Start-ups have captured the imagination of people today across the world. Many myths, wrong perceptions, and false notions of success and glory are being propagated and worse – people tend to believe these without verifying. This book is an attempt to state the facts, based on true, verifiable information and analysis of what it takes for an entrepreneur to set up, sustain, and grow new ventures in the digital world today, particularly in the context of India. Although this book is academic in nature, there is enough information for all types of audience to gain value out of it.

For academics, it offers rich insight into how to pursue systematic research and inquiry in the relatively new phenomenon of start-ups and their life cycle. This is meant to be an introductory and exploratory effort in analysing the life cycle of high-tech start-ups in India. The topics dealt with in this book are fairly broad in nature, and each of these topics deserve a much more nuanced examination. This book will be a handy reference for the undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programmes in economics and entrepreneurship. For students and prospective entrepreneurs, this book provides unbiased inputs on the factors that a prospective entrepreneur needs to be equipped with – to pursue the journey of entrepreneurship in the high-tech sector of India.

For practising entrepreneurs, the book will help to reflect on their current state of affairs and help them in taking any required measure in due course. Apart from entrepreneurs, all major stakeholders of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, such as business and technology incubators, accelerators, VC and angel/seed investors, and multinational companies and large enterprises that have corporate development/ mergers and acquisition (M&A) teams and start-up specific programmes/ initiatives, will find the book a handy reference and resourceful input to the various activities that they are pursuing.

For policymakers, the book provides insight into the necessary and sufficient aspects to be taken care of during policy formulation and evaluation, to create regional entrepreneurial hubs, and nurture them. In particular, government institutions, government affiliated entrepreneurship and skill development training institutes, and government-funded R&D institutions and programmes where entrepreneurship is being encouraged will benefit from the dissemination of insights obtained from the systematic study.