In 2005, 24-year-old Ashish Kumar made a choice that seemed almost irrational at the time. He ended up working in Microsoft in the US and returned to India to build his own business. Entrepreneurship was neither celebrated nor widely respected back then. To many around him, he seemed to be giving up everything he had worked for – an IIT degree, a coveted global job and a stable career.
About a decade and a half later, that perception began to change.
In 2019, 25-year-old Abhinav Singh experienced a quieter kind of failure. His startup, Colorpur, a platform that allowed graphic designers to upload designs for production, was shutting down. She didn’t collapse dramatically; it just couldn’t scale. Still, as he packed up his office, Singh felt something unexpected: optimism.
“Being a founder is a lot cooler now,” he told Livemint. “Earlier, starting a start-up was even considered a red flag when getting married. But the key shift is that failure no longer defines you.”
Singh’s experience reflects a broader cultural shift in India’s startup ecosystem. For years, failure carried a heavy stigma. This was often seen as a sign of poor judgment by parents, peers, and society in general. Today, it is increasingly accepted as part of the journey.
One clear sign of this change is the growing openness about business closures. Founders now publicly admit that their ideas don’t work, often returning capital to investors and explaining what went wrong. This level of transparency would have been rare in the past. More importantly, many are willing to try again, taking failure not as an end point but as a learning curve.
Notable examples have helped shape this story. Naveen Tiwari, Founder InMobi saw four ventures fail before building its fifth into one of India’s first unicorns. Stories like his have helped normalize the idea that success often follows many failures.
Almost 49% of unicorn founders in India are repeat entrepreneurs. A growing number of people are re-entering the ecosystem and are willing to risk capital and credibility on new ideas.
Some of these second innings are high profile. Kunal Shah, who sold FreeCharge for $400 million in 2015, is back with CRED. Similarly, after leaving Flipkart following its sale to Walmart, Sachin Bansal founded financial services company Navi.
“We have seen more than 40 founders with previous successes build new businesses and succeed again,” Yagnesh Sanghrajka of 247VC told Livemint.
Release of funds
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The cultural shift was supported by structural changes. Greater access to capital and deeper internet penetration have made business more viable than before. India has over 500,000 startups today, a sharp increase from around 500 in 2016. Annual funding has grown from $5.2 billion in 2016 to $12.7 billion in 2025, according to Tracxn.
The scale of this expansion reflects not just more capital, but a maturing ecosystem where ideas are tested more often and failure is absorbed as part of the process.
The development of capital was not limited to private markets. Public markets have also adapted. For years, profitability was considered the ultimate benchmark. Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) banned loss-making firms from listing, reflecting a market that favored dividends over growth.
That changed in 2021 when Sebi has allowed new technology companies, often unprofitable but backed by strong investors, to go public. The turning point was listing on Zomate. It has drawn millions of early investors into the startup ecosystem, signaling a shift toward valuing scale, data, and long-term potential.
Since then, more than a dozen such companies have gone public, reflecting how both regulators and investors are adapting.
Wealth creation within startups has also become visible. According to TheKredible, more than 100 startups have implemented ESOP repurchase and liquidity programs worth about $1.7 billion between 2020 and 2025.
Employee stock ownership plans played a key role in changing perceptions. By giving employees a stake in the company, startups have made taking risks more attractive. Stories of employees who became millionaires following an IPO or buyback helped change attitudes.
“People started hearing about employees becoming overnight millionaires through ESOPs when their companies scaled up or went public. Suddenly, working at a startup didn’t seem risky anymore,” Arun Nair, an expert on the startup industry, told Livemint.
Going mainstream
As funding increased and successes multiplied, the business moved into the cultural mainstream.
Television, books and popular media played a key role. It shows how Shark Tank India has made entrepreneurship more relatable, bringing founders’ journeys into living rooms across the country.
“When you see a 12-year-old boy pitching a bicycle idea or a 65-year-old woman selling organic products, it shows why business success in India can no longer be defined by age, city or titles,” Kashish Mittal, co-founder of Disha AI, told Livemint.
Entrepreneurs are also becoming part of mainstream entertainment. Comedians like Kapil Sharma feature the founders in their shows, while business leaders like NR Narayana Murthy and Vijay Shekhar Sharma are increasingly visible in public discourse.
Publishing followed suit. Books such as Big billion dollar startup and Doglapan have seen strong demand, with startup stories often outselling typical nonfiction titles.
“The moment the Flipkart book hit the market, the demand was immediate, there was no need to push it,” Anish Chandy of Labyrinth Literary Agency told Livemint. “We pitched it as an Indian version of the social network and the screen rights were sold before it went public.”
This visibility normalized not only start-ups, but also work in startups. As a result, mid-career professionals are increasingly making the shift.
Sameer Dhanrajani, managing director of AIQRATE and 3AI, pointed out the contrast. Corporate life, he said, offers a title, salary and comfort, while start-ups demand to do everything. The internal pressure, he added, was simple: if he didn’t try then, he might never.
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Another sign of maturity is the rise of founder networks or “mafias,” groups of former employees who go on to build companies. The concept comes from the PayPal mafia in the US. India now sees its own versions, including “Flipkart Mafia”, “Zoho Mafia” and “Zomato Mafia”.
The demographic dividend
The shift is perhaps most visible among younger Indians.
For 16-year-old Adithyan T, a class 11 student in Bengaluru, exams are no longer the only measure of success. On his phone is a prototype app, a peer-to-peer platform for students to exchange textbooks. He talks fluently about “user acquisition” and “early traction,” concepts gleaned from tracking Shark Tank India.
“I watched it with my parents and thought, why not me,” he says. “Getting into an IIT is about proving yourself in an exam. Starting a business is about proving yourself to the world.”
Younger founders are also appearing. Thirteen-year-old Rishaan Sindhwani has already launched Optimize Site, a website development business.
