Indian Startup Stalwarts Launch Artha School of Entrepreneurship To Help Firms Scale Up

Some of India’s top startup founders and executives have come together to launch Artha School of Entrepreneurship to address the issues faced by Indian startups with regards to scaling up and for increasing their probability of success.

Artha School of Entrepreneurship, cofounded by T.N.Hari, former top executive of BigBasket; Suruchi Maitra, former VP of human resources at UnitedLex; Pramath Sinha, founder and chairman of Harappa Education; Pavan Vaish, former CEO of IBM Daksh; and others, aims to touch the lives of entrepreneurs across the spectrum – from the traditional VC-funded startups to MSMEs and social ventures.

As per Artha’s cofounder Hari, there is currently a pressing need for scaling up as among approximately 70,000 startups in India, only 1,800 have got to the Series A round, and only a little over 100 startups among them have become unicorns.

“There is a very high dropout rate at each stage. Even if the dropout rate can be reduced by 1%-2% at each stage, we will be able to create probably 200 unicorns,” Hari said in a press briefing.

Echoing a similar tone, Vaish said, “Starting-up is not easily coachable but scaling-up certainly is. Entrepreneurs have an unmistakable bias for learning from individuals who have been through their journeys successfully, and a program like this can enable India become not just a land of unicorns but a land of high growth and sustainable companies.”

To address these pressing issues, Artha has already launched its first offering, Artha Scale Program, which is a four-day workshop designed for founders of early startups that have achieved some degree of product-market fit and are poised for scale. 

Through the program, Artha is conducting in-person and problem-solving workshops facilitated by experienced industry practitioners, enabling participants to have access to various formats of online content. Besides, it also has mentors to guide the participants in addressing their scaling challenges.

The faculty members and mentors at Artha include Nandan Nilekani, cofounder and chairman of Infosys; Hari Menon, cofounder and CEO of BigBasket; Peyush Bansal, cofounder of Lenskart, and Vamsi Krishna, CEO and cofounder of Vedantu.  

The key themes for the initial set of workshops include founder growth, organisation and culture, funding and capitalisation, and building a sustainable business. 

While the workshops under this program are for four days, the participants are given access to the mentors for 90 days and to online content for six months, explained Artha’s cofounder Hari.

The first set of workshops with 20 startups took place in Kochi, Kerala. Artha is also partnering with T-Hub in Hyderabad and KSN Global in Kochi, and its next few workshops are scheduled in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, which would further be extended to Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai.

Started last week, Artha is presently charging a fee of INR 10,000 per day for four days of the workshop. 

However, Hari noted that Artha is set up as a not-for-profit organisation.

“Our fee structure will be aligned to the motive of trying to cover our cost, and if at some point of time in the distant future we generate a surplus, that would be used to further the objective of the foundation, which is probably doing some high-quality research about the ecosystem, it could be about supporting under-privileged entrepreneurs who have dreams of building good companies, and different such things,” he added.

Artha And Its Vision

Unlike the accelerators, incubators, and VC funds, who also enable startups to scale along with a few other agendas, Artha claims to be solely focused on imparting the know-how and knowledge of scaling startup businesses across segments, with no focus on investing in the startups or raise money through equity shares.

Artha has several other programs in the pipeline, which also include creating postgraduate diplomas and degrees that are structured and specialised for the startup ecosystem. Artha’s team is planning to partner with various universities to launch postgraduate programs in the next five years.

Speaking about the need for such programs, Hari noted that the existing MBA programs in the country are a little outdated and irrelevant when it comes to startups. There is a need for a separate curriculum for the startup ecosystem to become mainstream. 

“The Artha Scale Program has been carefully designed to create impact on a bigger canvas,” added Hari. “India’s quest for equitable growth will never be fulfilled unless founders from all socioeconomic backgrounds realise their full potential.”

As per an Inc42 report, India is currently the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world, with 5,068 startups funded among over 57,000 total startups. With 106 unicorns, India is also ranked third in terms of startups with billion-dollar valuations. The country is expected to have 250 unicorns by 2025.

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