The success of Silicon Valley is directly linked to the role played by Stanford University. India may not have a Stanford University aiding Indian start-ups, but iSpirt, the software product industry think tank, is bringing some of the building blocks that Stanford gave to the Valley.
iSpirt along with Professors Rishi Krishnan, and Professor Sharique Hasan of Stanford University are working together to bring out a report on the lines of the SPEC study or the Stanford Project of Emerging Companies. As a part of this project, a sample set with 100 companies will be created and these companies will be continuously profiled. The Valley too has such a study wherein almost 200 companies are profiled.
Sharad Sharma, angel investor and co-founder, iSpirt said, “We have borrowed this idea from the Silicon Valley. The idea behind this study is to demystify certain myths that would-be entrepreneurs have. Because we have seen lot of myths within the industry which is leading to bad decisions made by entrepreneurs, by policy makers, and eventually by the ecosystem. Importantly this will also create [a] foundation for authentic data.” The study will also allow policy-makers to identify their efforts in creating hubs for start-ups.
According to Graduate School ofBusiness at Stanford the SPEC data set has proven to be an invaluable intellectual asset used by scholars at Stanford and other leading research institutions to generate an even wider range of research. iSpirt is also trying to achieve the same goal, and it will host its first ‘Research Conference’ in December 2015. “By then we will have our own data where we can get researchers to look at Indian entrepreneurial ecosystems and come out with studies and research papers that will be close to our ecosystem,” said Sharma.
Last updated: December 26th, 2025
