Why This Is The Best Time Ever To Be An Entrepreneur In India

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his last ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio programme in December 2015 has promised to unveil the action plan for ‘Startup India, Standup India!’ on January 16. This could be a reason to cheer for the Indian startup community. We have a promise of difficulties coming to an end when it comes to starting up. In a comparison of per capita GDP, with $7,594 China’s per capita GDP is almost 5 times that of India, which stands at $1,596. However, all that is set to change as the government opens up and adapts to new startup-friendly policies.

We bring you some of the reasons why we believe this would be the right time to start up in India.

1. This year, the total funding in India is about $ 9 Billion, which is more than the GDP of Andaman and Nicobar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Manipur combined.
2. India has the ninth largest GDP in the world, with around $2.07 trillion. With over 70 per cent of the population still living in villages, a huge portion of our GDP comes from Tier I and II cities, which means we still have huge potential to be tapped in villages.
3. Indian rail is the largest public sector enterprise in the country. It is also the eighth biggest employer in the world, with over 1.4 people. Inefficient reservations, streamlining the process, catering are still some of the problems which can be looked at as opportunities and can warrant startups of a different scale.
4. Seventeen finance companies received funding in 2015, of over $290 million, making this one of the most funded sectors of last year and also one showing great promise. With relaxed RBI guidelines in relation to payments banks, this is a new avenue for startups to innovate.
5. Rural India is a huge market for startups, and the only way to tap this market is to go local. Going into vernacular languages is one of the best ways to capture this market. Presenting the same solutions, be it hyperlocal or e-commerce or even payments, in a different packaging around local languages will help people in Tier-III and rural areas adopt it. Indian entrepreneurs are at a distinct advantage in comparison to foreign players entering the space and trying the same solutions.
6. According to the World Bank’s Doing Business report, India was ranked 120 in 2008 and has slowed to 132 in 2014. The ranking has improved to 130 in 2016 and is poised to improve further considering a startup-friendly government.
7. In the recent times, many States have come up with startup initiatives, with Karnataka being the first to come up with a startup policy, followed by Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan. Kerala decided to invest one per cent of its budget for entrepreneurship. West Bengal government has tied up with IIM Calcutta to send training officials to different districts to assist entrepreneurs.
8. According to the World Startup Gnome Project 2015, Bengaluru is the fifth best city in the world to start up. 2015 marked the entry of Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal into the Forbes list of billionairs. This year is on the way to making more billionaires in the ecosystem.
9. Due to the vague and varying definitions of the word ‘startup’, it is quite difficult to perfectly mark the contribution of our startups towards the GDP of the country. However, there are chances that with the launch of the national startup policy, we would be able to precisely measure the contribution of startups towards the economy.
10. With greater support from the government, we are going to see more of such startup acquisitions from India, which will further strengthen our technological prowess. Last year also bolstered the attention of traditional businessmen and investors towards the ecosystem, leading to big names like Ratan Tata and TV Mohandas Pai investing in startups.

1. Set a schedule.

Hello readers … here i am again with some interesting facts and relation between entrepreneur and blogging. When you’re running a startup, it’s daunting to think of taking more than fifteen minutes a month to write a blog. Because Companies that blog get 97% more links to their website so how do you make sure you’re sharing quality blog content. Here are my views for that :

It can be a saturday evening or a sunday morning , plan a blog post and then, no matter what it takes, get a post out on those days. A schedule keeps you on track and gives your customers something to look forward to each week, weekends will give you plenty time to think.

2. Create a content calendar.

Using Excel, Word, or online software, create an easy-to-use calendar filled with blog categories, topics, and keywords. Keep your industry centre of attraction. Like, if you work in social media, blog categories could include: social platforms, news, content creation, graphic design, and advertising. Your blog should be simple to come up and on a rotational basis.

3. Keep it short.

We all know the fact, “Long isn’t always better”. Posts at 500 words or less can still provide great opportunities for SEO and can be quicker and easier to write.

4. Use guest bloggers.

Its an era of team work,no one said you had to write every post. In fact, some of the most successful blog posts are from guest contributors. You got a friend?Ask her to write a contribution for you. Ask your satisfied costumers to share their experiences on your blog. You can even get your employees to write weekly posts.

5. Create a blog series.

Blog series focus on a single topic over the span of multiple posts. Series are great for those topics that would take a 4,000-word blog to cover appropriately. Don’t write it all at once, split it up.

6. Let images speak for you.

A picture says a thousand words and improves your blog’s look. Never underestimate the power of a well-chosen image to help inform your writing. Great images can help make up for lacking content.

