The process of evolution in startups from T-20 to One-day to Test format

Monday October 03, 2016 , 2 min Read

In a talk at Techsparks 2016, Naveen Tewari, Founder and CEO, InMobi, provided us a deep insight into the evolution of startups.

“There are a lot of similarities between cricket and startups in the evolution process. While the transition process of cricket is from Test format to T-20, the latter transforms from the T-20 format to that of Tests,” says Naveen.

Putting things in perspective, he adds that over the course of a startup’s journey, its growth will see it evolve from one stage to another. In its early stage (T-20 format), a startup can afford to conduct experiments, introduce new products, carry out many launches and so on. That’s the very fast game for the business.

However, when a startup graduates from the early stage to the mid-stage of its journey (from T-20 to one-day format), the business game becomes more serious. The pace of the business has to decrease.

And the last stage in a startup’s course bears a similarity to the Test format in cricket. Now, the game format has completely changed; there are different rules, the team changes, and what has long been the status quo of the business can no longer be maintained.

“The most interesting part of the transition that is observed in the life of startups is that there is no announcement of the format change. Startups have to figure this out on their own,” says Naveen.

He advises startups to be agile and observant of these transitions. With continuous growth, startups need to change their policies and evolve with the change of format they experience.

“We have gone through this period, and I am advising startups on the experience I gained through the nine-year-journey of InMobi. The condition for a startup to be successful is to evolve itself day by day and never stop in this journey,” says Naveen.

A big shoutout to all our sponsors – Zendesk, Axis Bank, Sequoia Capital India Advisors , Digital Ocean, Microsoft, AWS, Akamai, Target, Verisign, Kerala Startup Mission, Brand Launch Centre, Tork and Blink.