Originally published by Ravi Venkatesan on LinkedIn: What’s interesting about India’s Top Startups?
Oyo Rooms. Udaan. Dunzo. Rivigo. BrowserStack. Cure Fit. Shuttl. Exadatum. Incred. Republic World.
What do these companies have in common? Well, they are on the 2018 list of the 25 Top Startups in India according to LinkedIn. These companies have either reached or are on the cusp of reaching escape velocity.
In 2004, when I was at Microsoft and Google was still a fairly nascent company, I happened to ask Ed Zander, then CEO of Motorola what he made of Google and how much of a threat it would pose to a company like Microsoft. Ed said they’re bound to become important because they are attracting a disproportionate number of incredibly smart people. His words were prophetic (& to my regret I passed up the opportunity to invest in Google’s IPO). Becoming a magnet for talent is a very strong predictor of eventual success for all companies and even more so for startups.
This is why LinkedIn’s approaching to identifying the top startups is so interesint. LinkedIn relies on four bits of data - employee growth; jobseeker interest; member engagement with the company and its employees; and how well these startups pulled talent from the best companies to work for– to come up with their list. These 25 then are the startups that are disproportionately commanding the interest and attention of top talent in India.
There are so many things that are interesting about the list of companies this year. Here is just some of the patterns that I noticed.
Most of these startups are led by co-founders. Only 6 startups- OYO, Republic World, LBB-Little Black Book, Nineleaps, Incred and Digit Insurance - are led by a sole founder lending credence to the view that founding teams are more successful that lone founders.
Age is no barrier to success. The average (present) age of founders is 34. The youngest founder is OYO Rooms’ Ritesh Agarwal (24) and Upgrad’s Ronnie Screwvala (60+) is the oldest (though, to be fair, he’s a serial entrepreneur). It’s never too late, nor too soon, to be an entrepreneur.
IIT seems to be a good place to have studied. 33 of the 57 founders are IITians. 21 of them have an MBA degree.
The Flipkart connection is strong. Three firms- Cure.fit, Udaan.com and Jumbotail- are founded by Flipkart alumni; in all 6 of 57 founders have worked at Flipkart. Zapr Media is backed by Flipkart. Flipkart is emerging as a real inclubator of entrepreneurial talent much like PayPal in the US ( Tesla Motors, LinkedIn, Palantir Technologies, SpaceX, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer amongst others, were started or funded by PayPal alums)