Start-Ups in Smaller Cities of India: Ecosystem Challenges and Unique Opportunities

In recent times, India has observed significant entrepreneurial activity. These activities are spearheaded by new-age start-ups driven by break-through ideas, innovations, and technology adoption, on the one hand, and awareness of their context and ecosystem, on the other. Entrepreneurship is well accepted as a socioeconomic phenomenon, and start-up activities are best explained considering their embeddedness in the ecosystem where they operate. Though India is among the leading countries in terms of over-all start-up activities and ecosystem, the growth is not uniformly distributed when it comes to participation by all parts of the country. Although a few pockets have traditionally led the entrepreneurship movement, there is a noticeable increase in the participation of start-ups from the smaller cities and towns in the country’s interior parts. Apart from the regular start-up-related resource constraints, they also have to overcome ecosystem-related challenges in their entrepreneurial journey. The current chapter explores the impact of context, its effect on the growth of start-ups, and the impact of the start-up ecosystem in smaller cities. The purpose of the study is to identify unique strategies adopted by start-ups in facing these challenges.