Entrepreneurship in India

I spoke with a number of people this week, and one comment that came up several times, is that the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India is not coming together as well as it needs to.

Indian readers: Why do you think this is the case? What are you experiencing?

Addendum:

Based on your responses below, I have started several different initiatives:

The Entrepreneur Journeys book series, to give you real world role models and access to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, their tribal wisdom, strategies, etc.

The series includes Bootstrapping: Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction, which addresses the dysfunctions of seed investing and how to get your business off the ground without external financing.

The EJ Methodology is heavily rooted in using bootstrapping to get an idea validated, and raising money only after it has moved from being an idea to a business. I also regularly teach entrepreneurs to bootstrap their ventures at my weekly online strategy roundtables.

It is my observation that not bootstrapping and not validating their ideas with customers before going out to raise financing is one of the most common causes of the Infant Entrepreneur Mortality (IEM) disease.

And finally, you *must* validate your ideas before spending any energy on building products. Please use the Clarify Your Story appendix of Positioning, How to Test, Validate, and Bring Your Idea To Market, to do so. This due diligence is essential.