Google floats Startup School initiative for small cities of India
The launch aims to help close to 10,000 startups in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
Google plans to help startups in smaller cities with its latest initiative “Startup School India” which will help in forming a structured curriculum and dissipate this knowledge in overcoming various obstacles faced by naïve entrepreneurs.
The tailored nine-week programme will cover topics such as fintech, language, social media and networking, job search, and business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce and will also involve fireside chats between Google leaders and collaborators from across the startup ecosphere.
The Programme will also be inclusive of instructional modules on topics like shaping an effective product strategy, deep dives on product user value, building applications, driving user acquisition and a lot more.
According to a Google blogpost, Startup School initiative will help founders on an initial ladder with a minimum viable product. The programme also provides the flexibility of a virtual curriculum and allows attendees to pick and choose from the modules that they would want to attend. Important aspects such as what makes a successful founder and formalising recruiting will also find a place in the training module.
Aditya Swamy, Director of Play Partnerships Google said, “Startups are no longer restricted to Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai or Hyderabad. We have multitudes of fast-growing startups headquartered in centers such as Jaipur, Indore, Gorakhpur and more. In fact, these account for nearly 50 per cent of all recognized startups in India today,” said.
Arguably 90 percent startups stall within 5 years or even less. Of many, the most common reasons for such a debacle are unmanaged cash burn, flawed demand assessment, ineffective feedback loops or lack of leadership, said Swamy.
However, India is home to almost 70,000 startups of which many have been successful in rolling out their IPOs and achieving unicorn status, thus the initiative plans on widening the footprint of entrepreneurship and startup culture in India by making the knowledge accessible to all.
