Should We Encourage Failure?

The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is a network of academic institutions across India that develops and delivers skill-building programmes and networking activities, besides company-starting assistance, to new, high-growth entrepreneurs. A not-for-profit initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, it was co-founded by premier academic institutions such as IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad, BITS (Pilani), IBAB, Bangalore and SP Jain Institute, Mumbai.
In an exclusive interview to Business Line, Ms Parkin spoke on the activities of NEN and the need to foster the entrepreneurial spirit among students and what she brings to the table.

Excerpts from the interview:

Have you identified any sectors as high-growth? How have you gone about building an ecosystem of entrepreneurs? Do you have any programmes aimed at incubating
entrepreneurial ventures?

With overall nine per cent growth, many sectors are showing tremendous growth — including retail, hospitality, construction, IT and healthcare. All provide excellent opportunities for new entrepreneurs. However, when NEN works with young and future entrepreneurs, we don't point them to specific sectors. Instead, we help them build the skills to evaluate any opportunity, because by the time they may be ready to launch a company, the dynamics may have changed and these same sectors may not be attractive for newcomers.

A supportive ecosystem is extremely important for entrepreneurial success. There are three dimensions to an ecosystem: the people, the regulatory and legal environments and the infrastructure. NEN works along all three dimensions. Through our programmes for academic institutes, we connect young people from all backgrounds with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and other professionals. NEN and the Wadhwani Foundation also work to support policy change and improve infrastructure. We recently launched Entrepreneurship Week India to raise awareness and support for improving the ecosystem for entrepreneurship, in which over 200 partners, both academic and corporate, participated.

Several of our member-institutes offer incubation support - some to their own communities and others offer help to anyone. They include SP Jain, IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore, MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology and IBAB.

How healthy is the entrepreneurial community in India? Does India need a unique model to foster entrepreneurship, or are there universal lessons applicable here too?

I find a particular dynamism and energy in the entrepreneurial community in India — a community that now includes young people from outside the traditional business communities. The level of venture capital pouring in from overseas is testimony to the fact that the world has recognised the opportunities in today's India.That said, India does throw up particular barriers for entrepreneurs, including poor infrastructure — a lack of power, roads, transport; an improving-but-still-difficult regulatory environment; and a bureaucracy that takes a particular toll on small, growing companies. These problems need to be addressed if broad-based entrepreneurship is to generate the millions of jobs that India needs every year.

NEN has discovered universal patterns that unleash entrepreneurship in young people. It is critical for young people to interact with entrepreneurs and investors. Academic institutes must offer comprehensive programmes, with innovative, exciting curricula and teaching methods. And on campus, faculty must support student leadership and entrepreneurship clubs running many activities. This combination shows powerful results and is an integral part of our strategy.

How important is the `fear of failure' factor in the growth of entrepreneurial spirit among youth? Is there a need for a culture that is tolerant of failure?

Societies must allow for failure, both socially and legally. Legally, one must enable business closures so that people can easily shift resources to more productive endeavours. And when failure becomes socially acceptable, innovation blossoms as people are willing to risk the unknown. Highly entrepreneurial cultures honour failure as a crucible for learning: in Silicon Valley, there's a belief that people are often more backable once they have failed.

However, that's not to say that even in Silicon Valley people feel comfortable failing. In fact, in one of the entrepreneurship courses taught at Stanford, the professor has her students put together "failure resumes" listing out the big failures in their professional and personal lives, and what they have learned from each. Through this exercise, the students can see that failure is an important stepping stone to success. In India, failure is not tolerated quite so well.
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