What are your thoughts on the Gujarat ecosystem for startups ?

Gujarat is Home to >12000 startups & having studied in Mumbai , worked in Delhi & natively coming from Rajasthan here is my thought on Ahmedabad as a city :

1. Quite economical in terms of rentals & manpower costs for sure
2. Super infra & govt support with places like Ihub by Guj Gov offering coworking starting at just 3k per person which is like 4x in Mumbai. Alongside a lot of fund support also with Schemes like Srujan
3. Very safe & better quality of life (specially Space :)) than both the cities. With the recent new Delhi AQI at dangerous level, I feel Ahmedabad might emerge as a good option (although AQI here is sometimes at dangerous levels too)
4. With the biggest stadium & project like Gift cities some of the best events like Cold play , probably Olympics & recent Diljit show happen here too. For Tea totallers what else would they need :)

Of course there are a lot of challenges in terms of finding the right people to work or also concerns about rapid urbanization but I think Ahmedabad will be able to retain its charm !

If I missed any point do add in comment below 😊

Ps : let's discuss more in depth today in the sessions by one the most active folks in this ecosystem Jatin Chaudhary

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