How many times do we hear the millions of excuses for why we, or the people around us, are incapable of realizing our dreams? An Indian start-up decided to trade in those millions of excuses for a design platform now worth millions of dollars.
If you think that funding is the only reason you can’t get from A to B, then you need to pay attention to the takeaways in this article. You’ll see that with some grit, determination and networking, anything is possible.
Related: 3 Questions That You Should Regularly Ask Yourself That Can Transform Your Life
The true value of a cup of coffee.
It’s not every day that a cup of coffee does more than just fuel my morning. Okay, and afternoon, and sometimes evening. Hey, caffeine-inspired entrepreneurship is what built this country. And yes, I do complain to my doctor that I have trouble falling asleep. Why do you ask?
But seriously, my coffee break last week was eye-opening. I had the chance to meet with Rahul Aggarwal, the founder of Designhill, over a cup of joe. I learned to jump at opportunities to expand my network and learn from the successes — and more importantly, the failures — of others.
A twenty-minute conversation with a knowledgeable person can provide insights that impact the rest of your life.
VC capital is still a difficult proposition for most Indian start-ups.
Aggarwal shared with me that one of their biggest challenges as an Indian start-up was securing venture funding. After our conversation, I did a little digging to better understand why.
While the availability of VC funding in India has experienced mind-blowing growth in recent years, funding is still highly concentrated to the upper-rungs of Indian society. Nearly $4 billion may sound like a lot of funding available for a single country, but consider that India has a population of more than 1.2 billion people. Some back of the napkin calculations would reveal that there is approximately $3.30 of VC funding available per capita.
This figure pales in comparison to the United States. We have more than $58 billion of VC funding available to a population of 318.9 million people. Flip the napkin over, and you’ll find that’s roughly $181 per U.S. citizen, or 54 times more VC funding than India.
First off, holy figures batman. I know, that was a lot of math. And I am not claiming that this is an apple to apple comparison. There are a huge number of variables involved in a start-up receiving a capital injection. But, for the sake of fairness, I think the point needed to be made clear. Indian startups are at a disadvantage.
India is a brutal…