A case in study is that of UrbanClap Co-founder Abhiraj Bhal, whose first venture Cinemabox was shut down six months after launch. Started in March 2014, Cinemabox offered a technology that enabled users to watch movies using WiFi networks on buses and trains.
“There were many challenges and, to begin with, it was not a large market. Cinemabox could have been a good lifestyle business, but we didn’t see it as a large disruptive business,” said Bhal, who along with his Co-founder Varun Khaitan moved on to start services marketplace UrbanClap.
Ditto is the case with Aseem Khare, CEO and Founder at home services firm Taskbob, whose first start-up Shaukk.com had failed. Started in 2011, Shaukk — a platform to connect like-minded people in a locality — had to be wound up three years later.
“We helped a lot of people to meet. However, they would create a WhatsApp group and move away from the platform,” Khare said.
Another example is that of Pluss CEO and Co-founder Atit Jain. In 2013, he co-founded Gigstart — a marketplace for entertainers and party planners — with friend Madhulika Pandey, and closed it two years later as it was not scaling up to “our liking”.
In 2015, he co-founded Pluss, an on-demand delivery service for healthcare, medical and wellness needs.
While about 90 per cent of start-ups fail, for many the first attempt is a learning curve.
“The lesson learnt was not to depend on other’s wisdom and inability to realise revenue. Further, one should be always hands-on while running a start-up,” said Saurabh Rai, whose venture Mybigmedia (a web-based news and views aggregator) closed down in 2014.
Rai’s present e-commerce ventures — Surpluss.in and Bizpluss.in — are market leaders within a year of operations, he claimed.
“The biggest learning was to have a lean mindset. Build something, measure it, analyse it and iterate on it. Also, learning was to be in constant touch with your customers; work out of an office instead of home,” said Taskbob’s Khare, who corrected these mistakes in his next venture.
Also, the failures have taught the entrepreneurs to venture into something that syncs with their aspirations, be focused and be brutal in execution.
Source: Business Line