When Sanket Shah considered starting up in 2016-17, ecommerce looked like the safest choice. There were already a handful of thriving ventures in the space, and many new entrepreneurs had entered it with bucketloads of capital. Shah, however, decided to go in a different direction.

He, along with two others, formed InVideo, a software company focused solely on video editing. The idea was to develop a sophisticated online tool compatible across devices. InVideo catered to enterprises in the first few years, but became available to all internet users by 2019-20.

Globally, video editing is a crowded field. Tech giants such as Apple and Adobe, which sell professional solutions, lead the pack, and smaller players offering free alternatives are also highly popular. So, InVideo soon found the going tough despite winning over big-name investors (Sequoia, Tiger Global) and users initially.

Issues cropped up on multiple fronts. The startup could not nail down a niche, its app, particularly the later versions, suffered from glitches, and the organisation seemed to have got its hiring wrong.