Will jargons help entrepreneurs?
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Will jargons help entrepreneurs?

Last two weeks out of curiosity, I have been attending webinars by multiple "VCs & Angels" just to understand what is that these community says to startups as strategy post corona lockdown. Here are my observations.

  1. All of them say save Cash is King - this is plain simple and I don't think an investor has to tell this!. But what shocked me was all of dropped jargons like "Pivoting", Dry Powder etc. But these don't make any sense by way of solution. It was too shallow.
  2. Second, post corona lockdown the way you work is not the same and no one had a solution. Let me give an example there are startups which work with aged, children and specially abled children who need therapy & training. With the social distancing to continue how these will operate. How their cost model will evolve as there may be a severe cash shortage after the lock down.
  3. Above all most investors talked bout AI,ML and Oyo type of startups which probably need only SW developers. But there is a whole lot of start ups in the EV & IoT area the WFH is not feasible and no one seem to understand their problems.
  4. Above all HW based startups can grow well but look at their problem of completely destroyed supply chain. One shocker I realised was, most start up forgot what is to design a circuit. Let me give you an example. Power Supply section for a low power devices normally designed with simple Buck Converter with device from TI or ON Semi etc. If you design the circuit in your PCB it will cost 3 USD. But if you buy a Chinese board will cost you about 1 USD. Most of the engineers used these parts and today with the supply chain choked they have to relook into the supply chain totally new. Many of them told me they need help in designing as they don't know!!
  5. I know two start ups who have orders in hand but can't supply (interesting problem to have!). But with the current scenario even if they design their own circuit the cost will not be the same leading to loss. I have been asking these startups why no one ever told them how to handle the supply chain as part of the project/product planning. They are all funded well but no due diligence seem to have been done on the business sustainability.
  6. I am surprised that no one ever assumed that a catastrophe of this size can happen as part of business risk. In fact I have seen may good products that have been designed, failed because the execution was bad either by way of bad components or bad assembly/manufacturing

My question is why investors are not willing to get beyond advising which is any way well known. One of the freak thing I noticed was advise of "Digital Transformation" is way to go. But let me tell, it is not feasible to transform all the businesses and the investors are giving a once size fits all advice. I decided to drop after I saw the pattern is the same webinar after webinar and to me it looks like more a PR exercise.

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