Startup Funding: Expert suggests 4 ways that startups can adapt to survive ongoing funding winter

India, the world's third-largest startup market has seen significant innovation from founders over the last decade with category-defining companies emerging from the country. But in line with the rest of the world, Indian startups have been navigating choppy waters due to the ongoing funding winter, thereby pushing founders to make deep corrections in the way businesses are being built and scaled. 

Jitin Bhasin, CEO and Founder of SaveIN, informs, "Venture capital investments in India dropped sharply from $42 billion in the year 2021 to $11 billion in 2023. While green shoots have begun to emerge in certain segments, the year 2024 is expected to be tough and discerning for Indian startups putting in focus the ability of founders to survive and thrive in this revised economic environment." 

He belives that as funding becomes scarce, startup founders need to become increasingly resourceful to ensure that their businesses remain alive and at the same time, "demonstrate appreciable growth in metrices that are important for the health and long terms prospects of their businesses." 

Here are strategies suggested by CEO and Founder of SaveIN that can prove to be extremely useful for startup founders —

Focus on revenue: The best form of funding
At a time when investors have become increasingly demanding about revenue thresholds and associated valuation multiples, he says startups need to shift their focus towards generating and growing revenue. "This often entails revisiting core business models and exploring new monetization strategies to ensure that customers are genuinely willing to pay for the product or service offered by a company. This may need hard course corrections and, in some cases, complete pivots, to achieve Product-Market fit, but such actions would ensure that startups move towards being “Default Alive” as against burning endless amount of cash," he adds. It can always be argued that not all businesses generate revenues in initial stages, but that discretion is to be applied by founders basis their own conviction, cash runway and market sentiment about overall business. 

Cost optimization: The cornerstone of survival
During times of exuberance, when investor money was available in abundance, founders were guilty of chasing growth at any cost, leading to extremely heavy fixed and variable cost structures and thereby unviable business propositions. However, in times like these, where a complete reset is underway in the startup and venture capital world, Bhasin says it is imperative for founders to "prioritize financial prudence, set clear fixed and variable expenses, identify essential expenses and be realistic about customer acquisition versus lifetime value computations to conserve capital and extend their runway." He enightens that learning from the mistakes of other startups in this regard can prove to be priceless for founders. 

Leverage technology: Enhance efficiency and nimble decision making
In order to streamline operations, optimize workforce and enhance availability of relevant data, Bhasin says that founders need to make efficient use of technology early in their businesses. "Use of business intelligence tools, providing deep insights into various legs of the customer journey and monetization cycle, can go a long way in enabling informed and quick business decisions, often leading to superior efficiencies," he adds. 

Building resilience among teams: The secret sauce
The most important asset of a startup, he says, is that its employees and founders must prioritize establishing unambiguous and consistent communication with the entire workforce to ensure that everyone is adequately informed and motivated to pursue stated business objectives, while appreciating the resources at hand and overall market conditions. "This can prove to be a secret weapon that founders can build to deliver unprecedented return on individual efforts thereby creating a compound impact through the organization," he avers.

On the flipside, the CEO and Founder of SaveIN believes that the ongoing funding winter is possibly the best thing to have happened to new age startups. "This is because founders and teams will not only be able to learn from the mistakes of the past, but they are being forced to adopt fundamentally sustainable business principles, early in their journeys thereby laying the groundwork for exceptional companies to emerge in future," he sums up saying.