Startup Ecosystem in Kolkata: The Help We Need

Join us on Thursday, July 20, at 8:30 p.m. IST / 8 a.m. PDT for a special roundtable program: Brainstorming on Eastern India Startup Development. Come share your perspective, sign up to Speak and we will accommodate as many as possible with a few minutes to talk, register here. In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here.

No, we don’t need money.

We need you to look around in your sphere of influence and find entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs and facilitate their learning.

We need you to guide them to increase their odds of a successful entrepreneurial journey by investing their TIME in a rigorous learning process that is firmly rooted in Bootstrapping. 

Not Blitzscaling. Bootstrapping.

One of the problems with both mentors with limited knowledge and entrepreneurs with limited knowledge is a staggering lack of humility. In Bengali, we have a word for them: Sabjanta. Know-all. A lot of bad advice is being offered because of this blind leading the blind phenomenon that is rampant in startup ecosystems.

Both mentors and entrepreneurs HAVE to invest the time in studying. 

Since 2006, I have interviewed successful entrepreneurs – thousands of them – the who’s who of tech entrepreneurship – and learnt from them.

All that learning is captured in the 1Mby1M curriculum so that entrepreneurs AND their mentors can learn from these same entrepreneurs that I have learnt from.

An entrepreneur from Chennai called this the Eklavya style of learning. Eklavya didn’t have direct access to Dronacharya. You may not have direct access to Sridhar Vembu. But you can learn his methodology from case studies. As you would learn from the founders of ServiceNow, Veeva, and numerous other successful ventures.

This method of learning works. I have taught using it for a good 17 years now. Many entrepreneurs have learnt just by reading my blog, books, and many more from the 1Mby1M curriculum.

In our effort to democratize this learning, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy.

In India, these courses are available at ~500 rupees with discount. We offer coupons to the courses every month on our blog. You will find the entire roster here.

At this price point, the courses are affordable even for students.

I would like to see millions of entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs spend several hundred hours with these courses. In effect, this would amount to spending a few hundred hours in the company of the who’s who of tech entrepreneurship.

They will motivate you.

Students can get going this way.

People who want to hold on to a day job but start ventures can get going this way.

People bootstrapping product companies while doing services can learn this way.

And entrepreneurs who have jumped in full-time without the education can also learn this way.

Organizations like Startup Kolkata, Startup Odisha, Startup Assam, Startup Bihar can develop their pipelines using this method of entrepreneurship development.

This is the help we need: to spread systematic, rigorous learning with a firm emphasis on bootstrapped entrepreneurship.

You decide if and how you would like to roll up your sleeves and contribute.

We look forward to working with you.

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Relevant Additional Resources:

1. Free Public Roundtables – If you have an organization, we can do Custom Roundtables together.
2. 1Mby1M Basic – Subscription to our entire curriculum
3. 1Mby1M Premium – Subscription to our entire program
4. Free Bootstrapping Course – A great starting point
5. Concise Video Overview of 1Mby1M – Under 5 minutes long

Photo Credit: PIRO from Pixabay

This segment is a part in the series : Startup Ecosystem in Kolkata