11 industry experts from India share their predictions for entrepreneurship in 2017

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Entrepreneurship has become a favorite pastime. Add to this the dream of being a founder, and it has evolved into a trend that everyone wants to try. If you’re planning to start your own business in 2017, make a note of these forecasts made by 11 industry experts. They predict how the game of starting up and entrepreneurship will be this year, and these predictions strongly indicate that 2017 will be a year of significant change.

More corporate strategic investments

Dhruvil Sanghvi CEO of LogiNext | Big data analytics startup.

“In 2017, we would see more corporate strategic investments as compared to the ones initiated by venture capitalists. The world has matured in the way it handles startups. Big corporates identify startups with engaging concepts and invest in their ideas. These ideas may be something that the corporate entity can absorb later or treat as a diversified wing. Corporates are also keen to invest in startups during the middle growth period. Through this, they want to hasten the development process of the startup to reach a stage that they can treat them as a subsidiary. There are many companies like Google, IBM, Intel, GE, and Verizon that are actively investing in startups.”

“The other surprise to look out for, in the same vein, would be big-ticket mergers of established startups. Something like Facebook taking over Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Execution will precede ideas 

Arvind Parthiban CEO and founder of Zarget | Website optimization company.

“The startup scene was buzzing with new entrants last year, and we saw a lot of variety in ideas like lifestyle, travel, ecommerce, etc. The trend for this year is clearly inclined towards the SaaS industry mainly because of the sorted unit economics. Being successful as a startup boils down to being able to determine and then optimize the costs incurred for the most fundamental element of the business model, a luxury that SaaS products enjoy. While last year saw a lot of fresh ideas, going forward it will be all about getting the execution right for these innovations. Execution will precede ideas in 2017.”

Entrepreneurs focused on creating long-lasting, sustainable business models will be rewarded

Dr. Ritesh Malik creator of Innov8 | Startup making co-working and innovation centers.

“I don’t believe in trends. I believe in value creation and product supremacy. Everything boils down to a great product and the disruption quotient. 2016 was a difficult year for startups but a very good one for the ecosystem, for [it corrected and realized] the value of execution over idea/market brilliance. 2017 will be very rewarding for the entrepreneurs focusing on creating long-lasting, sustainable business models which are, if not immediate, at least long term profit driven.”

“When it comes to industries I am a true believer of promoting indigenous industries of India. Our entrepreneurs should focus on agriculture, health tech, renewable energy, village tech, and hardware instead of copying business models of the west. We’re living in a country which has higher digital literacy than alphabetic literacy. This is the opportunity for our entrepreneurs.”

Conversational interfaces

Nischal Shetty founder of Crowdfire | Makers of a social media engagement app for Twitter and Instagram.

“Conversational interfaces: Until now, humans and machines interacted in an interface suitable for machine interaction. Now, they will interact with an interface suitable for human interaction.”

“Home automation: Working on the theme of conversational interfaces, we’ll now start using devices in our homes that would be controlled with voice. Amazon Echo and Google Home are just the start.”

Build great businesses through good and bad times

Archit Gupta Founder and CEO of ClearTax | Indian income tax return e-filing website.

Concentrate on finding lean growth paths and models where unit economic is solid

Decline in the cash burn strategy from investors wanting to reduce business inefficiencies

2017 will be a year of sustainable entrepreneurship 

Investments will be concentrated on building core customer retention-driven solutions

Be powerful, build a brand

Merely having an idea or building an Uber for X won’t work anymore