Telangana to help failed start-up founders change course

State to award 'entrepreneur-in-residence' certificates to founders who want to explore alternative opportunities

Telangana government is contemplating awarding entrepreneur-in-residence (or EIR) certificates to those start-up founders who try but fail to continue on their entrepreneurial journey and want to explore other alternative opportunities, including a job.

An EIR is a temporary position at a venture capital (VC) company. An EIR, usually on a sabbatical, works with VC firms to nurture a big idea, with the primary goal of creating the next company that the VC firm will fund.

All that an EIR certificate states is that the entrepreneurs tried their best to convert their ideas into execution, but without success. It will fill the gap in the entrepreneurs' career journey and help strengthen their resume when they go for a job.

The state government would like to make a suggestion about it in its soon-to-be launched IT policy, said Jayesh Ranjan, IT secretary to the Telangana government.

Ranjan, however, said that the EIR certificates would be issued only to the start-ups at the T-Hub, an incubation initiative by the Telangana government to support technology-enabled start-ups.

The first phase of T-Hub, a 70,000-sft building called Catalyst created on the IIIT-Hyderabad campus, currently has the capacity to house around 300 start-ups.

"All those who get into the start-up ecosystem with an idea may not be able to successfully turn that into a profitable company. There may be some pitfalls. If any start-up founders at T-Hub, at any stage, want to stop their entrepreneurial journey and go back to a job or alternative employment, the government will go to their rescue by issuing an EIR certificate," he added.

EIRs are being hired to bring the entrepreneurial perspective to corporate executives who may not truly know about entrepreneurship. EIR is already a new job title in the tech community. It is a win-win for both start-ups and large businesses houses, according to him.

Stating that his department and the T-Hub enjoy competitive advantage in some verticals like IT, animation, gaming, defence and aerospace, Ranjan appealed to Spark10, India's first European start-up accelerator launched in Hyderabad on Tuesday, to support these niche areas and work in tandem with the T-Hub.