Purpose

This paper aims to examine the factors that lead to the failure of startups in India and proposes a ‘Four Dimensional (4D) Strategic Framework’ to drive success.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is exploratory and uses a narrative analysis methodology to analyse the accounts of key startup stakeholders – founders, investors, former employees and consumers; to identify their failure factors. A conveniently selected sample of 165 startups was studied to understand better the reasons for their failure within a thematic framework developed from David Feinleib’s (2012) handbook “Why Startups Fail”.

Findings

Results indicate that a dearth of capital or running out of money and inadequate sales and marketing strategy, which leads businesses to fall behind rivals and lose money on each transaction, are the most common factors for startup failure in India.

Originality/value

“Startups” are substantial for emerging economies like India because they fuel technological innovation and economic progress and provide for the modern workforce’s needs and aspirations. However, they seem to be typically unprofitable, with a modest probability of survival. Subsisting studies mainly focus primarily on success factors and very few on why startups fail, with significant disagreement on an appropriate methodology. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that analyses failure factors of Indian startups using narrative analysis of its key stakeholders. It aims to aid the conception of profitable entrepreneurship by reducing the failure frequency in the startup and small business ecology.

中文翻译：

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为什么印度初创企业会失败？主要业务利益相关者的叙述分析

目的

本文旨在研究导致印度初创企业失败的因素，并提出推动成功的“四维（4D）战略框架”。

设计/方法论/途径

这项研究是探索性的，使用叙述分析方法来分析关键初创企业利益相关者——创始人、投资者、前雇员和消费者的账户；以确定其失败因素。我们对 165 家初创公司进行了研究，以便在 David Feinleib (2012) 手册“初创公司失败的原因”中开发的主题框架内更好地了解它们失败的原因。

发现

结果表明，资本缺乏或资金耗尽以及销售和营销策略不完善，导致企业落后于竞争对手并在每笔交易中亏损，是印度初创企业失败的最常见因素。

原创性/价值

“初创企业”对于印度等新兴经济体来说意义重大，因为它们推动技术创新和经济进步，并满足现代劳动力的需求和愿望。然而，它们似乎通常无利可图，生存的可能性不大。现有的研究主要关注成功因素，很少关注初创企业失败的原因，在适当的方法论上存在重大分歧。据作者所知，这是第一项利用关键利益相关者的叙述分析来分析印度初创企业失败因素的研究。它旨在通过减少初创企业和小型企业生态中的失败频率来帮助实现盈利创业的概念。