A founders’ mafia is born in India

Rahul Yadav.

This post might as well end here with just the mention of the Indian startup ecosystem’s “spoiled brat”. The name paints the entire picture. The drama, the name calling, sometimes sensational and on-the-fly reporting of events surrounding him (including from the writer of this post), and the overall narrative focusing on whether Yadav is indeed a startup rockstar India needs, deserves. All that, and much more. This post however, is not about any of these (sigh).

Maverick does not mean a person lacking in manners, is what i wrote here in The Economic Times

Much of that still continues, including this post from Sumanth Raghavendra that went live on Medium just yesterday.

After Yadav, one of the cofounders and the CEO of real estate portal Housing.com, started a series of outbursts – first against the all-powerful Sequoia – and later against the board of his company, a massive debate swept over, and divided the Indian startup ecosystem.

When Yadav was fired unceremoniously from Housing.com, a bunch of high profile founders of India’s biggest new age companies – Flipkart, Paytm and InMobi – started backing him quietly.

Yadav found a new home and powerful mentors in Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal and Naveen Tewari.

“Everybody makes mistakes, and entrepreneurship is about realising those mistakes, learning from them,” one of these founders told me over the weekend. “He (Yadav) is a bright talent, end of the matter.”

This coming together of the founders of India’s biggest and fiercely competitive ecommerce rivals is to me an important milestone for the country’s fast growing and nascent startup ecosystem.

This is the birth of India’s first founders’ mafia – a bunch of accomplished entrepreneurs coming together to not just offer their money, but more importantly, embrace an outcast rookie founder to make a timely statement.

It’s quite a statement because Yadav had taken on two of the most high profile and powerful investors in this part of the world – Sequoia and SoftBank.

For good or bad reasons, the David versus Goliath narrative went mainstream. The narrative smelled of rebellion, soaked in Yadav’s trademark boorish tone.

And perhaps that explains why so many wannabe and early entrepreneurs, not to mention startup employees who whistle every time Yadav takes stage, think of him as an entrepreneurial rockstar. Rockstars are mortals too, and they make mistakes, they fall down from the glorious pedestals.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong in falling down. But it’s really heartening to see that some of India’s most high profile founders are taking over the guardian role, more like the custodians of protecting the very intrinsic elements of entrepreneurship. Failing, screwing things up, getting swayed away by early success, money and heroics are as much intrinsic to entrepreneurial journeys as the the glories of it.

So what does this mean for entrepreneurship in India? A lot actually.

Next year is expected to be a sobering year after several years of scorching growth for Indian startups. There will be failures, there will be layoffs, there will be down rounds and write offs.

Like the wise men say, great entrepreneurs will see their ideas fail, but they will keep at it and make it big eventually. As entrepreneurs make mistakes and fail, a strong founders’ mafia becomes an important piece in the ecosystem. Because founders will empathise better with failed ideas, rookie mistakes. And this group of “guardian founders” will bring empathy and real motivation, beyond just cash and connections.

Globally, “the PayPal mafia” has been looked upon as as bunch of founders who are not just serial entrepreneurs, but who also support newer founders.

Good to see some camaraderie, some fun and some rebellion around here, in a nascent ecosystem.

Welcome to the founders’ mafia, now playing in India.

Godspeed.