Anupam Mittal, a judge on Shark Tank India, recently shared insights on how the show has influenced the perception of entrepreneurship in India. He highlighted that the show, which debuted in December 2021 during the peak of the startup craze, played a crucial role in demystifying startups and funding.
In an interview with Business Insider, Mittal, the founder and CEO of Shaadi.com, said Shark Tank India has played an amazing role in celebrating entrepreneurship and the startup ecosystem.
What amazed him during the show was that none of the pitchers were from IIT and IIM. “What I found amazing was that the companies that came to the show were not the elites who came from IIT or IIM,” he said.
“These are small businesses founded by housewives and family members. Entrepreneurship is not the reserve of the few,” he said, adding that the next decade will be defined by Indian entrepreneurs globally and so there is no better time to be an entrepreneur than now. “Shark Tank has put belief in every Indian that they can do it and that changes the game.”
Mittal said that many of the founders who come to Shark Tank can do even better than the founders who have come from an IIT or an IIM. “I believe that these people understand commerce and ‘dhandha’. The elitist founders are used to being served everything on a platter,” he said.
“Many professionals who come out of large companies or consulting firms cannot start without large funding. Out of the 100 unicorns we have, many will spectacularly fail in 2024 as they were built on the wrong foundations,” he said.
“These companies were built on a template of Ivy League founders and old-school networks and so they got funded.”
