IAN Co-Founder Saurabh Srivastava on Shoring Up India’s Startup Party!

As India, the world’s third largest startup ecosystem gets poised to break into the top two, Saurabh Srivastava, Past Chairman NASSCOM & IVCA, cautions against a few rotten apples souring India’s startup party. He also shares some critical insights for both founders and VCs to ponder upon. Check out his authored article in The Economic Times.

Words for Founders

• “Fake it till you make it is NOT OK”
• “Founders who just focus on getting rich quickly, rarely, if ever so succeed.”
• “Those who fall short on ethics and integrity do extreme disservice to the overwhelming majority of genuine, ethical founders who are trying to build great businesses that will transform society.”

Words for VCs

• “VCs are focussed on how they can help the company move forward but budget for some companies failing. The false sense of comfort this provides may well be their Achilles’ heel as they only budget for failures for business reasons, not ethics or fraud.”
• “Their legitimate concerns about getting the reputation of not being founder-friendly should be balanced by the need to mentor, guide and keep checks on founders to prevent them from straying down the slippery slope.”