Hey there, and welcome to the first edition of our newsletter on startup governance in India. Written by Abhishek and Madhuri.
We aim to make this space your ready repository of everything governance broken down into bite-size pieces. Whether you’re a wantrepreneur (thanks, Shak Tank), solopreneur, a young startup, a growing startup in the midst of fundraises and hypergrowth, or one at the cusp of an acquisition or an IPO, we aim for this to be your go-to place for all things governance.
In the past few decades, we have seen Indian startups take centre stage. So many incredible companies started in humble garages and have become some of the biggest household names and industry leaders (we are looking at you, Infosys). So many fantastic products and services were launched that impacted India and the world, creating many jobs and an economy that continues to grow and thrive. All this is made possible in a regulatory and legal environment that has adapted itself to enable the growth and digital transformation of our Indian economy.
As professionals in the startup ecosystem for over a decade and having witnessed some of the more unfortunate recent headlines, we understand that good governance in startups is the need of the hour, and that starts with creating awareness. Look at any great company, and you will find that it is built on a foundation of good governance and ethical practices that get set at the top and naturally become the ethos of how the company operates rather than just a check box or an afterthought. Governance is one of those unsung heroes in a company’s tale, often silently operating in the background by diligent leaders and percolating all through the company but rarely getting its due.
In this newsletter, we will bring you different concepts from the vast ocean of governance and how they could relate to your startup (irrespective of the stage it is in), best practices from across the world that are worth adopting, success stories and what they did right (and cautionary tales and what went wrong), and everything in between.
We hope to create a space where we can share and exchange ideas on how to develop best-in-class governance practices in a way that is practical and doesn’t come at the price of agility and growth.
As Mr Amitabh Kant succinctly put it at the recent Startup 20 event, startups must self-regulate, and we couldn’t agree more.
And that’s our first edition. Please feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn or write us your feedback via this form.