Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today kickstarted Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Startup India mission at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi. Modi, will be releasing the blueprint of ‘Startup India’ programme which may include a Startups and Entrepreneurship Law to make it easier for Indian entrepreneur to set up and run their new ventures.
Will join the programme to commence the #StartupIndia movement this evening. Looking forward to interacting with start-up entrepreneurs.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 16, 2016
The program started at 9:30 am, we bring you the live updates from the event.
9:46 AM
The first session was – Why is Innovation Important for India? Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Nirmala Sitharaman, Onno Ruhl, Country Director, World Bank, and Amitabh Kant, Secretary, DIPP participated in the discussion.
Amitabh: Employment generation government’s top priority
Onnu: World Bank excited to work with govt on startup programme
Nirmala: Entrepreneurship isn’t jugaad. Government’s fund-of-funds will help startups.
Arun: I see a large no of potential entrepreneurs at Startup India launch l am not familiar with. Not usual suspects.
- We want to restrict the role of the State. Startup India will give freedom from the State.
- The DIPP will be a facilitator.
- Stand Up India scheme will be separately launched. It will help women and SC/ST entrepreneurs.
- More entrepreneur-friendly measures for the startups in the coming union Budget. Budget to have friendly taxation regime for startup
- Ideal situation for startup is to have complete freedom from the government
10:35 AM
The second session was Fostering The Spirit of innovation – Masayoshi Son, founder & CEO, Softbank spoke during the session.
Masayoshi
- India is the country of the 21st century, Smart people, young people, IT, Sunshine and ability to speak in English.
- Last year alone Softbank invested $2 Bn in India.If we rescale, it will only go up.
- I look at the eyes and ideas of an entrepreneurs-which field and passion, before investing
- 5-10 years from the startup, profit or balance sheet is not that important, customer acquisition, customer experience and overall business model needs to be created. You need a balance.
- You cannot burn the money in a stupid way.
- India can be bigger in momentum than China in next 10 years; 21st century belongs to India
- Smaller country, small market, even with capabilities, its too small to compete against global players, India is one of the very few countries, that has a huge domestic market that can ‘fight back.
11:00 AM
The third session was – Q&A Session – Moderated by Amitabh Kant Secretary, DIPP. On the panel were: Hasmukh Adhia Secretary Revenu; V.S Oberoi Secretary HRD; Tapan Ray Secretary Corp Affairs; Shaktikanta Das Secretary DEA; Krishnaswamy Vijay Raghavan, Secretary Biotechnology; K Shivaji Chairman and MD SIDBI; J.S Deepak Secretary, Department of Electronics and IT; Anup K. Pujari Secretary, MSME; Prashant Saran Member, SEBI.
The major highlights of the session were
- K Shivaji – Out of the INR 2000 Cr fund, INR 1100 Cr has already been invested.
- V.S Oberoi – Growth of startups should be spread across Indian and just in metros. In the next few months, there will be a strong element of support, which is not big city oriented. We hope to prove handholding, credit, to spread this across India.
- Amitabh Kant: There are 20 department services of government, listed on ebiz platform. We’re going to tie up with 10 state governments in 3 months. We have hired 1000 patent examiners and we’re outsourcing to IITs. In 18 months time, we’ll bring our patent pendency level at the same level as US and Japan.
- Prashant Saran – We have done away with the problems startups face. Detailed object clauses in IPO document have been changed to suit startups.
- J.S.Deepak – Our two focus areas will be- funding and incubation. We are focused on being the best in this area. We have announced the electronic development fund with the corpus of $500 Mn. This include the possibilities of startups in areas where we import as well.
- Mohandas Pai – On startups looking at Singapore, Malaysia and US to shift their base, 6 of the 8 unicorns have redomiciled. We need to make provision to avoid startups migrating to the other places.
11:55 AM
The fourth session was “Freelancers and early stage startups: The EcoSystem Required” – Adam Neumann of Wework with Ravi Gururaj.
Adam Neumann
- We’re coming to India sooner than later. We’re going to have a local brand with a global playbook. We’re looking for CEO, CFO, COO and everything that comes in between.
- The more money you raise the more responsibility you put on your shoulders, the more you need to deliver.
- 83% of millennials in India will prefer to work for a company with an intention for a lower pay than for a company without intention.
12:31 PM
The fifth session was – ‘What do Indian startups need to grow & prosper”- Adil from Quality Council of India takes on the session as moderator.
On the question to what were some of the problems which as a startup, they faced while starting their entrepreneurial journey
Bhavish Aggarwal from Olacabs – Lack of skilled manpower was one of the biggest challenges we faced.
Kunal Bahl from Snapdeal – Many of the small businesses working with us don’t have resources to make a basic tech base. Over the next 3years, we want to create 1Mn successful online entrepreneurs.
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