Bernard did a very well-prepared interview with us recently, outlining some of our learnings in India, and how they have shaped our investment themes. His key takeaways are listed here.
Guide to MP3: as per timeline of questions on the audio file
- 0:22 — How is early-stage financing doing during this downturn compared to the last one in 2001/2002?
- 1:20 — How is the VC model changing, if at all, and how does the global financial crisis impact this change?
- 3:30 — What percentage of your investments targets a local or regional market versus a global market?
- 9:10 — What advantages or disadvantages does a venture starting from India have?
- 13:00 — If costs are lower in India than in the US, how does this affect the amount of funding required?
- 14:48 — What market segments are you excited about today?
- 16:00 — What one or two of your ventures do you want to tell our readers about?
Comments welcome.
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One of the things I’d like to see here in India are environments where the developer and business communities indulge in win-win situations and the zero-sum game. Sure, Israeli or Eastern European companies have the same challenges and you still to be as close to your market as possible- but when was the last time you saw Indian startups collaborate with each other,or a counterpart in the Silicon Valley, or sharing a booth at an expo, having a global advisory board or having open hack days and API showcases. You see that with SlideShare, Zoho at best – why because they know that to stay dormant doesn’t do anyone any good, just like most startups should throw their beaurocratic towels and be doing.
Organizations like Proto, HeadStart and iAccelerator have managed to get some form of momentum, by having bi-annual events and the opportunities & feedback have been encouraging. So hopefully we will see more collaborations on the lines of a Microsoft with a WetPaint, Flickr with a Picnic, Wufoo with a MailMonkey, or the amazing work that startups implementing openID and oAuth are seeing offlate.
Keep Clicking,
Bhasker V Kode
Co-Founder & CTO, hover.in | founding member of the 26th alliance