Bangalore: Shama Kabani who is just 26 year old plays a varied role ranging from a technopreneur, author, international speaker, social media expert, o Web and TV personality. She started her own company The Marketing Zen Group at the age of 24. Pallav Nadhani started FusionCharts at the tender age of 17 and now he is an angel investor too. Ankur Jain, another kid who turned entrepreneur at the age of 17, founded Kairos Society. Ankur is also the founder and CEO at Panjia. Mark Zukerberg started Facebook from his college dorm room when he was just 20 years old.  

These people are just a drop in the ocean of startup ecosystem that is on a consistent increase. We can find many such entrepreneurs who have started their venture at a very young age, even before completing their basic education, but succeeded in creating a niche for themselves. They are trying to break the legacy owned by the entrepreneurs who run their family business, such as Tata, Birla, Ford, Fidelity Investments and several others. But, will they succeed and win to create a new formula for the ecosystem?

Completing MBA or some higher degree and then joining the ancestral business was the most common scene, but now, these young and enthusiastic chunks of people does not wait to complete their higher education and then join their family business or have an experience of 5-10 years in a multi-national company to start their own business. Today’s young generation thinks in a different manner. They do not feel to waste their precious years keeping on studying nor do they believe in spending money in grabbing the higher education. They want to go on a trial and error method to see their sustainability in the market. For example, pursuing an MBA from a reputed university costs around 15-20 lakh. Why spend that money in getting education and then roping in for getting experience, if you can start a company with half the amount and get real world experience?  

New generation seems to be more practical. Instead of wasting their time and money in pursuing studies and gaining experience, they feel more confident in investing their time and resource to gain experience. Even if they fail, they are much ahead of their counterparts who are pursuing a degree or banking experience in a MNC. If they succeed, they take their business to a whole new level and if they fail, they start again with the same adrenaline rush. They believe in making mistakes and learning from it.

But, the question arises, “how safe is the startup ecosystem in the near future”, “who will guarantee the success of such startups established by non-experienced people”? It is said that failure is the pillar of success, and fortunately, every successful business has faced failure at a certain point of time. However, many of these entrepreneurs have not tasted failure or hard times yet and do not know how to tackle those tough rocks. It will be interesting to watch how these young startup founders and CEOs will handle such situations. Will they be able to survive or will their Titanic sink?