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AHMEDABAD, SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2016

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PAGE 21

MICA KEIC

RISE AND SHINE,

LIKE A LEADER

Ahmedabad Mirror 10 April 2016 01

READY, STEADY,
NO SHOW
Lack of funds, not enough technical support and failure to scale up
resources is forcing a number of startups in the city to shut shop
ANCELA JAMINDAR

Alok.Brahmbhatt
@timesgroup.com
TWEETS @AlokMIRROR
ujaratis are known for their business acumen and when it comes to
wealth in India, Gujaratis figure
among the top ten billionaires in
the country. However, when it
comes to startups, they have failed to take
off, at least in the city.
With startups becoming the buzz word
following the launch of Prime Minister
Narendra Modis Startup India, Stand Up
India initiative, startups in the city are
meeting a fast end due to lack of a wellfunctioning support system. The most
common challenges seem to be lack of
funding, inefficient technical support or
ideation issues, among other things.
In January 2015, Nilesh Makwana left
his well-paying IT job to launch File My
Case, a self-funded online portal to aid
consumers in their battle against frauds.

G
Nidhi Mevada (left) brainstorms for her startup with her colleagues

TURN TO PAGE 4

PAGE 22

THERES
A BABY
ON THE
WAY FOR
SHAHID
AND MIRA

CITY

AhmedabadMirror

www.ahmedabadmirror.com/city

Car with green flag detained

in Bhuj for being Pakistani
Police stop family of five based on call that confused religious flag with Paks flag
Ahmedabad Mirror Bureau
amfeedback@timesgroup.in
Tweets @ahmedabadmirror
family of five driving
through Bhuj was detained by local police and
their car checked after
the control room received a
call claiming they were Pakistani nationals. As per sources,
the white Maruti car was detained on the basis of a green flag,
suspected to be Pakistans national flag that had been draped on the car. It was later revealed that the family was heading back from a mosque and
had draped a religious flag on
the car.
What is interesting is that
neither the local police, nor officers from SOG, LCB and Traffic Department were able to

The flag draped on the car

differentiate between a countrys flag and a religious flag.
Speaking on condition of
anonymity, the cars owner said, We were driving back to
Morbi after visiting Haji Pir
dargah near the Indo-Pakistan
border when we were detained

by police. They said they received information that we were

in a Pakistani car. The driver of
the car, who was accompanied
by two women and two children said, The flag was a religious one and must have been placed on our car by volunteers at
the dargah.
Meanwhile, Bhuj SP Makrand Chauhan said, We received a message that there is a car
with Pakistan's flag draped on
it has been driving around in
the city following which we
immediately located the car
and stopped it. However, we
soon realised that the car had a
religious flag on it and the colour may have confused the person who called the control room. As per police, the family
was released after their details
had been noted.

I SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 2016

Ready, steady, no
show for startups

JIGNESH VORA

PAGE 1
Despite successfully filing 10
cases with the consumer court,
the startup shut down by 2016
citing feasibility issues. At a time when the state has allotted
funds for startups in its annual
budget, Makwanas case is
among the many who have
failed.
According to Makwana,
With only one judge between
four consumer courts in the city, cases take a long time to be
resolved. I spend 10 months following up on the cases I had filed with the consumer court
but the delay in judgment made it difficult for me to continue. I had developed a mobile
application with the portal but
it turned out to be useless in the
face of delayed court hearings.
The former IT mans portal was
closed by the end of 2015 and
Makwana has now returned to
software development.
Experts feel that while ideas
are exemplary, sustenance and
system support are the prime
reasons why startups fail.

