1. Bosses turn Incubators for
Employees
Mature startup founders are increasingly aware that their employees
could be potential entrepreneurs

2. Contd..
When two employees of a cloud telephony startup came up with an
idea for a ready-to-cook food delivery firm, they confided in their boss.
They got his blessings and more. Ambarish Gupta, founder and chief
executive of Knowlarity , took Sanny Chaudhary and Daman Singh Kohli
through the ropes of starting up, helping them launch CookGourment.
The duo continues to bounce off ideas with Gupta while scouting for
funds from angel investors.
In a sign that India's startup industry is maturing fast, founders are
increasingly embracing the likelihood that employees could be
potential entrepreneurs themselves, even incubating them although
they typically do not claim stakes in the new ventures.

3. Contd..
For the employee-entrepreneurs, or `intrapreneurs', this degree of maturity
is a godsend in a high-mortality industry . They get an experienced mentor, a
front seat to the circus of starting up, and easier access to investors, many of
whom refuse to meet new founders without referrals.
“Having been associated with a successful startup works in our favour when
we approach investors as they know that we have been through the process
of challenges, apart from a recall value,“ said Chaudhary of Delhibased
CookGourmet.
“Many startups have come out of Knowlarity ,“ said Gupta, founder of the
cloud-telephony company . “An employee typically tells us two-three months
ahead of breaking out to start their own venture. Since our ideas are IP-
protected, we are not worried about being copied.“ Gupta said he is
mentoring a few other potential startups.

4. Contd..
“We see a lot of startups founded by people who have previously worked
with larger startups. Yu Mist, which we funded last month, was founded by
ex-chief marketing officer of Zomato, Alok Jain,“ said Rehan Yar Khan of Orios
Venture Partners, which invests in tech startups. In 2013, Anand Sinha and
George Abraham, both former country heads of Zomato, cofounded Press
Play , a travel entertainment platform. They recently raised $2.2 million in
seed funding from Sequoia Capital and other investors. Companies such as
Microsoft and Google were among the earliest to encourage employees to
work on independent ideas, so long as the concepts or products did not
compete with their own. Microsoft Garage, started in 2009, is a platform for
employees to date after-hours on independent projects. “Microsoft Garage
has grown into a 10,000-strong Microsoft community of employees, interns
and exams in 36 Garage chapters world wide,“ said Rohit Thakur, head of hu
man resources at Microsoft India.

5. Contd..
While startups such as InMobi have dedicated space for employees to
work on unrelated projects, Rupert Murdoch backed real estate
website PropTiger hosts regular sessions with its tech and product
teams to evaluate ideas it can in corporate. “We are also open to invest
ng and mentoring employees who start heir own venture,“ said Dhruv
Agarwala, cofounder at PropTiger. One such was Sandeep Srinivasa,
former vice president of engineering at PropTiger who cofounded
RedCarpet, a marketing strategy consultant for traditional stores in
offline, online channels.
“As long as you are not doing some hing illegal or unethical, it's best to
come clean,“ said Phanindra Sama, co ounder of the bus ticketing
website that ravel site Ibigo bought two years ago.