{E SCHOOL} THE RURAL SCHOOL OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Photo credit: Studio Ek Saat
WE LAUNCH AND SCALE SOCIAL VENTURES THAT CREATE LASTING IMPACT
KNOW MOREAZAD FOUNDATION & SAKHA CONSULTING WINGS PVT LTD
Livelihoods with dignity for urban poor women
Photo credit: Azad Foundation
WE LAUNCH AND SCALE SOCIAL VENTURES THAT CREATE LASTING IMPACT
KNOW MOREITIHAAS
Indian traditions and heritage initiative
Photo credit: Itihaas
WE LAUNCH AND SCALE SOCIAL VENTURES THAT CREATE LASTING IMPACT
KNOW MOREAIACA
Policy, entrepreneurship training and marketing for small craft producers
Photo credit: AIACA
WE LAUNCH AND SCALE SOCIAL VENTURES THAT CREATE LASTING IMPACT
KNOW MORE
BASIC HEALTHCARE SERVICES (BRAND: AMRIT CLINICS)
Photo Credits: Leah Grossman
ABOUT US
START UP! IS AN ANGEL INVESTOR, INCUBATOR AND CONSULTANT TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS.
We offer incubation, impact acceleration and management consulting services to social ventures at different stages in their lifecycle – early, growth and mature.
As ANGEL INVESTORS, we invest our time, expertise and networks to make growth-stage ventures scale and capital ready. We engage with social entrepreneurs for up to two years, and work in the field with their teams, to build out their models.
As IMPACT INCUBATORS, we offer an exhaustive range of business incubation, coaching and trainings to early-stage social ventures. Our incubation offerings are designed to launch practical change models that balance social impact with financial sustainability. We also incubate incubators!
AS CONSULTANTS, we work with mature-stage social ventures. We get excited about:
- Scaling social change models
- Research and knowledge generation for the field
- Conducting impact assessments
- Managing outreach and due diligence for
awards and fellowships
OUR WORKING PRINCIPLES
Privilege the entrepreneur
Entrepreneurs excite us more than ideas. Our partners and clients bring strong domain expertise and business lessons from previous entrepreneurial/ intrapreneurial journeys. We learn continuously from them, even as we co-create their business models.
Match passion with process
We match the entrepreneur's energy and passion with process, plans and the discipline for executing ideas. For us, execution, not ideas, is game changing.
Stay frugal, stay in the field
We work with our investees in their fields. We immerse in the markets of the models we shape. By being in the field, we get a 360 degree view of the eco-system of the ventures we create. This enables us to predict volatilities. We therefore launch ventures that are true to the DNA of our partners and the needs of the markets they serve.
Iterate to succeed
We coach our investees to listen to customers, re-iterate assumptions and stay focused on metrics. We constantly adapt business plans to keep them real and sharp. Our questioning of assumptions and reality checks at every turn minimizes trial and error. This ensures that ventures launch with a higher degree of success.
Get the chemistry right
We succeed more with entrepreneurs who are listeners, learners and collaborators. We work with social entrepreneurs who actively seek feedback and are open to applying them in their ventures.
Cross pollinate
We pollinate learnings and connections between early-stage ventures (that we launch) and mature-stage models (that we accelerate). This opens up rich collaborations between the two. Our investees and clients constantly feed new information, networks and linkages into our own eco-system. This growing viral enables us to become better linkers and connectors for social entrepreneurs.
Image source: Leah Grossman
OUR MISSION
- Launch social ventures in a way that
they can scale - Scale social ventures in a way that they
generate impact - Seed first-generation social entrepreneurs in last-mile communities
- Catalyze the influence and resources of business, government and media towards fostering many more social ventures
HOW WE WORK
PROJECTS
OUR INVESTEES
OUR INCUBATEES
OUR CONSULTING PROJECTS SEE ALL
-
SCALING UP
-
RESEARCH & KNOWLEDGE GENERATION
-
TRAINING & FACILITATION
-
DUE DILIGENCE FOR FELLOWSHIP & AWARDS
SCALING UP
OUR SERVICES
- Mapping creative routes for scaling models
- Strategic planning
- Business plan development
- Building robust operations and people resources
- Developing replication toolkits
CLIENTS
- Anjali – Mental Health and Human Rights Initiative
- Arthink South Asia
- Azad Foundation & Sakha Consulting Wings Pvt. Ltd.
- Childline India Foundation
- Itihaas
- Khoj International Artists Association
- The Tata Trust
- Study Hall Education Foundation
- Swayam
- Swayam Shikshan Prayog
- Shri Jagdamba Samiti
- Talaash
SMITA VATS | Founder-Director
"Start Up! partnered with Itihaas to translate our work, vision and values into a viable and balanced five-year business plan. Over a year of intense engagement, they helped define areas which we had not recognized as strategic levers. Often their understanding of our model was better than ours, therefore adding value far beyond what we had envisaged.
RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE GENERATION
OUR SERVICES
- Conducting market research for new products and services
- Conducting impact assessments
- Building standards for the field
VIVEK MANSUKHANI | Director, Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program India
"Start Up! carried out an impressive quantitative and qualitative evaluation project to assess the impact of our unique fellowship program in India over the last decade. We found the Start Up! team to be dynamic, sharply focused, committed, full of ideas and good energies. They were highly effective in studying and capturing the story of our program and our fellows with great clarity, insight and enthusiasm. Collaborating with Start Up! has been a hugely pleasant and rewarding experience."
