Google announces Startup School for tier 2 and 3 cities in India

Google has announced Startup School India for enabling 10,000 startups in tier II and tier III cities in the country with the bounty of knowledge which the start-up community in India has garnered over the years. 

The nine-week program, delivered virtually, will 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 and networking, job search and many more,” the search giant said in a blogpost. 

Startups are no longer confined to ‘A’ class cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai or Hyderabad, the startup phenomena is well expanding to smaller tier cities.

India has multitudes of fast-growing startups headquartered in centres such as Jaipur, Indore, Gorakhpur and more. In fact, these account for nearly 50% of all recognised startups in India today.

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, it said.

According to the blogpost, the curriculum will feature instructional modules on subjects like shaping an effective product strategy, deep dives on product user value, roadmapping & PRD development, building apps for Next Billion Users in markets like India, driving user acquisition and many more.

Googles mentions that there will also be opportunities for founders to gain orthogonal insights from discussions around what makes an effective founder, formalising 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 in an official statement.