Get A Masterclass On The Art Of Scale-up From Start-up Wizards

Some of India’s pioneering start-up founders and operators have come together to set up the Artha School of Entrepreneurship. Their mission is to accelerate the journey of entrepreneurs in scaling up their ventures and contributing to the economic and social prosperity of their communities.

The founding team has a track record of scaling up start-ups and has participated in creating 12 unicorns and 10 successful exits, including three initial public offerings. The founding team comprises Suruchi Maitra (Lenskart, UnitedLex, Daksh), T N Hari (Daksh, Virtusa, TaxiForSure, BigBasket), Sanjeev Aggarwal (Daksh, Helion, Fundamentum), Pramath Sinha (ISB, Harappa, Ashoka), Ashish Gupta (Helion, Junglee), and Pavan Vaish (Daksh, UnitedLex, Uber).

There are 50 faculty members who have been onboarded for Artha, including top entrepreneurs like Nandan Nilekani, Deep Kalra, Sanjeev Bhikchandani, Pramath Sinha, Peyush Bansal, and Hari Menon.

“After liberalisation and Y2K, a lot of large enterprises got created, but many never really focused on solving India’s top problems,” said T N Hari, a consumer internet veteran and former human resources official at BigBasket and TaxiForSure, adding, “The failure rate at every stage for start-ups is quite high. If the failure rate can be reduced even by 1/2 percentage points, the number of unicorns can probably be doubled.”

The first offering by this school is the Artha Scale programme, designed for founders of early-stage start-ups that have achieved some degree of product-market fit and are poised for scale. The objective of the programme is to make the art and science of scale-up accessible to these founders.

The component of this programme is a set of in-person and intense problem-solving workshops facilitated by experienced practitioners. The participants will also have access to online content, in multiple formats, related to all elements of scale-up. They will also have access to a set of committed mentors, who are successful founders and start-up executives, to help them think through some of their challenges.

“Our approach is we provide knowledge required for scale-up,” said Hari, adding, “Our intention is to play on a much bigger canvas and we will be reaching out to entrepreneurs in tier II and III cities and towns.”

For the Artha Scale programme, participants will be charged Rs 40,000 for all four modules. These include four full days of problem-solving workshops, access to online content for 180 days, and a set of mentors for 90 days. They will also have access to special webinars and masterclasses on topics of interest.

“The model is simple. We are non-profit and our fees are to cover costs and create a long-term sustainable entity,” said Hari, adding, “Any surplus that Artha may generate will be used to further the objectives of the foundation, which could be about creating curriculum for the micro, small and medium enterprises sector and social entrepreneurship or supporting underprivileged entrepreneurs.”

The first set of workshops has taken place in Kochi. Workshops have been scheduled in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Delhi, and will soon be extended to Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai.

Artha is partnering T-Hub in Hyderabad and KSN Global in Kochi. Discussions are also underway to tie up with ecosystem enablers in other states.

Sanjeev Aggarwal, co-founder and general partner at venture capital firm Fundamentum, said 80 per cent or more of the scale-up problems entrepreneurs grapple with everyday have been solved before.

“Reinventing the wheel through trial and error slows down, and often derails, the journey,” said Aggarwal, who co-founded Daksh — a pioneer in the business process outsourcing industry, which was acquired by technology giant IBM in 2004.