Startups: The new Fad or Commodity?

“The smallest company in the world can look as large as the largest company on the web” — Steve Jobs

Consumers of products and services across the globe are perceived to be highly demanding looking for new avenues to satisfy their daily needs or making their lives easier. That’s the premise for majority of the startups to set up new companies to solve business problems and bring in rich moolahs as well. Today, every person is either working on a startup or leveraging the service of some startup. Such is the power of a startup that everyone’s lives are getting influenced by it in some way or the other. But why is it that suddenly everyone is getting impacted by it or wants to work in such an environment or start their own company?

Is it because of the herd mentality or the changes in the world in terms of education, accessibility to information or consumer naivety that there are over 14000 legitimate startups in India today as opposed 633 startups back in 2016? On the face of it, it seems like a fad or a bubble that will go away with the passage of time. We need to understand the purpose of a startup to be able to affirm this.

A startup is a company in the first stages of its operations owing to which they start with limited revenue and high costs. The intent is to address a business problem in a manner that they turn profitable in due course of time. The influx of so many startups in our ecosystem makes us believe that everyone can set up a company and run a business on a daily basis. This has resulted in a lot of people (passionate or not ) to pursue things that they like and contemplate setting up companies in the hope of becoming a unicorn at some point of time. One may say that some people set up companies out of passion, but the lure of becoming a unicorn or a publicly listed entity is like a pearl in the ocean. So, what is it that makes these startups the talk of the town?

1. Ease of access: The presence of internet and the plethora of information across different forums allows people to tinker their minds to think how they can improve the surroundings around them. This makes a lot of people think on their feet on the means to improve their lives. The constant influx of companies becoming successful and investors believing in new companies makes people believe that anyone can now start a business if they have the right belief system and fundamentals. The ease of access to potential investors has also relaxed the environment in terms of getting funding.

2. Monetary Lure: Money cannot buy happiness, but it can help you buy the things you like and build a house or live a lavish life. Startups are luring (only if successful) in terms of the stock buybacks and exponential growth they can experience. This prompts one to take the plunge to start a business. This monetary lure in the digital age and FOMO filled environment is even more prominent.

3. Being your own boss: You get to own everything end to end without any on the top of your head asking for timelines or allocating work. The fact that one gets to be their own boss in a startup is highly empowering for a lot of independent individuals who like to heavily voice their opinions or work only in their own way. Again, the present generation of adults are becoming more and more independent and want to work only in their own way, be it with guidance or without any guidance.

4. New-found respect: Society is constantly evolving. Gone are the times, when working in a startup was looked at with abhor in the family. Now, it is considered a very cool thing if you work in a startup as opposed to a MNC amongst many families. The new found respect and acceptance within the society has made multiple hidden startup founders to come out and establish their businesses.

5. Opportunity to learn: It is said that startups are now the fastest way to personal and professional growth. People perceive working in MNC to stagnate one’s learning at a certain point of time. The impatient generation are looking at quick wins in learning at the cost of mental wellbeing and the heavy risk.

All these factors point to a very healthy and growing trend of startups becoming a norm owing to the changing world and mentality of the people. The external world may think of startup being a fad , but the reality is that they are becoming a commodity in a good sense. Introduction of startups is encouraging healthy competition among people and also leading to immense satisfaction for the consumers. It is important to note that Google, Microsoft, and Apple were also startups at one point of time in their lifecycle. If startups were fads, we would not have owned an iPhone. The commoditized nature of startups has enabled people to own gadgets of different brands, book tickets from different portal, book cabs from different aggregators. The commoditized nature enables the citizens of the world to try out new startups and experience the unique offering. Any startup without credibility has taken a direction of following the herd mentality and ended up in the category of being termed as a Fad.

All we need to understand is that startups are here to stay to not provide us with better options and make our lives easier, but to evolve the human civilization in the digitally advanced dynamic business age.