Shoal of Startups

Many of the startups have something unique to offer whether it’s a product or service. However, many of them fade away either because they fail to convince and get required customers or fail to create a sustainable business model

Many of these young founders do have great technical capability to create effective solution but when it comes to business world, that’s not enough to excel or even sustain. Effective skills of sales, operations and people management become key and its not easy to get these skills on board for startups. At the same time, managing all these aspects of business becomes very challenging for the founders alone. Considering the fact that not everyone is lucky enough to get funding support or even if they get, it might come at a cost of time to market which becomes lethal.

On the other hand, many of the ideas / solution solve a part of the puzzle when it comes to industry and sometimes becomes just a point solution with respect to a larger value chain. These startups neither have bandwidth, capacity nor the capability to expand into other area of their respective value chain. This result in getting trapped at only the tactical level with their customers and hence get smaller deals.

For example, a startup with great product on IIOT / automation might not do well against someone having a IIOT / automation product along with strong data analytics capabilities. This is where they are eaten up by the large fish (enterprises) who have capability or can build capabilities quickly to provide end to end integrated value proposition.

If these startups can create a partner ecosystem, that has mutually exclusive product/ services and are inter-related to cover larger value chain, can act as a “Shoal of Fish” and be competitive to fight the big fishes. The benefit would be that every partner will be expert in their respective area and also the ecosystem would be much agile.

Taking the same example forward, a startup having product in IIOT / automation, can partner with startups with product & services in the area of data analytics, mobile & cloud computing, hardware commissioning etc

The eco-system can provide benefits such as:

1. Shared sales cost
2. To be able to focus more on their respective niche area
3. Be more agile with respect to the Big fishes
4. Evolve collectively and provide integrated and interoperable solutions

However, it seems easier said that done, as has few critical challenges:

1. Finding a partner who can be trusted
2. Collaborating on create an integrated yet mutually exclusive value proposition
3. Value the partnership and support the partner if going through tough time / crisis

Though it might feel like just a philosophy, but I think it is possible. It has happened in the past, when many companies came together to form effective partnerships to fight IBM’s supremacy in 80’s. I strongly believe that this is change will evolve sooner or the later. As a customer, I would prefer a closely knitted bunch of master of one than a jack of all.

   (All views expressed in this article are personal views of the writer and do not belong to any group/organization the writer belongs to. The article may contain some data which may not have been verified by the writer. References & images are duly attributed to the source .The writer of this article is not be held responsible for any misrepresentation of facts or data inconsistency or use of images to convey the message in this article)