The startup ecosystem in Kashmir Valley appears, at first glance, to be touching new heights. New incubation centres, frequent pitch events, and a steady flow of government-backed grants have created an image of momentum and progress. Yet beneath this apparent success lies a growing concern; one that threatens the very foundation of entrepreneurial culture in the Valley. What is unfolding is not the organic rise of entrepreneurship, but the slow institutionalisation of a grant-dependent ecosystem. A system where the pursuit of grants has begun to overshadow the pursuit of markets, customers, and sustainable growth. The long-term vision of genuine startup culture-building is quietly slipping away. Ideas-many of them credible and promising flow rapidly from one platform to another. However, instead of maturing into resilient ventures, a significant number are caught in a boom-and-bust spiral. Startups are born around grant timelines, peak during fund disbursal, and fade once the money dries up. This cycle does little to strengthen the ecosystem and even less to prepare founders for real-world competition. A particularly worrying pattern has emerged within the ecosystem. A startup that receives a grant from Incubation Centre-A soon becomes an applicant for another grant at Incubation Centre-B. While availing support from the second centre, founders often hesitate to disclose or visibly acknowledge earlier support, exploiting gaps in coordination between institutions. Both incubation centres knowingly or unknowingly accept this arrangement, and the startup gains a temporary advantage. The chain continues, lengthening from one incubator to another, normalising a culture of survival through funding rather than growth through execution. Over time, this habit quietly suffocates startup growth. The urgency to build products, acquire customers, and generate revenue is replaced by the comfort of recurring support. The attitude of “doing the real work” dies slowly and steadily, replaced by a mindset focused on applications, compliance, and pitching rather than problem-solving. This is not an argument against grants. In regions like Kashmir where access to capital, networks, and risk capital is limited; grants are indispensable for early-stage experimentation and initial lift-off. However, money alone has never built a successful venture. It is the entrepreneurial attitude, resilience, ownership, market orientation, and the willingness to fail and learn which does the real job. When ecosystem builders encourage dependency, even unintentionally, they do a disservice to the founders they aim to support. Entrepreneurship cannot be built on perpetual hand-holding. A grant-centric model rewards short-term compliance over long-term commitment, proposals over products, and promises over performance. This raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: are we focused on counting numbers or building culture? Is success measured by the number of startups funded, or by the number that survive without support, generate revenue, create employment, and scale responsibly? Culture-building is not cosmetic. It is intense work. It demands clarity in policy, coordination among institutions, and honesty in delivery. True ecosystem builders focus on capacity; not dependency. They design support systems with clear policies and message in place. They emphasise customer discovery, market access, mentorship, peer learning, and accountability alongside financial assistance. Most importantly, they encourage founders to earn their first rupee from the market, not from grants. To move from fund distribution to startup building, a Co-opetition model, rather than a Competition model, must be consciously adopted by all incubators of the valley (at least). This can begin with simple, enforceable policies. For instance, once a startup has received grant support sufficient to develop a prototype or Minimum Viable Product, the grip of grant dependency must loosen. Additional grant funding at the same stage should be denied, not as punishment, but as a signal to move forward. At this point, the role of incubators should shift decisively from funders to connectors. Every effort must be made to integrate such startups into accelerator ecosystems, angel networks, venture capital pipelines, corporate partnerships, and market-access platforms that enable real scale. When incubators continue to inflate numbers by funding the same startups repeatedly without justified reasons, the very purpose of incubation is defeated. There must be a collective, unambiguous message from all ecosystem stakeholders: the Grant–Grant Game is over. It is short-lived, unsustainable, and ultimately damaging; not only to founders, but to incubation centres and the credibility of the ecosystem itself. A related concern is the growing hesitation among founders to dilute equity at the scaling stage. Instead of engaging with angels or venture capital, many continue to look for grant after grant. This is not growth; it is survival on borrowed time. Grants are, by design, temporary. Businesses built primarily on grants remain fragile, risk-averse, and ill-equipped for scale. Kashmir does not lack talent, ambition, or ideas. What it risks losing is the entrepreneurial spirit that thrives on independence and long-term thinking. If the “Grant-Grant Game” continues unchecked, the ecosystem may look impressive on paper while remaining fragile in reality. Every stakeholder viz; policymakers, incubators, mentors, and founders is an actor in this story. The choice before us is clear: build an ecosystem that merely distributes funds, or one that builds entrepreneurs. Only the latter will endure.   (The Author is Associate Professor, Department of Management Studies, South Campus and Coordinator, NewGen IEDC, University of Kashmir. Feedback: babairfana@kashmiruniversity.ac.in)