiting new graduates with very alluring pay packages and a very tough recruitment process. As a customer, I find this as an average company but when it comes to buying books, I would prefer just one place- Flipkart.
Coming to the question – Why is there so much hate towards Flipkart. Well, I didn’t read the complete list of answers but there’s one top rated answer over there which tells a small story which shows how Indians cannot see others rise and let one another grow out of the box.
Is that true? Are we Indians really like that? We are so jealous of each other that in the long run, we forget that someone’s success might act as a ladder for our own. Is our green-eyed behavior the reason behind why entrepreneurship in India isn’t successful?
At the very point when I had been thinking about this, it occurred to me that even I am an entrepreneur in India; at least I am on my way towards entrepreneurship. What kind of behavior do I have to face?
Well, I won’t say I have had many people criticising me. In fact what I have in my mind are those people who text me and say, “Wow Manpreet, you’re doing a great job. Good luck.”
That is what I see in my life. I see only the people who are there to support me. But does that mean there is no one reprehending me?
If you talk about the people who aim to belabor me, there are legion.
Some people say that I am too stupid for I am giving more attention towards my blog than my studies (which need me to cram the entire course syllabus just to get 2% more marks than the ‘toppers’ in my university).
Some people say that a student should never think about money for this is the time for him to study and learn (from books written by people who have done nothing more than publishing a few books with half of the content copied from the book of a well established foreign author).
Some people say that I am just an attention seeker who is trying to impress others with a stupid blog (which is too easy to build for there’s WordPress).
Well, this is what I have on the other side but I tend to ignore this and do what I am doing.
But you know what, not everyone can do that. It’s my luck that the people who matter to me in my life are on the proponent side but in many cases, everyone loves to call you ‘stupid’.
In such a scenario, a person often tends to accept that entrepreneurship isn’t his kind of thing and starts working for a 9 to 5 job which is going to fetch him little amount of money, too little to fulfill his dreams and make him realize his fantasies.
Considering all this, would it be wrong when I say that entrepreneurship in India is unsuccessful because of the attitude of Indians towards it? What do you say?
Have you ever thought about being an entrepreneur? If yes, then what kind of difficulties do you face in your daily life? Do you think the lack of support is affecting your performance and goals?
Hi Manpreet,
Very thoughtful post!
I completely agree with your points, there’s not much support for entrepreneurship in India.
people think it’s too risky or we are not capable to achieve something; what I think is, entrepreneurship doesn’t always need investment if we have ideas and will power. but majority of them won’t understand this.
Even some of my friends ask me why i’m wasting time on internet with my blog. it’s very difficult to explain them, but I try.
no matter what, i’ll continue my efforts towards entrepreneurship, you should too!
thanks for sharing this valuable post! 🙂
Hello Adithya,
First of all the people who say that you’re wasting your time on your blog, those are the ones with whom you’re wasting your time. You won’t learn anything being with such people. I am telling this from my personal experience and the best answer to such people is showing them YOUR SUCCESS. So keep blogging and tell them that you’re not wasting your time.
And yes, we are both going to continue our efforts towards entrepreneurship.
And the investment thing, I partly agree with you over that. You can even start from zero if you know how to do it that way. Money seriously doesn’t make the difference, at least not according to me.
Probably the only article on this blog which i don’t find valuable or worth reading. I’m sorry manpreet but this is my honest opinion. What i see in this article is just your personal experience which is way more different from the actual scenario. According to me the only problem with entrepreneurship in india is either people are not aware about it or they don’t want to risk their time,money or attention for a new startup. People need awareness and motivation and i don’t think this article is helping in that sense. Based on a single company or person its not good to draw a conclusion that entrepreneurship is unsuccessful in india.
Manpreet, I’m a great admirer of the work you do and i would really like to see something more detailed and precise on the same topic. This term ‘Entrepreneurship’ is actually very important for many people like me who want to be an entrepreneur.
I think you should really see what young indian entrepreneurs have to say, read at http://yourstory.com
Hello sahil,
First of all I accept your viewpoint and I would certainly work on your suggestion to write detailed post about entrepreneurship. This one, I think I made a mistake by tagging this in career category as well for this post solely belongs to the opinion section on my blog which talks more of opinions and suggestions rather than ‘information’.