CLIENTS
- Aajeevika Bureau
- Childline India Foundation
- Ford Foundation's International Fellowships Program
- Gray Matters Capital
- International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW)
- PRADAN
- Toxics Link
TRAINING AND FACILITATION
OUR SERVICES
- Strategic planning trainings
- Team building trainings
- Curating and facilitating retreats and networking events
CLIENTS
- Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
- ArtThink South Asia
- British Council
- National Association of Social Enterprises (NASE)
DUE DILIGENCE FOR FELLOWSHIPS AND AWARDS
OUR SERVICES
- Designing and conducting marketing and outreach
- Managing end-to-end due diligence processes
- Anchoring communication with all stakeholders
- Ensuring high quality jury presentations
- Managing media relations
Image source: Web - http://goo.gl/o2Rpd8
AJAY KHANNA | President – Strategy & Public Affairs, Jubilant Bhartia Group
"We cherish our engagement with Start Up! With their support, we have been able to generate a robust pipeline of applicants and ensure high quality due diligence for the Jubilant-Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in India, year-on-year."
CLIENTS
- India Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award – hosted by Jubilant Bhartia Foundation and Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
- Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
65
Social ventures incubated and scaled
150
Immersive projects delivered
375+
Emerging leaders trained
15
States of operation
10
Insights reports published
10
Years of the India social entrepreneur of the year award
OUR TEAM
Taveesh Pandey
Director (non-executive)
An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, Taveesh has more than 20 years of experience in the Indian financial and business sector. He has played a leading role in institutions such as IFC, CRISIL and the SUN GROUP. Taveesh is the Founder-Director of Black Diamond PE Advisors; a New Delhi based corporate venture and financial advisory firm that advises early-stage, small and mid-size companies. He offers hands-on CXO services to entrepreneurs and provides an array of services to HNIs.
Taveesh is now playing an increasing role in mentoring social entrepreneurs and shaping institutions of the future within the field of social entrepreneurship.
Manisha Gupta
Founder and CEO
Manisha was a journalists before she joined the social entrepreneurship sector. For 24 years, she has studied, chronicled and shaped the eco-system for social entrepreneurship in India. She worked with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public for ten years as the India Country Representative and International Director for Ashoka’s youth programs. At Ashoka, she built a collaborative community of social entrepreneurs across the country. She also launched the first media and communication campaigns to promote social entrepreneurship in India.
Manisha has co-authored two books, 1098- Childline Calling and Opening Doors – Ten Years of Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships in India. She is a passionate believer of creating deep impact through lean teams.
Manisha launched Start Up! as an idea in 2007. After a two-year test run, she formally launched it as a social venture in 2009.
Sumona Chakravarty
Chief Innovations Officer
Sumona has trained in design thinking from Shrishti School of Art, Design and Technology (Bangalore) and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She is also the Founder-Director of Hamdasti, a non-profit art organization in Kolkata. Hamdasti brings neighbourhood groups, urban local bodies and the police to develop shared cultural projects.
At Start Up, Sumona combines her training and her expertise in collaborative design processes to build new programs for social entrepreneurs. She has played a key role in designing and launching youth empowerment incubators across India and is an ace facilitator of the leadership trainings we run across India.
Rukmini Datta
Chief Growth Officer
Rukmini has worked for over 20 years across a large spectrum of India’s social entrepreneurship and development sector. She has nurtured mid and small rural and urban social ventures; created and executed funding and support agendas at Tata Trusts and Cipla Foundation and built capacities of non-profits, especially to strengthen their strategies for scale, documentation of impact and monitoring and evaluation systems.
With a post graduate diploma in rural management from IRMA, Rukmini is passionate about training, communication, and building strategies for sustaining social ventures. She will be launched our operations in Mumbai and is strengthening our growth across the country.
We are recruiting, to know more, click here
FELLOWSHIP
WE RUN AN ACTIVE THREE TO SIX MONTH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMME FOR INDIAN AND INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS AND YOUNG PROFESSIONALS WHO ARE KEEN TO WORK WITH LEADING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS OF INDIA
Our Fellows, quickly become part of projects that take them to the field,
and enable them to problem solve actively with our clients. Fellows also build out new initiatives and processes for Start Up!
Start Up! has hosted Fellows from leading academic institutions of Europe and the US. These include Booth School of
Business (University of Chicago); Stephen M. Ross School of Business (University of Michigan); Fletcher School (Tufts University); Princeton University;
School of International & Public Affairs (Columbia University); University of California, Berkley; HEC School of Management, Paris; and ESSEC, Paris. We recruit Fellows through the year, on a rolling basis.
Click on the arrow to view our fellows
CONTACT US
ADDRESS:
E-89, Top Floor, Kalkaji, New Delhi, 110019
CALL US ON: 011 40540722
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"Start Up! conducted a process evaluation in the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) across Uttar Pradesh. They were quick to develop a sound understanding of our program and devise a long-term scale strategy for us. The Start Up! team is thorough and goes the extra mile to ensure the highest quality output. Most importantly, they continue to extend their support after the closure of the project and do not lose any opportunity to add value. We look forward to working with them in the future."