Thread by @prabranga

Off late there has been a lot of talk about why Chennai/TN aren’t in the startup race despite the talent density and why BLR/MUM/DEL take most of the honours! Here is a 🧵on my take

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In the good old days, #Bengaluru was THE place for IT aspirants across India. Any kid choosing to study IT wanted to be placed in the companies hailing from Bangalore

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Most Indian IT stalwarts like @Infosys , @TCS , @Wipro and large foreign consulting/product cos chose Bangalore as the hotspot. The city had a unique advantage of having both linguistic and lifestyle compatibility. 3/n

And oh! the green cover and the fantastic weather! All these factors lead to emergence of many startups as Bangalore had a concentrated dose of Techies and product guys. 4/n

Similarly, #MumbaiCity has had a long history of being the business capital of India and no wonder there are so many startups there. 5/n

But why not #Chennai ? Or any city in #TamilNadu rather? Before we answer that, let’s shift our focus to what aspects does a startup need to flourish? Does it need incubation or support in all areas that turns an idea to a product? 6/n

I would say it needs support from all sides like knowing what Governmental schemes are available - both nationwide and statewide, to knowing how to attract talent, so on and so forth 7/n

Let’s look at some of the schemes:

Samridh Scheme -> Provides funding, investor, customer connect & intl exposure

Startup India Seed Fund -> Ensures adequate capital is available to entrepreneurs

Startup India -> Bundled tax benefits & extended support up to 7 years

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ASPIRE -> A scheme specifically crafted for startups emerging entrepreneurs from the rural sector and to promote the agro-business ideas.

Check out the startupindia.gov.in website for resources and start-up grants that are curated based on state, industry and sector.

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The website even offers great networking opportunities where a potential start-up or entrepreneur can connect with over 4,90,000 entrepreneurs across the country and establish a connect.

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Next comes the biggest obstacle of navigating the relevant tax regime applicable to the startup and the promoters. The primary categories are GST, state tax sops and Angel Tax (in common lingo, the funding tax)

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All these taxes comes with their own set of rules and here a DPIIT recognition comes in handy for start-ups to avail tax benefits and concessions. It also offers easier compliance and IPR fast-tracking protocols.

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If there could be waiver on the any of the tax components, say for about two years or so, or till the startup attains a certain revenue threshold, it would be an excellent support

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Once you have the grants, funding and taxation roadmap ready, technological support is the next switch to flip. Many cloud based services such as Google, Microsoft Azure, AWS offer start-up programs with a host of services required to get your product up and running.

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If the State Govt is able to provide Data Center space to these biggies and in return take free credits to offer to startups it would turn out to be a win-win-win, more investments in the state, jobs created and startups empowered.

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And oh the need for SaaS credits!! HR, Collaboration, Project Mgmt (Trello), S/w Dev (Jira), CRM (Zoho), telephony, recon, settlement, billing & so on. Most of these SaaS come with a free subscription service that can help a start-up where cashflow is quite limited.

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Office space, logistics, accounting, finances, regulatory filing are the next set of hurdles to cross.

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And the biggest of all is the fear of failure! Why don't we have an insurance of sorts! It might sound odd but let me tell you, it is the need of the hour! If the Govt can bring about a tailored start-up insurance, it would encourage more entrepreneurs to take the plunge.

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This start-up insurance should give support system for a founder who goes through the failure cycle. It is a taboo, and many founders feel ashamed to say that their start-up has not taken off.

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When the Govt has founders' back they would rather choose to rinse and repeat instead of shrink and disappear.

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For example, placing the failed start-up’s employees in other companies, monetizing the parts of the start-up to cover costs, so on and so forth. Also, there should be a moratorium on their dues, where individuals could fall back on till he/she finds suitable employment.

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Now coming back to Chennai and TN, if the Govt wants to realise the dream of becoming a trillion-dollar economy, focusing on startups is the best bet. Few SEZs and tax sops here-n-there won’t cut the ice, what I have captured above might be a good start.

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And we need to do much much more. Ideas are most welcome!

Mathematically breaking down TN's $1T dream into a thousand🦄 seems hard (India overall has just crossed 100 and TN is at 5). While a million startups with $1 Million valuation seems plausible.

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For million startups to thrive we need a buzzing talent pool, and it's not an overnight thing. Oh, btw! I have not even touched upon the Talent part yet! Now, that’s a topic for another 🧵

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Until next time..

@m2pfintech @TetherCommunity @onlymadhoo @mu2ayya @tamilpreneur

@sindhuhTOI @TOIChennai some of the ideas we had discussed few weeks ago are captured here. Feel free to add if I had missed any