A Rewarding Experience

Mentorship is a pro bono activity, and, can be considered by some as a sheer waste of time and energy. But, benefits come in many ways, and brings fast-paced learning and experimentation to the mentor, and arms them with the power to introspect.

- Alok Jha

There are nearly 4500 startups in India, and come 2020, it is anticipated that this number shall touch 12,000. What's more, India comes third, and is only behind the US and the UK, in terms of the number of startups. The Indian startup culture has mushroomed vastly in the last five years. Factors such as a huge and growing population resulting in a multitude of ideas, unemployment among the educated class, a growing awareness of startups and their success stories, large internet-connected consumer-base, Government initiatives for startups, the flooding of PE / VC funds, far from conducive work environments, are to a large extent catalysing the startup revolution in India.

The startup ecosystem in our country also consists of several fund starved startups and not for profit incubation centres, and the mentors are largely pro bono. Thus, even though India is the biggest basket of the brightest ideas, the startup evolution is not taking place at the pace it is anticipated. And, one of the major challenges plaguing the constantly developing Indian startup ecosystem is the lack of meaningful mentoring which comes even ahead of access to funding. Often, startups are confronted with several reservations and challenges, and a good mentor can therefore add enormous value to a startup, at the enterprise and individual level. If an entrepreneur can benefit from mentoring, his/her the chances and scale of his/her success are very likely to be higher than otherwise.