India has been coasting on a start-up boom in recent years with some reports estimating that the country is well on its way to establishing itself as the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world. Entrepreneurs today are far more revered than their more traditional, corporate-bound counterparts.

Their successes are vigorously lauded, and their struggles glossed over — the operative mantra seems to be to "fake it until you make it". Although brave, this mindset comes with more than its own share of pitfalls, says Rishi Piparaiya, a mentor to entrepreneurs, and investor in several early-stage companies. As he points out, in focusing only on the success stories, we often lose sight of the many start-ups that struggle and even shut their doors in less than five years of inception. And, in doing so, we also ignore the many challenges and pressures that come with entrepreneurship, until the pot has boiled over — case in point being the suicide of VG Siddhartha, founder of India's largest chain of coffee shops.