Changing the ChangeEntrepreneur 2019, is back on July 17-18 in New Delhi. This year promises to be bigger and better as we have a great mix of unicorns, forward thinking CEOs,influencers, YouTubers, investors and celebrities

I am beginning to believe that the start-up world feeds itself on discontent and invariably there are two schools of thoughts on everything that is created. But that is also the reason why start-ups break with conventional thinking at a rapid pace that new and better change is upon us, sometimes even every day. I was recently speaking at Techsauce in Thailand and I came across something quite
similar - start-ups that are working on the most ingenious electric vehicles in the world.

Even some auto giants are tackling the internal combustion engine or ICE from electric bikes to electric cars and logistic trucks in a disruptive fashion. The Indian government, too, has already taken a stand to change 90 per cent of vehicles to EVs in 10 years. Other governments in Asia, too, have a similar stand. Undeniably, EV is the next big start-up boom in the making.

Interestingly though I came across another start-up company that collects and does data analysis on air pollution and its impact. Its honcho suggested that EVs are not 100 percent pollution-free and at best could reduce pollution by 50 per cent less than petrol or diesel cars and that too if solar energy is used to power them. Given this, does it make any sense to change every vehicle on this earth to an EV? Surely, the auto tech industry is in a complete disruption- to- upgradation mode right from Tesla motors to a prototype start-up.

Another observation to be noted is a general shift in startups towards B2B business models. For instance, most electric vehicle start-ups first want to address the B2B market before they step into the B2C market in a significant way. It means that consumers would ride in EV cabs before they ride their own EV automobiles. The same is true for lots of other technologies too like AI and IoT.

The thrust, therefore, on consumer tech is much less than what it used to be two years ago. This would translate into two things – there would be less burn out for start-ups and therefore their possibility of becoming unicorns will be much faster. Secondly, there would be bigger tech-MSME partnerships in the next year or two, which are related to their digital transformation journey.

Our issue focus for this month is on Tomorrow Inc., which is about young entrepreneurs who are joining the family businesses and thinking like first generation start-up owners rather than a third generation family business owner. This mindset is bringing a big change in the business strategy of family-owned businesses. Well-educated and well-exposed, they are leaving the current operations to either their family patrons or existing teams and bringing changes that could be pivotal for a big leap in the next three or four years. We reached out to 20 such young entrepreneurs who are changing the game with their fresh ideas. There are also stories on how Livspace built a $100-million business in less than five years, gig economy, OTT, and a start-up opportunity in biryani, which you cannot miss.

It is also that time of the year when our annual convention, Entrepreneur 2019, is back on July 17-18 in New Delhi. This year promises to be bigger and better as we have a great mix of unicorns, forward thinking CEOs,influencers, YouTubers, investors and celebrities, who would all be coming together to enrich the convention. Also, the highlight of the convention would be the Vertical Roundtables on Autotech, Proptech, Digital Influencers, Family Office Trusts, amongst others. We would also have Start-up Kickoff, where young start-ups could present their businesses to investors and get great ideas from their
peers on building businesses to scale.