The success of Shark Tank India has brought the start-up culture prevalent in India into
limelight.
Sociological analysis:
A startup ecosystem is defined as a society of founders with ideas and skills, young
companies at early stages with talent, incubators with mentors and capital, early
adopters and the media. India ranks third in the global list of countries with the largest
startup ecosystems, right after the U.S. and U.K.
Brockling and Brown write that the entrepreneur is therefore envisioned as a
trailblazer, who is continuously looking for new opportunities. This echoes the
depiction of the postindustrial ideal citizen, who is construed as proactive, calculative
and entrepreneurial in terms of self-reliance and rational choice.
Relationship processes are redefined and reformulated in the start-up culture. The
friends and social circle and the emotional connect surrounding them is based on the
passion and value of the idea. The social media connects have taken away the necessity
of face to face meetings and ushered in an ‘alone yet connected’ paradigm that the
society is grappling with.
A research paper from Dublin City University in Ireland, reviewing India’s
entrepreneurial policy Startup India, affirmed its positive impact in reducing regional
entrepreneurial disparities. However, it cited shortcomings in addressing the under-
representation of women and marginalized caste groups in the national startup
ecosystem.
Numerous scholars have pointed out the masculinity of these entrepreneurial ideals,
and indeed, the heroes of the global startup culture–such as Facebook’s Mark
Zuckerberg, Apple’s Steve Jobs, and Tesla’s Elon Musk–are almost exclusively male.
Hence, Startup culture remains altogether gendered and characterized by a masculine
ethos.
Yyes Marie Rault; Shawn Mathew too observes that the start-up ecosystem has
unevenly developed across cities and economic sectors, and has failed to empower the
overall population, so far. The venture capital concentrates amongst graduates
stemming from a handful of prestigious education institutes in India and abroad too.
Hence, there is a need for more inclusive start-up ecosystem.
The governments’ policy choices shape institutions that play a crucial role in
determining entrepreneurial behavior (Minniti 2008), both by promoting productive
entrepreneurship (Baumol 1996) and reducing the constraints on entrepreneurship
(Braunerhjelm et al 2010).Likewise, GOI initiatives like Start up India have helped
boost Start up culture in India.
Egan-Wyer et al. (2018) highlight the linguistic aspect of the dissemination of startup
culture: cultural jargon and terminology of startups, such as ‘scalability’ and
‘disruption’, have spread to, and are widely circulated in, mainstream media and
popular culture.
J Kohlenberger writes that in American popular culture, the tech-entrepreneurial
subject is seen as a practical, learning-by-doing character, instead of a theoretical
thinker. Correspondingly, many of the heroes of startup culture, such as Apple’s Steve
Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, are university dropouts. Thus, in startup
discourse, academics are often construed as ‘stifling’ with its focus on intellectual
knowledge production, which hinders true innovation.
The rise of entrepreneurial spirit is also associated with notions of nationalism and
national pride. Hoffman calls this ‘patriotic professionalism’, by which she means
that ‘the new professional is a self-enterprising subject who also is decidedly concerned
with, and has an affinity for, the nation’
