Google launches Startup School India to support early-stage startup founders

Google today announced Startup School India - a 9-week program designed to equip early-stage startup founders with the tools, products, and knowledge that growing companies need.

"With close to 70,000 startups, India is the third-largest birthing ground for startups in the world. And as more Indian founders lead their companies successfully to IPOs or unicorn status, it has set off a virtuous cycle wherein their success has ignited aspirations among young Indians across the length and breadth of the country," Google said.

"Over the last twenty years, and especially in the last decade, Indian entrepreneurs have garnered a wealth of institutional knowledge, through which they've made the entrepreneurial journey a less lonely one for future founders. A defining tradition of the community has been knowledge sharing, which helps the whole community learn faster, avoid known pitfalls and borrow useful growth hacks."

The Startup School India program will be delivered virtually and feature fireside chats between Google leaders and trailblazing collaborators from across the startup ecosystem spanning fintech, D2C, B2B and B2C e-commerce, language, social media & networking, job search and many more.

The curriculum will feature instructional modules on subjects like shaping an effective product strategy, deep dives on product user value, road mapping & PRD development, building apps for Next Billion Users in markets like India, driving user acquisition and many more. Founders will also get opportunities to gain orthogonal insights from discussions around what makes an effective founder, formalizing hiring and more.

"Startup School is an excellent initiative to reach founders at scale in India. As more young, tech-savvy founders start to build their businesses, it's important that the fundamentals of company-building are well thought out so that founders can build for the long-term," said Gayatri Yadav, Chief Marketing Officer, Sequoia India and Southeast Asia.

The inaugural edition of Google Startup School India kicked off today, July 6, 2022. The program aims to onboard 10,000 startups in tier 2 and tier 3 cities in the inaugural edition.