What can you learn from these failed start-ups?

In India, failure isn't worn proudly like a badge as it is in a more mature start-up ecosystem like Silicon Valley, finds Tech in Asia

Learn from your mistakes. Even better, learn from others’ mistakes. This is an oft-repeated piece of advice to start-ups, but it’s easier said than done.

2015 is a watershed year for India, with over $8 billion of venture capital funding expected before the year’s out – 50% higher than last year. This rush to invest in the newest El Dorado of tech startups has created its fair share of irrational exuberance, as half-baked business models and a plethora of copycats have got VC backing with scant attention to ground realities.

As the following 11 examples illustrate, there’s as much to be learned from a failure as from a success.

 

Dazo

Golden investors and bona fide founder certification still couldn’t save this one. The Google India MD, the Amazon India country manager, the FreeCharge CEO, and the founders of CommonFloor, TaxiForSure, and Yo China were all investors in this food startup. Its founder, Shashank Kumar Singhal, was the mobile product head for India’s first bus ticketing site RedBus, who had qualified from the prestigious Indian School of Business. His co-founder Monica Rastogi was equally well qualified. And yet, it had to shut down in October within a year of launching.
 

The start-up began as an internet kitchen with its own chefs and reliable partners serving a few localities in Bengaluru. But soon the pressure to scale up made it pivot into an aggregator of restaurants as it focused on the tech at the cusp of food and logistics. This made it dependent, however, on many restaurant partners whose food quality and delivery efficiency were beyond its control.

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This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.