Google launches new school to mentor over 10,000 non-metro Indian startups

According to Google, 90 percent of all companies fail within the first five years. Google Startup School intends to assist India’s tens of thousands of entrepreneurs in overcoming their growth pains.

Google introduced the Startup School in India on Wednesday as part of its Startup Initiative, which aims to mentor over 10,000 businesses in Tier 2 and Tier 3 locations. The Startup School intends to assist India’s tens of thousands of companies in overcoming their growth pains.

As more companies and enterprises sprout up around the country, Google sees a need for programs that can integrate this expertise into a structured curriculum and disseminate it across a broad footprint. 

According to Google, India has over 70,000 businesses, however 90% of all firms fail during the first five years of their journey for the same reasons – uncontrolled capital burn, faulty demand estimation, inadequate feedback loops, or a lack of leadership.

“We have a plethora of fast-growing businesses headquartered in cities like Jaipur, Indore, Gorakhpur, and others.”

In fact, these constitute roughly half of all recognized startups in India today,” Google stated.

The 9-week virtual program will include discussions with Google leaders and collaborators from throughout the startup ecosystem, including fintech, D2C, B2B and B2C e-commerce, language, social media and networking, job hunting, and many more. 

The curriculum will include instructional modules on topics such as developing an effective product strategy, delving into product user value, roadmapping and PRD development, designing apps for Next Billion Users in places such as India, driving user acquisition, and others.

There will also be conversations about what makes a great founder, formalizing recruiting, and other topics that founders may learn from.

The program, aimed at early-stage founders with a minimum viable product, offers the flexibility of a virtual curriculum and allows registrants to pick and choose whatever courses they want to attend.