LACK OF IT SYSTEM SUPPORT

Twenty-three-year-old Nidhi
Mevada launched her startup
NCard a year ago and managed
to sell 139 digital business cards
for Rs 500 each in three days.
But the venture shut shop in a
month as the technology used
for the system was not supported by all phones, Mevada said. Not one to give up, she incubated her renamed startup
Wockito at Venture Studio. I
had an IT student work on the
coding but after a few months,
he asked for a staggeringly high
remuneration. When I refused
to pay the amount, he left me in
the lurch. I couldnt ask for the
codes as I couldnt pay him. I
had to start all over again, said
the engineering graduate who
has now hired the services of a
Mumbai-based coding expert.
Neel Shah (32) kicked off a
sports entertainment website
called Sportax in 2009 that was
generating good revenue. But
the money was used in prizes
for users and as payment for IT
upkeep, explained Shah, who
was able to sustain his website
for two years before he closed
due to lack of profits. Not one to
give up, the 32-year-old launched another startup called
Kuch Bhi Bikega on the lines of
retail sites OLX and Quikr with
two partners and a team of six.
But I didnt know how to scale
up despite a good response and
revenue, said Shah, whose second venture lasted for 14
months. He is currently with
his third startup Hobby Cook.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
TRIAL AND REAL TIME
Paresh Vora, director of Venture Studio at Ahmedabad Uni-

Neel Shah is now busy working on his third startup Hobby Cooks
versity, explained, Majority of
the startups that close down are
in the e-commerce sector, be it
health, retail or grocery service,
which are clichd. Such startups face steep competition.
As per Vora, the biggest challenge faced by startups is scaling up. Supply and marketing
are two major challenges. They
might be handling 50 clients
during the testing phase efficiently but it is very different
from offering service to 50,000
clients. Building teams and
handling mass marketing is
where they fail, he said.
Probably the reason why
Yash Shahs (26) blogtard.com
failed after a run of nearly 18
months. The social networking
site for companies failed because, Funds for the portal came
from the award money of a business planning competition
but we soon realised that our
startup was not equipped to be a
professionally
functioning
model. So we turned our concept into a capital-plus company with 143 clients from 53
countries.

ARE FUNDS DRYING UP?

Interestingly, it is not just startups that have mushroomed in
the last year and a few months
that are shutting down.
Abhinav Das (30) worked
on his startup idea of creating a
low-cost Rural Utility Vehicle
for six years and was incubated
at Evomo Research & Advancement Pvt Ltd. We created a
prototype and approached many companies for funding but
none was willing to give us money to survive and scale up. It
was a choice between continuing and starving we had to
close, said the Delhi boy who
was incubating his startup at
the National Institute of Design. He had even filed a patent
for his product and has a provisional registration.
As Head of MICA Incubation Centre, UT Rao, said, Stu-

dies say more than 90 per cent

of tech startups fail because of
reasons like unsystematic approach, incomplete ideation,
funding issues, lack of manpower, etc.
Rao added, The year 2015
was characterised by easy funding for start-ups but 2016 is going to be different with venture
capital funds drying up amid
concerns of global economy.
There is capital out there but the
application will be more judicious. For investors, unicorns
are going out of fashion and the
cockroach approach is back. A
cockroach is a business that builds slowly and steadily, keeping a close eye on revenues
and profits. Spending is kept in
check so that it can weather any
funding storm. Its about minimising the risk from the investor point of view.
Nimish Sakhpara and Hardik Sondagar of MyWedStory, a
private social networking space
for planning weddings, that
was incubated at MICA, said,
We worked with 250 weddings and learned people were
happy to use our services as
long as it was free. We needed Rs
30 lakh to market our startup to
get premium clients but were
unable to raise the money, said Sakhpara, adding, Our analysis showed that though we
had a novel business idea, we
lacked an efficient business model that could take our venture
to the next level.
Meanwhile, Vice Chancellor of Gujarat Technological
University, AK Aggarwal, who
is part of a committee working
on a national startup policy,
told Mirror, While the ratio of
failed startups is higher than
successful startups, it is not the
case in India. That is probably
because there arent many startups in our country. However,
inputs and a strong backing of
the government to these
enthusiastic beginners are
essential.