If you have not met Ravi Narayan, the new Chief Executive Officer of the country’s biggest incubator, T-Hub, earlier, it is easy to miss him at the facility.

He doesn’t have a cabin. He sits ‘somewhere’ out there, among the start-ups housed in the facility. “If I’m not in meetings or travelling, I sit here,” says Ravi Narayan, who pioneered the start-up accelerator space in the country.

Ravi feels there is a need for a fundamental change in the way the start-up ecosystem works. The stakeholders need to interact with another, breaking walls.

He took over as CEO of the incubator from its maiden CEO, Jay Krishnan, about two months ago.

Ravi has helped Microsoft build Accelerator Programmes for China, Israel, Europe, India and the US start-up ecosystems, for later stage start-ups.

Ravi says the focus so far in the country has been on the outcome -- how a start-up has performed. “We all look at the organic outcome from start-ups. It is time we look beyond and focus on the innovation ecosystem,” he points out.

He likens it to a play in a theatre. “The start-up on the stage is like an actor. The audience is the customer. But what we need to understand is there needs to be good background work behind the stage to make the play a success,” he says.

Innovation ecosystem

Ravi says the country needs an innovation ecosystem where important players such as academic institutes, government, investors, corporates and start-ups talk to one another.

“When this happens, it creates demand for human resources, funding and for products from start-ups,” he says.

This is the mandate that he has set for himself in the first phase. “We are going to complete the task of these stakeholders, talking to one another by the year-end,” he says.

When you build a vibrant innovation ecosystem with participation from all players, their innovation quotient rises. When you raise the water level, boats all around are lifted, he points out.

On start-up mortality, he says it is part of life. “It is a given in the start-up world. Trying it out is important. More and more people starting up, more and more funds coming in and more and more corporates buying things from start-ups -- is more important,” he observes.

What should worry us are issues like wrong constitution of founders, not going for the right technology. The larger issues like business models, human resources and technology need to be addressed.

After graduating the first cohort of start-ups, the incubator is getting ready for its second cohort.

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