Prime Video’s Mission Start Ab brings a contest of home-grown entrepreneurs on OTT

In India, entrepreneurship’s impact is wide-ranging enough for it to become an OTT series. Prime Video brings Mission Start Ab, featuring entrepreneurs Kunal Bahl (Co-founder of Snapdeal and Titan Capital), Anisha Singh (Founder of She Capital), and Manish Chowdhary (Founder of Wow Skin Science) as judges and mentors.

Produced by Endemol Shine India, the makers of Bigg Boss, the show has collaborated with the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India, to focus on the journeys of ten grassroots-level entrepreneurs.

Masaba Gupta and Cyrus Sahukar host the programme, and Rohit Shetty makes a guest appearance. The show’s format and its sets are structured like a game show—centred on driving home the message of ‘Make in India’ through the ‘Bharat’-based entrepreneurship stories.

After Masaba Masaba on Netflix, Gupta, a fashion designer and entrepreneur, is hosting a show on OTT for the first time.

For those interested, the most attractive part about this show is its judges. As successful entrepreneurs who mentor novice startups, the show gave them a first-hand view of diverse business ideas from India’s various towns and cities.

“India is going through a startup revolution…. Incredibly, this has moved beyond the big metros and permeated the farthest corners of the country. Founders are building businesses with large, nation-scale ambitions… Through this show, we want to disseminate errors and victories, patterns and learnings of other founders… It is not a linear journey, and we want to spread this tribal knowledge (that we have gained) to aspiring founders,” says Bahl.

For Singh, who calls herself a big champion of female founders, it was very cool to meet and interact with several of them through this show.

“These are people who are actually from Bharat and making for Bharat and also for the world. While living in a big city, one hears these stories, but to actually see them unfold in real-time is amazing,” she adds.

Chowdhary points out the fact that how difficult is the zero-to-one journey. “We had 10 amazing founders who have taken this journey; founders from Tier II and III cities and towns who will be easy to relate to. They get lots of insights on their next steps (to grow their businesses).”

“We have incredible simulations that bring a lot of knowledge and use our insights on the show…. I also learnt a lot from these startup founders and their comebacks from failures. It was a reminder of resilience,” he adds.

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From the look of its trailer, Mission Start Ab focuses on the active mentoring of potentially high-impact startups. The mentors have focused on highlighting innovation and smart scalable business ideas that started in less developed places within India.

Meanwhile, Shark Tank India—a franchise of the globally successful Shark Tank—counts on vitiated narratives and hyper-competitive entrepreneurs as mentors to grab eyeballs.

“On this show, you can see a lot of diversity. When I started She Capital, people used to wonder if there were enough female founders. Now, this show will answer that there is enough diversity in the startup ecosystem. They are from Bharat, and they are building something to solve within their region,” says Singh.

Speaking of his experience on the show, Bahl recalled a healthcare startup using technology for better pregnancy health on the show. “These founders are from a remote city, and their journey is so inspiring.”

He believes that the show will motivate investors to look beyond the metros and invest in people who come from diverse backgrounds.

“At Titan Capital, we’ve backed founders from the smallest towns of India who can’t converse in English fluently but are doing a tremendous job. We’ve backed founders who are running grocery stores in Ranchi and have raised capital. Great businesses are being built in all corners of the country by people from all sorts of backgrounds, including some that didn’t go to college,” he adds.

Staying focused on tech-led startups, Chowdhary says, “At my end, you will see a robotics company by young entrepreneurs based out of a Tier II city doing an incredible job. You will see a husband and wife on the show doing very well. You will see a lot of relatable stories of founders.”

Talking about her experience, Singh says the series will have lots of learning and connect with those who aspire to build a business or company on their own.

“At a time of stagnant employment opportunities, income sources, and an evolving job market tried and tested routes to building a career have been questioned by younger Indians, startups, like cinema or music or sports, offer hope of a super-sized success story,” she adds.