Minhaz Anwer is the founder of BetterStories Asia and is a director at Founder Institute. As a mentor and organiser, he has been working for almost seven years to build a sustainable startup ecosystem.  In this conversation, Minhaz Anwar describes the standing of the startup ecosystem in Bangladesh. In addition, it features the opinion the mentor holds about startup incubators and accelerators, missing skills in entrepreneurs and ways in which the lacking can be addressed and more to develop a comprehensive idea about the startup cloud flying around. Joyonto Roy Chowdhury interviewed Minhaz Anwer  recently.  Excerpts of the interview follow:
Question (Q): How much functional do you find the ecosystem today, after your years of effort?
Answer (A): In order to be considered as a mature ecosystem, certain milestone needs to be achieved.  Cultural readiness definitely comes first. The culture in the ecosystem should be accepting failures; it should allow people to take risks. It definitely needs to encourage individuals to start a business in addition to encouraging individuals to be teachers, doctors, professionals or freelancers. There are some developments in terms of how media has been supporting to build the culture– they are covering individuals or events related to start-ups and inspiring the young generation. In that way, many can now relate what a startup is all about, this is indeed a positive progress, but still mindset of the mass, yet does not appreciate one who count startup as a career option, and also does not easily accept one who has failed at a startup.  The already harsh startup ride is made extra harsh by the lack of the ecosystem in terms of legal readiness, human resource readiness and investment readiness. Not only to an individual, a successful startup is a blessing for a country's economy. We have advanced the ecosystem growth but if measured we are standing quite far from calling ours a sustainable ecosystem.
Q: Recently, we have noticed a growth in number of startup incubators and accelerators, what are your views on this?
A: Startup incubators and accelerators are a crucial part of the ecosystem. In fact, they are the ones who directly facilitate entrepreneurs and enterprises with knowledge and finance. Increasing number of incubators and accelerators are a good sign but I believe startups should focus on their business building as the number one job.
Q: What are your views on the patrons of the ecosystem?
A: As patrons, we had few evangelists from the beginning and now there is a lot of players. Government itself is coming up with its own programmes. The government should concentrate on fixing legislative matters that severely interferes several business processes. Corporations as well as universities should actively support the startup ecosystem, in that way we can speed up the growth by introducing more resources into the system. For now, the evangelists are burning their own resources to fuel the ecosystem growth which may not necessarily sustain.
Q: Do you think entrepreneurship is just hype among youth and will fade away with time?
A: No, it is just healthy and organised chaos. Soon the tipping point will come. But no one knows yet when!
Q: You have been working closely with youths of the country, what do you find missing in them?
A: I miss the hunger in many of them. Firstly, they think in short-term, as a result, they misinterpret the results and only after a few weeks of struggle or glory, they let it go. Secondly, the system has only seen the flow of entrepreneurs from the urban area who have a social safety net, so the "do or die" spirit is often absent in them. I hope this spirit will be abundant in entrepreneurs from rural area. We have expanded our operation beyond Dhaka; we hope to find the most indomitable spirits there soon. Simultaneously, distraction by glory has taken down many startups as well. When they show a glimpse of success instead of improving or scaling their innovation they become so absorbed in celebration that in the noise they lose focus and the startup dies. Surviving the early celebration is also a skill that young minds need to instill in them.   
Q: What would be your advice for the young minds?  
A: I would like them to be more humble, hungry and honest. This combination is a success secret. If you are humble, you get to learn, if you are hungry you will be aggressive about finding opportunities and work on problems that are more relevant and come up with solutions that are more impactful. Lastly if you are honest with your efforts and committed for the long haul you always deliver the best. They should learn to embrace failure and embrace the one who keep on trying till failing.
The interviewee Minhaz Anwer can be
contacted at minhaz@betterstories.asia.
The interviewer Joyonto Roy Chowdhury
is a third year BBA student at
North South University,
joyonto.rc@gmail.com [Read More]

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Source: The Financial Express