7. Don’t forget SEO.

Make sure every blog post you write uses keywords in the title, within the meta description, and within the body of your blog. Don’t waste your time on posts that won’t drive traffic and optimize your search engine placement. Keep your objective in mind.

8. Read other blogs.

Learn and learn .. never stop. Blogs are a great source of inspiration when you’re struggling with new ideas. See what your competitors and industry experts are talking about, and then figure out how your blog can contribute to the conversation.

9.  Spell and grammar check.

Nothing will kill your credibility faster than inappropriate spelling and grammar. Your blog is meant to illustrate your expertise, don’t let their, there, they’re take that away.

10. Have fun.

Croud gets attraction on interesting things .. be it food or your blog, fun is the most important aspect. You don’t always need to be serious. The blog is your company’s opportunity to reveal the heart behind the corporation. Be goofy. Go off topic. Try something new.

Blogging can be time consuming and challenging when you’re just starting out, but the more you write, the easier it will be.

5 Reasons Every Entrepreneur Should Start Blogging

If you’re an entrepreneur, you might think blogging is waste of time. Here’s why you’d be wrong.

If you’re an entrepreneur—or an aspiring one—you may think blogging is the last thing you’ve got time for. And you might be right. After all, there’s no immediate business value to be drawn from writing regularly, and it takes away the time you might spend developing your product or speaking to investors. But only by running your own business do you learn that it’s precisely those long-term investments—which don’t always show immediate payoffs—that make all the difference. Blogging is one of them. Even though its value is so hard to quantify, many of the most successful entrepreneurs are dedicated to the practice and see it as something crucial to their roles. Here are five reasons why blogging is so important for entrepreneurs.

1. BLOGGING NURTURES IDEAS

Writing doesn’t just communicate ideas; it generates them.
—Paul Graham

Blogging daily forces you to be on the lookout for new ways of thinking—to react to others’ ideas and sort through your own. It helps you develop a state of mind that makes you more observant and contemplative. After all, writing every day requires you to develop new (and hopefully interesting) concepts and points of view on a regular basis. Blogging will help you acquire that skill, which you can then apply to other creative areas in your life and business.

2. BLOGGING HELPS YOU SHAPE YOUR VISION

When you have to write your ideas out in complete sentences, it forces a deeper clarity of thinking.
—Jeff Bezos

When they first pop into our heads, most of our ideas are fragile and vague. Blogging about them requires you to think more deeply, fleshing out your ideas and understanding them better. Not does that help you clarify your thinking, it helps you communicate your ideas to others. You can’t succeed without a clear, concise vision. Can you imagine an entrepreneur without an elevator pitch? It’s that vision that guides you towards making the right product decisions, finding creative ways to get users on board, attracting talented staff, and getting investors to believe in your mission. Blogging is one of the best ways to distill this vision.

3. BLOGGING HELPS YOU BUILD AN AUDIENCE

We’re trying to build an audience through our writings; we’re not just trying to have customers.
—David Heinemeier Hansson

All you need for a sustainable business, is a small audience of true fans. What better way to attract them than by sharing ideas that compel them to follow you? Basecamp, Product Hunt, Treehouse, Mattermark, and Groupon—just to name a few—were all started in recent years by founders who had built up an audience long before they ever had a product. In fact, it was those very audiences that helped develop and distribute those products, turning the ventures into successful businesses.

4. BLOGGING MAKES YOU AN INDUSTRY EXPERT

When I hit publish, I get a rush. Every time. Just like the first time. It is incredibly powerful.
—Fred Wilson

Well-written, relevant posts will help you position yourself as an industry expert and get your name out there among people in your field. The more you know about the things you’re writing about, the more likely potential users and partners will trust you to offer them a great product or service. In fact, educating your readers is actually a great form of marketing all by itself. “The most important skill for marketers today is . . . teaching. While in the past, those who outspent (on ads and big promotions) would often win, that’s becoming less and less true today for a lot of things.”

5. BLOGGING TEACHES YOU ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Writing is more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information.
—Andy Grove, Intel

While blogs are generally considered external communication platforms, the actual practice of blogging is much more introspective. It can teach you to focus on small gains, value simplicity, take consistent, deliberate actions—all useful habits for entrepreneurs. There are less obvious connections between writing and business activities, too. Acquiring readers, for instance, isn’t all that different from acquiring customers. But require making connections and building relationships over time.

Perhaps the best thing about blogging is that it’s accessible to everyone. You don’t need a publisher, you don’t need a degree, you don’t need a product. Hell, you don’t even need to be all that good a writer. What you do need is something to say. And entrepreneurs, pretty much by default, all have plenty of that.