Start-up stalwarts launch ‘Artha School of Entrepreneurship’
Bangalore : Some of India’s pioneering start-up founders and operators have come together to set up the Artha School of Entrepreneurship with the mission of accelerating the journeys of entrepreneurs in scaling their ventures and contributing to the economic and social prosperity of their communities.
The first offering by this school is the Artha Scale Program. This program is designed for founders of early start-ups that have achieved some degree of product-market fit and are poised for scale. The objective of the program is to make the art and science of scaling accessible to these founders.
The defining component of this program is a set of in-person and intense problem-solving workshops facilitated by experienced practitioners. The participants will also have access to online content, in multiple formats, relating to all elements of scaling as well as to a set of committed mentors, who are successful founders and startup executives, to help them think through some of their scale challenges.
The first set of workshops have already taken place in Kochi. Workshops have been scheduled in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, and would soon be extended to Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pune, Mumbai, and Chennai. Artha is partnering with T-Hub in Hyderabad and KSN Global in Kochi. Discussions are also underway to partner with ecosystem enablers in other states.
The key themes for the initial set of workshops include Founder Growth, Organization and Culture, Funding and Capitalization, and Building a Sustainable Business.
The founding team has made a very conscious choice of structuring the Artha School of Entrepreneurship as a Section 8 Company (a not-for-profit organization). The founding team has a track record of scaling start-ups and have participated in creating 12 Unicorns and 10 successful exits including 3 IPOs. The founding team comprises Suruchi Maitra (Lenskart, UnitedLex, Daksh), T.N.Hari (Daksh, Virtusa, TaxiForSure, BigBasket), Sanjeev Aggarwal (Daksh, Helion, Fundamentum), Pramath Sinha (ISB, Harappa, Ashoka), Ashish Gupta (Helion, Junglee), and Pavan Vaish (Daksh, UnitedLex, Uber).
T.N. Hari and Suruchi Maitra would be responsible for building Artha and realizing the vision of being the world’s leading institution helping founders build large and sustainable businesses.
Suruchi Maitra believes, “In the decades to come, India’s quest for prosperity and inclusive development will be addressed at the confluence of technology, entrepreneurial energy, and patient capital. In the process, many large companies would take shape.” T.N.Hari believes, “India’s quest for equitable growth will never be fulfilled unless founders from all socioeconomic backgrounds realize their full potential. The Artha Scale Program has been carefully designed to create impact on a bigger canvas.”
Sanjeev Aggarwal believes, “Eighty percent or more of the scaling problems entrepreneurs grapple with everyday have been solved before. Reinventing the wheel through trial and error slows down, and often derails, the journey.”
Talking about the need for a program like this, Pramath Sinha said, “Scaling is every entrepreneur’s dream, though the intensity and magnitude of the dream could differ. Artha is the first of its kind program to create institutionalize focus around scaling.” Pavan Vaish believes, “Starting-up is not easily coachable but Scaling-up certainly is. Entrepreneurs have an unmistakable bias for learning from individuals who have been through their journeys successfully, and a program like this can enable India become not just a land of Unicorns but a land of high growth and sustainable companies.”