Let us say, a startup receives funding and does all the things mentioned above (hiring a PR agency etc), their success would still ultimately depend on the quality of their product, and not on out of the box thinking. This holds true for an unfunded startup too. So the failure of many funded startups cannot be attributed solely to the lack of innovative thinking.

Of course, there is a big factor that determines whether funding will eventually mean success- How important is brand recognition in their business? And the second question- How important is high traffic to the website? If both factors are important, then PR and marketing becomes more important than out-of-the-box thinking. After all, money makes the mare go and it is very tough to market your brand on a zero dollar budget. For instance, it would be impossible to market a website like Big Adda on a shoestring budget.

Of course, it is not enough to get eyeballs on the website. If visitors don’t keep coming, the initial investment serves no purpose. It is here that innovative thinking and quality of the product play a big role. And here is where most startups falter after they receive funding- new positions, bureaucracy, red tape and so on. As you have rightly pointed out, innovation and resourcefulness get diluted along the way.

Before I wrap up, I also wish to add that sometimes, out of the box thinking is overrated. Take the example of Craigslist. They have a concept and they work around it. Not much has changed on Craigslist for a long time and according to some recent interviews, not much will change, as long as the market stays the same.

I will sum up and say- Whether your startup will benefit from funding or not would depend on your business model. But once you receive funding, success will hinge on effective utilization of resources and future strategy, which does not necessarily have to involve out of the box thinking:)

Poor/unfunded will certainly learn a lot from their constant struggle with

limited resources, and If they could fetch value out of that would be

more glorious…..

Haven’t you heard of Garage startups !!!

Since we didn’t have it we were forced to explore partnerships with leading publishers, and we managed to get some. Also ended up developing system to aggregate educational content from the web. Not only it saved all that money (which we never had anyways) but more importantly several months of our time.

Resource constraints also make us think about alternate versions of the product which can be made and sold faster. All this is probably overlooked if a lot of money is already available.

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