Lateral Sparks, the weekly quiz from YS, tests your domain knowledge, business acumen, and lateral thinking skills (see the previous edition here). In this 53rd edition of the quiz, we present issues tackled by real-life entrepreneurs in their startup journeys.
What would you do if you were in their shoes? At the end of the quiz, you will find out what the entrepreneurs and innovators actually did. Would you do things differently?
Check out YS’s Book Review section as well, with takeaways from over 340 titles on creativity and entrepreneurship, and our weekend PhotoSparks section on creativity in the arts.
Q1: Education and technology
The digital medium has accelerated its presence in the education sector, particularly during the lockdown phases of the pandemic. It has provided robust access, multi-media features, collaborative tools, and archival capacity. What’s another crucial contribution of edtech?
Q2: Fintech growth
Scaling the team, technology, and organisational culture can help fintech players ramp up to reach a broader audience. Favourable regulatory regimes also help. What’s another way for fintechs to scale?
Q3: Activism and impact
The internet and smartphones have contributed vastly to social and environmental causes by offering real-time and archival capabilities to access crucial information. Social media have accelerated this via mobilisation through likes and shares. What else needs to be done for online citizens to make an impact?
Q4: Storytelling and branding
The founder story is a powerful communication tool to mobilise customers, hire employees, and attract investors. It can also be an effective branding approach. But it’s not enough to have the launch story–what else needs to happen to this story for a business?
Q5: From launch to scale
Access to capital can help an entrepreneur speed up time to market, build larger market share, and outspend competitors. But what’s another enabler for startups to become scale-ups, beyond funding?
Answers!
Congratulations on having come this far! But there’s more to come–answers to these five questions (below), as well as links to articles with more details on the entrepreneurs’ solutions. Happy reading, happy learning, and happy creating!
A1: Education and technology
“Edtech has the ability to provide personal attention to each and every student, along with helping them get a solid foundation,” explains Bhavesh Goswami, Founder and CEO, CloudThat. Edtech can truly transform learning.
“Education has reached an inflection point where new technologies can help enhance the teaching process, reduce the administrative burden, and ultimately create a better and more personalised learning experience for students, at scale,” explains Charlotte Trugdill, CEO and Co-founder of Jackett.
A2: Fintech growth
“The financial ecosystem is ripe for collaboration,” explains Harshvardhan Lunia, Co-founder and CEO, Lendingkart. The company is leveraging the platform approach to connect to service partners.
“Our partners have already started benefitting from them. There is so much that we can do for the entire industry. We have learnt a lot and built tech for ourselves, and now, for our partners,” he adds. Read more here about broader engagement and collaboration in the fintech ecosystem.
A3: Activism and impact
“Many processes and pathways can be created for online citizens to gather together offline and online to take an issue forward towards a resolution point,” observes Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson of Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies, and author of Samaaj, Sarkaar, Bazaar – A Citizen-First Approach.
She calls for both offline and online civil society. Such action needs to go beyond “clicktivism”. Read more here on her views and recommendations on the impact of volunteerism in India.
A4: Storytelling and branding
“As your brand grows, the story of your brand will also change. This is an evolving process and the goal is to keep on improving the consumer experience,” explains Yash Gangwal, Founder, Urban Monkey.
Authenticity and vulnerability are important aspects of storytelling. “Your story is unique to your brand and your journey, and the way you tell that story certainly helps you stand out from the crowd,” advises Gaurav Zatakia, Founder and CEO, Flo Mattress. Read more about startup brand-building here.
A5: From launch to scale
“Mentoring without capital is useless as much as capital without mentoring,” observes Naganand Doraswamy, Founder of Ideaspring Capital. Entrepreneurs will benefit more from ‘smart capital,’ going beyond transactions.
“Starting up is not easily coachable but scaling up certainly is. Entrepreneurs have an unmistakable bias for learning from individuals who have been through their journeys successfully,” says Pavan Vaish, Co-founder, Artha School of Entrepreneurship
YS has also published the pocketbook ‘Proverbs and Quotes for Entrepreneurs: A World of Inspiration for Startups’ as a creative and motivational guide for innovators (downloadable as apps here: Apple, Android).
