bridging the industry gap
At Padup, we believe, Entrepreneurship is a CRAFT to build innovation through inherent skills, creativity and desire to learn. Like any other craft, it is a process that can be learned and practiced through a structured mentorship. We are a Knowledge Firm helping entrepreneurs with a structured mentoring process to build disruptive & innovative start-ups. PadUp uses a customized methodology to help these start-ups acquire entrepreneurship skills at all levels. The key elements are user centric approach, lean start-up philosophy, learning while doing, and models to build innovative solutions to real, emerging and futuristic problems.
01 entrepreneurs
Comprehensive 360° handholding
PadUp’s vision is to be a key player in the start-up ecosystem by actively supporting young entrepreneurs at various stages in their entrepreneurial journey and significantly impact survival rates positively. Start-up companies are particularly vulnerable in their early/start-up years. A significantly higher percentage of inexperienced entrepreneurs trying their luck at starting companies means lack of exposure, maturity, resources, experience, network, corporate governance knowledge etc.
Technology start-ups tend to be a group of technology professionals with little business experience. Further, the start-up environment can be significantly more hostile in a developing economy, where services remain inadequate, inaccessible or expensive. Hence PadUp has designed Mentor Driven Programs to overcome these challenges. These programs have been created keeping in mind the need of Entrepreneurial Education for budding entrepreneurs and also start-ups that need revalidation or pivoting.
02 government institutions
Adding knowledge
Great nations of today are thankful to those visionary governments which anticipated megatrends over ultra-long-term time horizons and built start-up ecosystems to systemically encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. Government of India has unleashed many programs in collaboration with various incubators to encourage entrepreneurship and promote innovation. However, lack of knowledge on 'how to build sustainable start-ups', the successes are few and far.
Therefore, to jumpstart innovation for building sustainable and scalable businesses, it is sound strategy to engage with knowledge partners such as PadUp Ventures to nurture start-ups to quickly get them off the ground. This outside-in approach will lead to excellent return on the government's efforts. PadUp partners with a number of such organisations to facilitate start-ups with its Knowledge and Mentoring program with professional mentors as knowledge partners during the incubation phase. This facilitates commercialisation of innovations and reduces failure rates of start-ups, thereby maximizing returns in longer run.
03 corporates
Using 'open innovation' to expedite results
Developing methods to facilitate “open innovation” through a Knowledge Partner takes advantage of the fact that companies which adapt this method can be better off since they cannot always out-think their smaller, nimbler competitors. These small companies, however, do not have the resource might of the big-boys. Thus, large companies like the corporates supporting small the company’s innovations with desired resources like market access, their distribution channels, seed funding and helping the entrepreneurs to shift gears by buying hand holding them – can often be a win-win scenario for both firms.
It makes sense for more and more large companies to initiate open Innovation process by engaging a Knowledge Partner for their entrepreneurial efforts. These knowledge firms, such as PadUp Ventures, generate promising ideas, conduct in-depth need-finding, define new opportunities and develop ideas into working prototypes. The corporate then refines these concepts and prototypes and helps take them to market.
04 educational institutions
An outside-in approach
Educational Institutions can play a very critical role in the Indian Start-up Ecosystem wherein they can nurture young minds with the natural instinct of spotting problems and finding solutions, which is vital for initiating a start-up.
Educational Institutions then need to get these start-ups off the ground by providing access to knowledge, initial funds, infrastructure and then connecting them to business/industry.
However, these Educational Institutions struggle to provide all that is needed and hence would benefit from engaging an incubator/accelerator from outside of their faculty/academia. This would provide processes to build, manage, market & sell their start-ups product and services.
While the institutions have the ability to spot the talent and to solve the problems, they need external mentors and coaches for knowledge sharing, fostering innovation and handholding start-ups through their journey to build a sustainable and scalable business.
Are you an educational institution looking to get involved?
05 investment partners
Strongly supporting PadUp initiative
The Founding and Affiliate group is passionate about spending their next 25 years in sharing their knowledge, experience, wisdom and network with the new generation entrepreneurs. Expertise provided by PadUp team will help start-ups solve some real scale problems, thus creating entrepreneurial success and employment opportunities. This will result in significant social impact and wealth creation for the entire ecosystem. Hence, PadUp has partnered with institutions, funds and networks in various capacities who share our vision of nation building through creating a strong culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the country.
PadUp has a substantial number of individual affiliated investors who regularly invest in our mentee startups. Additionally, 15 investment institutions (angel networks, early stage funds, investment bankers), e.g., Indian Angel Network, Chandigarh Angels Network, Villgrow, Vinners have partnered with us to invest into our mentee companies. The first round of investment is very challenging for any start-up (even with decent traction) and that's where PadUp plays a key role. Our affiliated investors feel more confident in investing in our mentee companies as they know that they have been vetted through PadUp's program and PadUp will be mentoring and handholding them as they navigate choppy waters of the entrepreneurial journey.
06 technology partners
Providing a helping hand
A start-up company has many different dimensions to think of when it comes to launching product & services as and it is important to understand the real tech requirement before starting. Technology has important effects on business operations. No matter the size of an enterprise, technology has both tangible and intangible benefits that will help produce the results the customers demand. Technological infrastructure affects the culture, efficiency and relationships of a business. It also affects the security of confidential information and trade advantages.
Hence, technology partnerships help start-ups implement and optimise their technical systems. These partnerships typically take place between technology infrastructure vendors who provide the infrastructure, knowledge and tools to use these systems in their daily operations. Hence, to help start-ups and emerging technology, PadUp has amassed a number of partners such as IBM, Amazon Web Services, Google, CISCO etc.
07 ecosystem partners
Extended community
A start-up ecosystem is the network of organisations—including suppliers, distributors, customers, competitors, government agencies, and so on—involved in the delivery of a specific product or service through cooperation. The idea is that each start-up in the ecosystem affects and is affected by the others, creating a constantly evolving relationship in which each start-up must be flexible and adaptable in order to survive as in an ecosystem.
Ecosystems create strong barriers to entry for new competition, as potential entrants not only have to duplicate or better the core product, but they must also compete against the entire system of complementing businesses and suppliers that form the network. Being a part of a start-up ecosystem provides mechanisms to leverage technology, achieve excellence in research and business competence and compete effectively against other companies.
