Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v3si1.1
Year: 2025, Volume: 3, Issue: Special Issue 1, Pages: 1-6
Original Article
Vineeta Dwivedi 1, Janakiraman Moorthy 2
1 Associate Professor in the Organisation and Leadership Studies department at SPJIMR.
2 Professor in the Marketing department and Dean, Academics, and Research at SPJIMR.
Correspondence
[email protected]
[email protected]
Received Date:09 September 2024, Accepted Date:23 May 2025, Published Date:30 June 2025
The global fintech business is a hive of innovation and expansion, despite declining funding and revenue multiples and some depressing years.1 The success rate of fintech startups is low, with India experiencing a downward trend as well. 2,3 India has immense potential - projected to be a US$2.1 trillion market by 2030 - but the rate of new fintech startup incorporations is declining.4 This raises the question: Is fear of failure discouraging new entrants? Fintech is a broad industry encompassing various financial verticals, each operating within unique business environments and consumer markets. A key determinant of success or failure is how entrepreneurs perceive and act upon opportunities. In their research article, Ramoglou and McMullen explain how entrepreneurs can create dynamic possibilities through innovative actions and strategic alignment instead of waiting for opportunities that exist 'out there'.5 They propose a framework for effectuating opportunities, emphasising that entrepreneurial success stems from active engagement rather than passive discovery. Given India's vast potential and the need to expand access to financial services to even the most unreached segments of society, understanding and applying this framework could redefine how fintech startups approach innovation and success.
1 Deepak Goyal, 'Global Fintech 2024: Prudence, Profits and Growth', BCG Global, 25 June 2024, https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/global-fintechprudence-profits-and-growth
2 Lisa Barz, Sarasimone Lindeque, and Jonas Hedman, 'Critical Success Factors in the FinTech World: A Stage Model', Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 60 (1 July 2023): 101280, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2023.101280.
3 Alka Jain, 'Indian Fintech Funding Slumps Nearly Two-Third in 2023', Mint, 5 January 2024, https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/indian-fintechfunding-slumps-nearly-two-third-in-2023-will-india-emerge-asglobal-fintech-powerhouse-11704444297387.html
4 PwC and ASSOCHAM, 'FinTech – Powering India's USD 5 Trillion Economy by Fostering Innovations, Enabling Inclusion and Building a Sustainable Future', 2024, https://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/industries/powering-indiasusd-5-trillion-economy-by-fostering-innovations.pdf.
5 Stratos Ramoglou and Jeffery S. McMullen, 'What Is an Opportunity?”: From Theoretical Mystification to Everyday Understanding', Academy of Management Review 49, no. 2 (April 2024): 273–98, https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.2020.0335
6 Tom Eisenmann, 'Why Start-Ups Fail', Harvard Business Review, June 2021, https://hbr.org/2021/05/why-start-ups-fail.
7 Mike Yon, '40+ Startup Failure Statistics For 2025', 17 January 2024, https://growthlist.co/startup-failure-statistics/.
8 Sergei Vardomatski, 'Why IT Startups Fail: Reasons, Trends And Solutions', Forbes, 2 May 2023, https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/02/why-it-startups-fail-reasons-trends-and-solutions/
9 Counsel India, '"The Percentage of Startups Failing in India', n.d., https://www.counselindia.com/blog-detail/the-percentage-ofstartups-failing-in-india-
10 Niketan Sharma, 'Why Fintech Startups Fail: Insights from Notable Startup Collapses', Nimbleappgenie (blog), 23 May 2025, https://www.nimbleappgenie.com/blogs/why-fintech-startupsfail/.
11 Incorporated in 2023 than in 2021: Report', Business Standard, 20 February 2024, https://www.businessstandard.com/companies/start-ups/72-fewer-indian-fintechstartups-incorporated-in-2023-than-in-2021-report-124022000376_1.html
12 'How Does PolicyBazaar Work?', Canvas Business Model, 2 October 2024, https://canvasbusinessmodel.com/blogs/how-itworks/policybazaar-how-it-works
13 'Fintechs: A New Paradigm of Growth', Mckinsey Insights (McKinsey & Company, 24 October 2023), https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/ourinsights/fintechs-a-new-paradigm-of-growth
14 Ayush Singh Rawat, 'The Success Story of PayPal', 16 February 2021, https://www.analyticssteps.com/blogs/success-storypaypal.
15 Moulishree Srivastava, 'A Brief History of Reliance's Digital Venture, Jio Platforms', KrASIA, 25 August 2020, https://krasia.com/a-brief-history-of-reliances-digital-venture-jioplatforms
16 Prateek Singh, 'The Resounding Success of UPI in India: A Revolution in Digital Payments', Medium, Digital Diplomacy (blog), 4 November 2023, https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/theresounding-success-of-upi-in-india-a-revolution-in-digitalpayments- 79c31a78fb8d
17 Rory Cellan-Jones, 'Powa: The Start-up That Fell to Earth', BBC News, 21 March 2016, sec. Technology, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35860814.
18 Santiago Carbó-Valverde, Pedro J. Cuadros-Solas, and Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández, 'Entrepreneurial, Institutional and Financial Strategies for FinTech Profitability', Financial Innovation 8, no. 1 (10 February 2022): 15, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40854-021- 00325-2.
19 Dimo Dimov, 'Nascent Entrepreneurs and Venture Emergence: Opportunity Confidence, Human Capital, and Early Planning', Journal of Management Studies 47, no. 6 (2010): 1123–53, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00874.x.
© 2025 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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