Over last few years there have been so many startups coming up in India that it has become extremely difficult to differentiate amongst them. So you really don’t find many sectors which are still unexplored but that also means that there’s lots of scope of innovation. Sectors like online travel which wasn’t a hot bed for startups a few years back now has more than 15 competitors in India providing services from booking tickets online to booking hotels. A year back a bus ticketing website would have been a dream – a far fetched one - but today you have websites like RedBus.in, ticketwala.com, ElineBus.com and many similar websites providing services.
So what actually differentiates these startups?
Though most sectors can have more than 1 entrant any time but there have to be a differentiator for a user to come to their websites or startups. Unlike a locationally constraint user in a physical world, web provides a platform for users to access across the globe. Which means had I been a “kirana” shop in 1990’s without a differentiator I would have survived based on my location but incase of these online startups that “locational” differentiator doesn’t exists.
And hence they have to create a differentiator and not just that they need to bring in some extra value! So its no more just customer centricity but customer delight which needs to be targeted. Thus for a RedBus.in to score over Ticketwala.com it needs to do something differently whether its in terms of the breadth of services they provide, or the technological advancements they bring in their services – something has to come out.
That’s an easier solution but if you really want to go ahead and make a mark – you need to “differentiate” your idea itself. So if you a creADvity.com, which is a marketing & advertising platform, you have more chances to succeed because then your idea in itself is a differentiator atleast to start with. creADivity is probably the first of its kind in the market place and provides services to the idea/creativity starved industry by bringing in young and innovative ideas on table for the industry folks to use.
Similarly Kaushalendra, IIM A graduate who has started a venture to sell fresh vegetables to the consumers has a “differentiator” in what he is doing! These are typical cases of how the ideas have differentiated from others and hence have succeeded.
So though we see a surge of startups in India, the “innovation” & “differentiator” seems to be missing and hence they need to either differentiate or be differentiated! Some work to do young Indian entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurs in India: Are they missing on creating differentiators? - To learn more about this author, visit Manik Kinra's Website.
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