Google Launches Covid-19 Playbook To Help Indian Startups Bounce Back

Commemorating its own journey as a startup, global tech giant Google has launched a Covid-19 playbook to walk Indian startups through the pandemic, which has heavily impacted consumer behavior and other dynamics in the businesses world.

Google India announced the launch of the ‘Playbook for startups to face the Covid-19 challenge’ on Wednesday (June 17) and will be available for free. It has been launched in partnership with Blume Ventures, Prime Venture Partners, Matrix Partners India, mental health app Wysa and hyperlocal startup Dunzo.

The playbook is a compilation of practical suggestions for founders to address both, the strategic and the operational challenges posed by the pandemic. It also touches upon managing burn, identifying new sources of revenue, managing teams and work-from-home and strategic thinking for the startup’s future.

Besides this, the Playbook will also include case studies of Wysa and Dunzo, which have experienced a surge in demand due to the pandemic. Notably, Wysa was a part of Google for Startup (GFS) Accelerator Programme’s first batch, whereas Google is an investor in Dunzo.

“As entire workforces find themselves confined indoors, supply chains disrupted indefinitely, value evaporating from stock markets and economic pain being felt across the board, entrepreneurs need to act fast – to accept that the old normal is gone and zoom in quickly on things they can do to survive the ‘winter’ businesses find themselves in,” the Playbook’s introduction reads.

Google has also expanded the scope of its Google for Startups (GFS) Accelerator, previously called Launchpad Accelerator, to include startups that leverage on cutting edge technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to solve for the challenges posed by the new landscape. The next batch of the GFS startup will commence in August 2020, but the applications for the same will close on June 30.

The programme, which was launched in 2018, has seen Google India work with around 60 startups in different batches. These startups are leveraging technology to solve problems in areas such as sanitation, healthcare, agritech, fintech, and sustainability. Its portfolio includes MultiBhashi, Artivatic, IndiaLends,and  RailYatri, among others.

The tech giant also elaborated that GFS has been contributing actively through 1:1 mentorships and webinar content aimed at startups in the ecosystem in an attempt to help the startups through these crises.

The topics of these webinar and sessions are based on the startups’ interest, topics such as retention, monetisation, optimisation, and design across key areas like cloud, android, and digital marketing. In the last 2 months, GFS Accelerator has supported and benefited over 250 startups in India. It aims to help even more in the months ahead.