Before Startups Build Big, They Fight the System

We keep telling founders to “build bigger”. Think global. Create deep tech. Change the world. But very few conversations start where the journey actually begins. Not with ideas or investors, but with files, forms, and follow-ups that drain energy before the first customer even exists.

A founder registers a company with excitement. Very quickly, that excitement turns into fatigue. The builder becomes a file chaser. A signature seeker. Someone waiting endlessly for approvals that are supposed to be routine. Forty-five days pass. An application gets rejected. No clear reason is given. An RTI is filed, not to seek justice, but simply to understand what went wrong. This all happens before revenue, before scale, before risk-taking in the real sense.

This is the unseen tax on entrepreneurship in India. It is not financial alone. It is emotional and mental. Time that should be spent building products and speaking to customers is consumed by explaining existence to a system that does not trust by default. Each delay quietly eats into confidence, cash flow, and momentum.

Then we ask uncomfortable questions. Why are Indian startups not building rockets or advanced technology at scale? Why do so many stick to familiar business models like food, logistics, or delivery? The answer is rarely a lack of ambition. Innovation slows down when founders are forced to survive paperwork before they can even start solving real problems. You cannot build the future while proving every day that you deserve to operate in the present.

Founders are not afraid of risk. They leave stable jobs, invest personal savings, and face uncertainty head-on. What exhausts them is a system that behaves like a gatekeeper instead of a partner. A system that moves slowly but expects founders to respond instantly. A system that treats compliance as control rather than enablement.

This friction has long-term consequences. It delays entry into the market, increases early-stage burn, and filters out capable entrepreneurs who simply run out of patience or resources. Many ideas never fail in the market. They fail at the starting line.

If India genuinely wants innovation-led growth, the focus must shift to the first mile of entrepreneurship. Ease of doing business should not remain a dashboard metric or a policy slogan. It must be felt in the first interaction, the first approval, and the first response. Founders should spend their early days talking to users, not offices.

The takeaway is clear. Founders must recognise that this struggle is systemic and not a reflection of their capability. Planning for time delays, seeking professional support early, and protecting mental bandwidth is as important as building the product itself. For policymakers and ecosystem players, listening to these early-stage realities is critical. Fixing the first mile will unlock more innovation than any incentive scheme ever can.

If this feels painfully real, it is because it is. Many founders are living this story quietly. Sharing it matters. Someone else out there needs to know they are not alone, and that the problem is not their dream, but the path they are forced to walk.