According to you the only problem about entrepreneurship in India is that people don’t want to risk their money, time or attention.. But that is not the case according to my perspective. Just by putting in money and time, you don’t become an entrepreneur. There is more stuff you need, some can be explained with the ‘science’ and some can’t be. For example, emotional support which was the main point in this post. If you don’t have emotional support, time and money would make no difference. You would fail. Just imagine, you started a new business and there isn’t a single person appreciating your efforts. How many chances do you think your business have to survive? The second important thing is skill. An entrepreneur must be a jack of all trades but a master of none. http://yourstory.com/2014/03/entrepreneur-skills/
This is something people in India lack. Don’t u think so? So, its not just the fear of taking risks or putting in money. In fact, we have many investors now, what we lack in is the ‘projects’ where people could invest.
And yes thats exactly what I said, people need awareness and MOTIVATION, most importantly emotional support. Even our system doesn’t allow budding entrepreneurs to try their luck. I don’t think you would disagree on that. (Don’t consider FDI here)
This article was aimed to express my view point, why do I think entrepreneurship in India is unsuccessful. So, truthfully I didn’t feel the need to put tips and suggestions for entrepreneurs. I am not qualified enough to talk about that. I can’t tell what entrepreneurs should do and what they shouldn’t for as you are a regular reader of my blog, you would know my posts are based on my experiences or research. In this case, nothing suited and that’s why I called this an ‘opinion’.
And the fact that entrepreneurship is unsuccessful in India isn’t based on a single company. If I may assume what single company you are pointing towards, that would be Flipkart which I quoted to introduce the story which told the behavior of Indian people towards their fellow beings trying to make a fortune through entrepreneurship.
How come u didn’t notice that? Flipkart is actually a successful company, at least I call it so.
The opinion is not based on that particular company. The opinion is based on something which could be derived as an obvious ‘fact’ through current stats which are easily available online. How many successful startups do you actually know? I bet there wouldn’t be more than 50. Imagine, just 50 successful entrepreneurs from such a large amount of population!
http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/156143/india-big-problem-nurturing-entrepreneurs.aspx
Well, if people think you are too stupid concentrating on your blog more than your studies then i call myself a complete psychopath who dropped out college for his passion and blog refusing to hear anything what people says. True Fact- I find your blog more knowledgeable than engineering books, that’s why i visit here daily. So, in my vision you have accomplished a lot, more than the publishers of those books you have mentioned above. Speaking about Flipkart, i personally hate it since there is no coupon or voucher facility available :-p
And last but not the least, it is not easy to make a blog. Only we can understand how much time we have spent working on the foundation of our blogs.
Keep Blogging and All the Best.
Thank you Raunak. Those words are seriously inspiring.
And Flipkart, as it seems I think the tone of my post presents it as an ‘unsuccessful’ one but I didn’t actually consider it as that. And yes, no coupons and vouchers and also if you buy products from different sellers.. U would end up paying double shipment charges. Bad!
And I wish I was as daring as you are.. I am still trying to get a 9-5 job along with this blog which I love. One reason is for I am more interested in writing than making money from this one but still, it needs a lot of courage to do what you did. Awesome!
And yes, to all the people who aren’t bloggers and don’t know what it takes to be a blogger – Try it once! (Then say we are wasting our time in this extremely easy thing!)
Hello Manpreet,
This is the best article I have ever read on Finix Post. As you told people keep commenting that we should avoid blogging and give more time to studies. They are right on their way but as I think this is the only age in which successful enterpeneurs start building up.
By just getting 2% more marks we can’t rule the world. You are very true about it. You might also remember I told you the same case when we’re having a conversation on fb. My relatives too think that I am wasting my time by focusing on money and blogging and I keep getting negative comments day by day.
One should maintain a balance b/w studies and his external activities. Right?
Look Jeet banerjee, the successful enterpeneur at the age of just 21 years. I keep motivating myself by reading his blogs.
While learning enterpeurship, he maintained a balance amongst all his activities.
Does he failed in his exams? … No
Does his got scoldings from home? … No
Today, Every Digital Marketer is proud of him. One should not kill his dreams by just listening to negative comments. Am I right?
Hi Nikhil, First of all this post has turned out far from what I had expected. Some people agreed to my opinion and some didn’t and I think that did solve my purpose which was to create a discussion regarding the topic. And thank you for the appreciation.
And it’s not about age. You know there are people who became successful entrepreneurs at a very old age eg. the founder of KFC colonel Sanders.
And that 2% mark thing, everyone knows about it and everyone agrees but still we, students have to listen to comments of every elder person who wants us to do good.
Yes, all you need is to maintain a balance and if you can do it, you’re already successful!
Killing oneself by listening to negative comments, it’s really stupid. You need to make this your strength.
i think this is an informative post and it is very useful and knowledgeable. I really enjoyed reading this post.thank you!
Thank you Soham.