India has emerged as the second largest start-up nation in the world where more than 70 per cent of the start-ups are promoted by founders less than 35 years of age. It is no different in Goa.
“Personally for me it has been a privilege to be part of the start-up fraternity. Goa has a fantastic support system to be offered to start-ups. No doubt you will find start-ups relocating to Goa to start their journey. Goa is also seeing a spike in new incubators and co-working spaces which augers well for the start-up scene and the ecosystem,” said D S Prashant, member of Goa State Innovation Council and governing body member of the Indian STEP and Incubators Association.
When asked what are the potential areas for innovation in Goa, Mr Prashant responded by saying that the advanced forms of ITES, artificial intelligence, IoT products, automation, robotics are definitely some of the potential areas. “Although it is getting a bit congested now but it offers ample opportunities for the talented. Start-ups in the area of clean tech, waste management, energy conservation, water, healthcare and social impact will do well in the near future,” he added.
Start-ups planning to get into app development and aggregation will find it challenging unless they have disruptive business models. Observation is that a number of aggregators and e-commerce start-ups are starting and shutting on a regular basis. Identifying the pain point and building a value proposition around it with an IP is the safest bet for the start-up across industries. Also, the lack of seed funding and provision of funds at the right time is a cause for concern in the state of Goa.
“Start-up” is a process of establishing a technology based initiative having a structured business model which can be scaled. What one requires at this stage of the business is an idea, the core team to build on this idea, early adopters who could give a feedback after using the prototype, a sounding board of the right advisors and the development of an astute plan forward. Till this point everything is great in Goa. Beyond this, to raise funds, to build an execution team and to scale is a call made by the founder team.
“I have had mixed experiences wherein start-ups have shifted their headquarters to Goa and also early stage start-ups have moved to metropolis for scale after starting from Goa,” said Mr Prashant.
The ecosystem is still at an evolving stage. We have had a handful of great stories coming out of Goa but not those unicorns who could make a huge impact in the ecosystem.
Goa has built the right basket of information providers and resources over a period of time.
“The Goa government needs to bring in a start-up ecosystem where the government can allot bodies or incubation centers which will handhold and help each start-up from the initial stage. Also, the start-ups are unable to get funds due to unclear understanding of the schemes. In EDC, we cannot avail loans if we do not have physical entity to prove. We need the government to provide some initial funding for start-ups so that we can manage the costs and develop our product or groom our services. I would suggest that the State should launch start-up cells which have specialized funds allotted to them to support start-ups who need,” said Mr Sudhir Shetty, Founder, Espressotive.
The ecosystem to support the start-ups at the different stages should be strengthened. The first and top tier being the early stage start-ups who have a proof of concept and are looking to scale. This could also be spinoffs from existing industries. The second mid level tier being the start-ups who are at the ideation stage and are experimenting different ways to convert their idea into a start-up. The third and bottom stage includes students at the pre-ideation stage who are not able to conceive that their ideas as solutions to various challenges and issues could become opportunities for innovative business enterprise.
“Goa offers a stress free environment for unleashing a start-up’s true potential. A government policy of working together, shoulder to shoulder will help start-ups scale up. Goa government should be the promoters and the early adopters of the innovation originating on Goan soil,” said Mr Ganesh Faterpekar, Founder, Counterfieit IQ.
Also, it is not mandatory to go through an incubation process if the start-up has a great IP based product or service with a demand from the market.
Apart from infrastructure, incubators also assists the tenant companies by offering critical support service like Intellectual Property registration support, business training and advisory, peer learning opportunities so as to minimise the chances of failure and improve survival prospects.
Vice chairman of EDC, Santosh Kenkre is of the opinion that, “Goa has little raw material and is a small market. It has also an easygoing and yet English proficient people. Hence, intellectual enterprise is suited for Goa and thus innovation can be a major driver in Goa.”
