One of the Modi government’s pet projects—Start-up India, Stand up India—has been recognized as a key policy initiative to stimulate entrepreneurial activity. The project was launched on 16 January amid much fanfare. During his speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed virtually every aspect of the start-up ecosystem holistically—from tax to funding to ease of doing business.
Fast-growing Indian start-ups, hungry for success, are run by a breed of entrepreneurs who are risk-loving, instinctive and disruptive. They are looking for an environment conducive for them to focus on the business (and not the paperwork), build businesses (and valuations!) overnight, or exit even faster. They are mobile and while patriotic, impatient when it comes to confronting some of the typical problems that the Indian environment throws up for businesses—problems that we have all become accustomed to accept. They like to change the way things are done, often dramatically, and do not build businesses based on licences or allocations.