Startup India

Startup India is the New Action Plan Of Indian Govt. 

START UP! IS AN ANGEL INVESTOR, INCUBATOR AND CONSULTANT TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS.

We offer incubation, impact acceleration and management consulting services to social ventures at different stages in their lifecycle – early, growth and mature.

AS ANGEL INVESTORS, we invest our time, expertise and networks to make growth-stage ventures scale and capital ready. We engage with social entrepreneurs for up to two years, and work in the field with their teams, to build out their models.

AS IMPACT INCUBATORS, we offer an exhaustive range of business incubation, coaching and trainings to early-stage social ventures. Our incubation offerings are designed to launch practical change models that balance social impact with financial sustainability. We also incubate incubators!

AS CONSULTANTS, we work with mature-stage social ventures. We get excited about:

• Scaling social change models
• Research and knowledge generation for the field
• Conducting impact assessments
• Managing outreach and due diligence for 
  awards and fellowships

WORKING & PRINCIPLES

Privilege the entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs excite us more than ideas. Our partners and clients bring strong domain expertise and business lessons from previous entrepreneurial/ intrapreneurial journeys. We learn continuously from them, even as we co-create their business models.

Match passion with process
We match the entrepreneur's energy and passion with process, plans and the discipline for executing ideas. For us, execution, not ideas, is game changing.

Stay frugal, stay in the field
We work with our investees in their fields. We immerse in the markets of the models we shape. By being in the field, we get a 360 degree view of the eco-system of the ventures we create. This enables us to predict volatilities. We therefore launch ventures that are true to the DNA of our partners and the needs of the markets they serve.

Iterate to succeed
We coach our investees to listen to customers, re-iterate assumptions and stay focused on metrics. We constantly adapt business plans to keep them real and sharp. Our questioning of assumptions and reality checks at every turn minimizes trial and error. This ensures that ventures launch with a higher degree of success.

Get the chemistry right
We succeed more with entrepreneurs who are listeners, learners and collaborators. We work with social entrepreneurs who actively seek feedback and are open to applying them in their ventures.

Cross pollinate
We pollinate learnings and connections between early-stage ventures (that we launch) and mature-stage models (that we accelerate). This opens up rich collaborations between the two. Our investees and clients constantly feed new information, networks and linkages into our own eco-system. This growing viral enables us to become better linkers and connectors for social entrepreneurs.

 MISSION OF Startup !ndia.

• Launch social ventures in a way that
  they can scale
• Scale social ventures in a way that they
  generate impact
• Seed first-generation social entrepreneurs in last-mile communities
• Catalyze the influence and resources of business, government and media towards fostering many more social ventures

Love of Food

Food, what a great subject.  I am a foodie.  As a foodie, there is a lot to say about Indian food.  I don’t think there is anywhere else in the world that you can be a vegetarian and get the variety that you can here in India.  For the most part, the western version of vegetarian food is pizza, pasta and salad.  I mean obviously if you go to a special vegan restaurant, you would have more choices but, if you take the average restaurant or event high end restaurants, there is often a chicken, fish, red meat and a token choice on the “Menu du jour”.  The token choice is usually pasta.  But here in India, there are also different levels of vegetarianism for instance you can be an eggatarian (I don’t think this word exists outside of India but its meaning, I think is obvious) basically an eggatarian eats eggs and usually that also includes cheese….but it might not).

In all my travels, never have I been able to get a full non-veg menu and a full veg menu offered to me.  I mean it makes the possibilities so broad and offers so much to chose from. South-Indian food like idly and a masala dosa are my favourites…that steamed cake of rice with a spicy sambar and coconut chutney is so flavourful and makes a combination that is most uncommon to a foreign palate. My non-veg favourites have always been Punjabi kebabs…ummm those yummy mouth watering mutton burha kebabs and chicken tikkas with pickled onions and mint chutney and green chilly naan…..they are usually good anywhere in India…a highway dhaba, a fine dining establishment or street food wallah they are classic definite winners on my personal list.  Another veg favourite of mine is khadi chawal…that mustard gravy with pakoras on rice is usually the first thing I get when I am in India.

Another aspect of Indian food is the variety of savory, spicy and sweet snacks.  Samosas, pakoras and I think an all-time favourite is Mumbai bhel puri, a type of chaat that is made out of puffed rice, vegetables and a tangy tamarind sauce.  Everyone on Juhu beach can’t miss out on it !  Chole bathure, chick peas in a spicy brown gravy with a deep fried bread…the list goes on forever because the choices are endless.