Disclaimer : I have been a founder of a failed startup Patterbuzz. And this blog of mine used to be a full fledge company about 9 months ago. Now, I head the Product Management of a well funded startup.

Why the Disclaimer first ? for a simple reason that I have been through the journey of a startup, running it successfully for more than 2 years, raising seed money, getting traction and then, shutting down for inability to raise next larger round of funding. I feel that I am enough qualified to write about the start up media as I have been and also, now associated with startups.

There was a time (a few years ago) when Economic Times used to cover Reliance and ONGC on almost every alternate page. It talked really about economics. Now, if you pick up the same newspaper, it publishes either about startups fundings or startup firings on every alternate page.

Now, Newspapers are a big deal for any business, but then there are blogs of every kind who talk about startups. They are announcing startup fundings, firings, or may be doing some unconventional investigative journalism of uncovering so called startup underbelly. It seems that these blogs of start up media companies have taken a clue from news channels / news papers that breaking news will make things work for them.

Breaking News Syndrome has hit the startup media badly.

What is my problem then ? It is actually very simple. I draw a very simple comparison of these blogs (so called media houses) with the mainstream news channels. Both try to draw eyeballs a.k.a. visitors. Both of them are writing about companies without verifying the facts. “Hey, Internet is all about freedom of speech. Let me exercise my right.” but no one worries about creating a hysteria around startups.

The problem with this kind of media is it misinforms people by making entrepreneurship look cool. It makes people feel as if it is the latest fad and “in” thing. In the name of ecosystem, Media blows up the huge trumpet and get the incubators and accelerators rolling.

These so called media companies are organising events (of course for a hefty fee and sponsorships) promoting these institutes which will produce entrepreneurs at a faster rate than the population of India.

Some of the blogs maintain a bit of decency but then, there are Arnab Goswami kind of blogs who find that everyone who is successful is negative and whoso ever is struggling is wasting their time. You will find the startup media discussing Rahul Yadav (ex-CEO of Housing.com) more than a success story of a small time entrepreneur or educating people about hardships of running a company.

In the recent incident, I discovered many people discussing Rahul Yadav’s comments at an event organized by Flipkart. I even found Sachin Bansal (CEO, Flipkart) defending it on twitter. A few blogs wrote about it. But I could not find any story about different tech discussions which might have happened at this event. No one wrote anything about the business of scale and how Flipkart is turning it around day by day.

Another recent incident was about Tinyowl firing, where a co-founder was locked up by employees. Like mainstream media, even the startup media covered it. but no one talked about the problems employee face while working for startups or the problems founder face when they have to take tough decisions. Everyone talked about in-experience of founders in handling situations but no one talked about the guts of founders taking these hard calls. No one talked about employees and what it entails when they join startups.

One of the most prominent things I find even in startup world is again the same old women empowerment story. I know, National parties (and Rahul Gandhi) talk about it to empower women in this country. but then, I don’t understand the hoopla behind getting more women entrepreneurs. Com’on, Can we leave this women empowerment to politicians ? There is now special attention given to these kind of stories. Startups are not fighting elections and hence, they don’t need votes.

Wish running a company was a glamorous job. but unfortunately, It isn’t sexy to run a business. Wish these so called upcoming media houses do the journalism in a different way than mainstream news media/mafia.