KOCHI: The Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) will shortly commission a study on failed start-ups, said Chief Executive Officer Saji Gopinath.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of TiEcon Kerala here on Saturday, Mr. Gopinath said the idea was to learn what had happened to them and the reasons for their failure, which would come in handy for future start-ups.
“It is not like only start-ups fail, but it happens to bigger companies as well. For instance, Orkut and Facebook were somewhat similar, but the former failed,” he observed.
KSUM is also set to undertake a novel initiative named ‘Failure Night’ in Kochi on December 8.
“Failure Night is a learning platform where one learns from the failures of others and the reasons for those failures. The message we want to communicate is that one should not get disheartened by failures. But it is not that you should celebrate failures. It should not be looked upon as a precondition to success,” Mr. Gopinath said.
Call for caution
Quoting Japanese philosophy Kaizen, he said while it was fine to make mistakes once, it was not when the same mistakes are repeated.
“There are some learning points in the process. At least the guy following him will be aware of the mistakes and won’t repeat them,” he added.
“If you look at failed start-ups across the globe, it is primarily because they underestimated some aspects that halted their growth or some resource which was not scalable. For instance, some take up e-learning confident on the availability of content but underestimate the need for a teacher, which is not a scalable resource,” Mr. Gopinath said.
According to him, the progress of the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) architecture will democratise internet access, paving the way for the setting up of a start-up ecosystem across the State.
“It will even enable entrepreneurs to develop and upload apps to the Kerala App Store being developed by the State government for a specific set of problems. The domain-specific solutions to problems are required not just in limited places but should be made available across the State,” Mr. Gopinath said.
