"Elite institute" tag doesn't always guarantee success in today's start up world.

Welcome to the world of startups, embraced with the tag of an "elite institute. On any social media or professional platform, it's common to see," we are a bunch of experienced individuals from those "elite colleges", focusing on solving critical issues of our society. Everyone thinks that his/her idea can make a huge impact on the society, not to forget their "tag" being always behind them. Popularity of few startups attracts others to follow them. With time, things don't fall in place when they tend to forget the basics of business, i.e "profitability". The move focuses on attracting investors with those so called "tags", and then utilizing the funds in the most inefficient way possible. Ultimately, forgetting the motive behind the birth of their startup, which was, impact on society with the main focus on profitability.

Recent developments have made the billion dollar giants realize that, expansion in multiple cities without solidifying in the current location is a big mistake. Working in one of the fastest growing food delivery startups of our country, has taught me, that utilization of funds takes you a long way as a company. Many of these billion dollar giants failed to realize this. In fact, few of the new startups, fueled by sudden inflow of funds, tried to expand in multiple cities, but failed miserably soon. The main reason was, focusing on expansion without being profitable in any of the places, where they were already present. This became an eye opener for many other smaller players. The company that I am working for, is a classic example of this. When I joined, I was hearing of expanding to tier 2 cities in few months, but as other players started shutting down, this food delivery startup changed its strategy and started focusing on profitability in the 7 cities that it is present now. 

This era(2008-2017) will always be remembered as a time, when small ideas got transformed into billion dollars giants, followed by a whip from the investors, which made them realize that, proper utilization of funds & profitability should be the focus of their business.