India's startup dreams

...and how to let these dreams flower

- AJIT BALAKRISHNAN

I struggle to deal with the number of calls I receive from various state and central government officials inviting me to speak at conferences on startups being organised by them. The ones I attend each typically have a few hundred college students eagerly listening all day to speeches and presentations from entrepreneurs like me, as well as senior government officials.

Reflecting on these meetings, I can't help but wonder why and how startups entered the typical business fashion cycles that we have lived through: The Green Revolution in the 1960s, the era of the public sector as a saviour in the 1970s (Hindustan Machine Tools, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Modern Bread, to name a few), the free markets in the 1990s, foreign direct investment in the early 2000s.

At the risk of contemptuous stares from my economist friends, I can't help but pose a question. Are these business waves akin to ones we have seen in the real fashion world of our women friends: Silk saris giving way to nylon saris, which then gave way to blue jeans and black T-shirts, followed by the salwar-kameez becoming the choice of Indian girls and women from Kanyakumari to the Himalayas.

How do these apparel trends arise, what decides how long each one lasts before fading away? In the fashion industry, adoption by close friends, along with Bollywood actors and models, appears to be a leading explanation.