Dear PM Modi, entrepreneurs have spoken! Here’s what they want from Start-up India, Stand-up India

We at YourStory are deeply grateful to each and every one of you who took time out to fill our Startup India, Standup India survey. People are often enthusiastic about questioning, challenging, and complaining but tend to shy away from actively participating. Your passionate and overwhelming responses and feedback have reaffirmed our faith in startups and in the future of India.

Startups in India have spoken – here’s what they have demanded.

We heard from over 2,200 entrepreneurs about their concerns and what they hope the current government will improve and change.

What has been a regular narrative over the past few years among startups has emerged clearly in our survey. It didn’t come as a surprise that the biggest problem that startups want the Prime Minister to address in his initiative is to make regulatory compliance norms easier. This concern accounted for as much as thirty percent of responses. Clearly, startups need help in making filings, compliance, norms, etc. a lot easier.

The second-biggest concern that emerged was the relaxation of existing tax laws, which accounted for 25 percent of responses. The levy of taxes by both the central and state government is clearly hampering the ease of doing business for startups.

Next came access and support to funding, with 16% of responses identifying resource constraints as the chief impediment to doing business(e.g. lack of incubation spaces, mentorship).

About 8 percent of responses accounted for additional issues like bridging the gap between academics and training for setting up an enterprise, access to guidance from industry leaders, opportunities for incubation and exposure to colleges outside the IIT/IIM network.

Here’s are some of the comments that startups sent our way, which we wanted to highlight (in no particular order).