His nonprofit Ascent (which provides entrepreneurs with a platform for mentoring and the opportunity to learn from other platforms) is now a decade old. Ascent, which has served 840 entrepreneurs, has a total turnover of 55,000 crore, claims Mariwala. He hopes that over the next 10 years, Ascent will serve over 10,000 entrepreneurs and reach ₹500,000 crore in revenue.

The New Age Entrepreneur

More and more people want to take risks and start a business, says Mariwala. “It’s being driven by successful entrepreneurs who have created unicorns, and that’s inspired a lot of trust.” Unlike in the past, most new-age entrepreneurs, Mariwala says, don’t come from old entrepreneurial families. They don’t just come from big cities either. The biggest surprise for him in recent years has been the entrepreneurial fire of small-town entrepreneurs. “We have entrepreneurs from Srinagar, Cooch Behar, Dharwad, Bhuj and Guwahati. We see significant potential to add many more numbers to the Ascent membership.”

There are far more funding opportunities. “If I come from a non-business family and don’t have any money, there haven’t been too many financing options in the past. Today there are several financing options. There are business angels or banks or private equity or family offices. There is an ecosystem for entrepreneurship that is being built. They also have advisors and advisers to turn to.”

Mariwala expects entrepreneurship to have a multiplier effect over the next 10 years. “If that doesn’t happen, India’s growth story would remain on paper. The world demographic dividend, only an entrepreneur can do all that. The government’s role is to make policy and create infrastructure, not start businesses. The government is leaving a lot of companies and they should be.”