Curbing Inconsistencies Through Financial Bootstrapping

Abstract

Bootstrapping techniques are widely utilized as a strategic practice by startups worldwide and have been considered an essential topic of study in entrepreneurship. Indian startup ecosystem majorly promotes external funding through debt and equity without focusing on the cognition of various bootstrapping techniques. As extensive literature is already available on financial bootstrapping techniques; the empirical studies show inconclusive results on how financial bootstrapping techniques can enhance the growth of Indian startups and hence their sustainability. This chapter seeks to provide a solution to the various inconsistencies prevailing in the Indian startup ecosystem by encouraging better financial bootstrapping practice. For this purpose, a total of 34 Indian states and union territories were analyzed using the seven-pillar framework established by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP). Further, heat maps were generated to study the number of startups with respect to the startup support in that state. The results of the study showed three different types of inconsistencies in the Indian startup ecosystem. The chapter also extracts out various challenges faced by Indian entrepreneurs, thereby suggesting the best possible bootstrapping techniques to curb those challenges through reviewing the scholarly evidence developed over the years. The study provides implications to entrepreneurs and policymakers to strategize the non-conventional methods of financing so that the entrepreneurs in India could cultivate entrepreneurial finance and resources for economic growth.