I know I am making a bold statement here, but this is true

Covering startups is relatively easy, unless you are in the race of chasing exclusives with mainstream news publications. Unlike other ‘so-called’ mainstream journalists, a startup writer doesn’t need to be vigilant 24×7. Breaking news doesn’t happen in the middle of the night or on a holiday (although there may be some exceptions).

However, it does not mean that a startup writer’s life is easy or free from challenges.

My early beginnings with a nascent startup ecosystem

I began my career as a startup writer in 2011. But I delved into hard-core startup reporting only two years later with Delhi-based VCCircle, which is now owned by British media baron Rupert Murdoch. VCCircle was my launchpad and springboard.

When I set out my journey, the startup ecosystem in India was still nascent. There were thousands of startups, but a large chunk of them had just started and still struggling. Funding was rare. Software engineers employed at large corporates in the US were still hesitant to come back to India to start their dream venture. Students were reluctant to drop out of colleges and schools to chase their dreams.

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In the early years of my career, mobile advertising company InMobi — which was credited with raising the largest amount funding of US$200 million from SoftBank till then  — was still the poster-boy of the Indian ecosystem. Flipkart and Snapdeal were in fundraising mode. Uber was an unknown beast in India, and Amazon’s Indian entry was still in the works.

Needless to say, getting startup news was hard. There had been days when we ended up the day publishing just one article on the portal. A newbie into the startup scene, I was grappling to discover companies that were worth writing a story about. Startup events were far in between, and the ecosystem was yet to kick off in a big way.

Editorial meetings were a challenge. The editor always fired at me when I had no idea what I was going to write that day. It was a nightmare. Frankly, I was the only writer who got whipped regularly in the meetings by the editors. They sometime yelled at me and even bullied. I was struggling for words to respond. Dreadful days.

I woke up every day to find an excuse not to work that day. The mornings were always terrible. I had to share what I was going to do that day with the rest of the team. Most days, I drew a blank. I was looking for exclusives, so that I could save my own skin in edit meets.

To cut a long story short, my two-and-half year stint at VCCircle was frustrating in every count.

That said, the challenges did not end with edit meets. I had to deal with smart asses, who could deceive me with their numbers. They could convince me to write about them, and I often fell into the trap.

But I gradually learnt things. The biggest of the learnings that I made was:

Don’t blindly trust entrepreneurs and take their words at face value.

I know I am making a bold statement here, but this is true.

Sorry, but you have to earn my trust

First of all, let me thank all the wonderful and genuine entrepreneurs out there who helped me shape up my career and whose stories helped me earn by bread and butter. But sorry to say, most of your peers are fake, or not genuine at the least. They always exaggerated their numbers to attract more users and investors. They could employ social media influencers to malign the image of their competitors to kick peers out of the market.

I have interviewed and profiled multiple hundreds of startups and investors to date. I was so naive and credulous in the initial days. I knew I was dealing with the best of the brains, and I often failed to catch up with their wavelength.

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They could inflate their business figures. They lied about traction, number of users, customers and clients, funding figures, revenues, and even the names of the VCs. With no mechanism to verify the numbers, I often took their statements at face value, and reported on them as such. And they got a brilliant PR piece without spending a dime.

Why do entrepreneurs get into trouble?

There have been multiple instances where my trust in the industry was lost several times. In one instance, an entrepreneur lied about the number of the downloads for his app. He knew he was making a false claim, but I later checked out the app store to find the genuine figures.

In another instance, a well-known startup announced raising of over US$100 million in funding from a well-known Asian VC firm. Every journalist including myself covered this story. It was only a few months later I got to know that the it was apparently a fake deal. The two parties involved in the deal colluded with each other to spread wrong information, so that they get free publicity and their competitors will pull themselves out of the market.

A few years ago, I interviewed a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, who happened to be the son of a top bureaucrat in India. This entrepreneur built an energy management startup and had won a few big clients. It was also one of the top startups which made into a competition organised by a leading MNC. The startup also attracted an angel funding round worth hundreds of million dollars.

Later, I happened to learn through an industry-watcher friend of mine that this founder had siphoned off the funds and ran away. He was later nabbed by the police and had to spend some time in jail.

But the following tale is worse. This entrepreneur hails from my state. He was regular speaker at various world tech events. He was one of the hottest startup founders, and he attracted several rounds of investments. He was basking in the free popularity given by the media and the startup ecosystem. He led a lavish life and splurged the investor money to tour the world and to buy expensive gadgets.

But it was later found out that he had got into some fraudulent billings with the help of an insider in a telecom company, and he was then caught red handed. He was eventually forced to return the entirety of the investments to investors, and the startup was shut down. He founded another startup, but he did not stop his shenanigans. The founder spent thousands of dollars on a new flashy office space for the new startup at the heart of Bangalore. But this startup did not survive either.

There are so many others tales. I cannot narrate each and every story here.

Words of wisdom

I know there are are bad apples in every field, but then I feel the number of bad apples in this category is much larger. If you are a startup journalist, deal with these smart asses carefully. Else, you will end up a PR journalist.

I am not sure if my experience with smart ass entrepreneurs have made me a better journalist. I leave to you to judge me.

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Image Credit: macor / 123RF Stock Photo

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