Fueling Thoughts

  It is a matter of vexation that the word Startup these days is associated solely with raising money and not what that concern is trying to do and which problem statement it is trying to solve. It was during a recent expo where I participated, that I had an otherwise well-meaning young chap with his own budding enterprise, constantly asking me the same question in one way or another "Heh, heh, so how much investment have you been able to raise??" Finally fed up, I made him sit down and told him," Zero"! But I have had over 20 outright rejections to my pitches( I stopped counting after 20) as my work of building safe, sustainable and affordable riverboats and nautical equipment is seen as very limited in size and scalability. I was also told that I was too old to start a Startup, was mocked for not having a formal technical education, that my designs were pinched from the internet, that I lacked a team, traction and that it is a matter of doubt whether my perenniall

For over a year, I have wasted a tremendous amount of time and effort trying to get development funds from various startup programs, incubators, NGOs, Overseas agencies with almost zero results.  I got at least 15 rejections for a development grant from India and overseas in one year.   Yes, my work is niche technology, but with no local or imported analogues, quite indispensable in defence sectors and tremendous social impact potential. So why the mass rejections??   At some point, I re-read all my applications to find out what's so wrong and  after thorough introspection and revision of my presentations, write-ups, strategy and my product offering, dawned the realisation that most of these programs are a charade with the dice loaded against most applicants.  They are like Facebook, which exists and profits only due to its users who are the free content providers. For almost all Startup funds and Incubators, their raison d'etre is to collect as many applicants as possible, con