Loading ...This seems to be buzzword in today’s web 2.0 scenario. We could see the mushrooming of social networking sites that are positioned for college goers, women, old age people, and may be to gay and lesbian (I’m not sure on this).
These sites provide tremendous opportunity for people to find new friends, enjoy time with people by getting date, even finding people for their business, people to sell their products and for satisfying day to day aspects in their life.
This space creates huge opportunity for intelligent guys who could possibly come out with innovative business model that could change the way we do day today things. Youtube is one of the greatest examples of this. This has certainly changed the way we think about our personal videos that could be shared online. It has really stood up against powerful competitors and eventually got acquired by Google for approx $1.65Billion.
Myspace is another example, but unfortunately founders of myspace couldn’t make killer compared to youtube (Even though it got sold around $565 million, analysts believe that it has more potential), but they made substantial returns. We knew the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckberg, a young genius who refused billion dollar acquisition proposal from Yahoo (How many of us have the guts and confidence to reject this mind boggling offer). And Ofcourse there is flickr and another killer www.last.fm. Its software creates a personalized streaming radio station based on the digital music you already listen to, shares your playlists on the Web, and suggests music from other closely related playlists.
Americans are traditionally strong in founding brilliant tech companies that use to have innovative model with great business viability. So why not Indian minds couldn’t come up with the model that could eventually make millions for its founders. There might be lot of reasons behind this. May be, innovative model in this space might have been unleashed by the likes of facebook, Orkut (Not a brilliant site, but having good market share in India) and others who’re already in this business. I’m very much confident that there is huge talent, Infact genius minds available in India that could possibly works in order to bring unbelievable model that could have ubiquitous place in the history of web 2.0 culture.
www.slideshare.net is one of the brilliant examples of innovative model. It’s an online PPT sharing site which is definitely having the potential to become another blogger and wordpress. I don’t know how they’re going to commercialize it, but it’s definitely an innovative model from Indian Entrepreneurs.
We need online community that could provide support for Indian start ups to large extent. There is no doubt that there are numerous sites like venturewoods, startups.in that are providing support for them, but we need extensive support for start ups. There are lots of sites that are there in United States, but we don’t have any great site that could be helpful for startups. Startups need advice from great guys viz., Alok, Mahesh Murthy, and others. There are infact numerous intelligent people who’d be having tremendous experience in various sectors. We need online community that could connect and work for both of them. There are really quality people who would work for equity, who could work freelance and could effectively contribute for startups.
We need to create trust between persons engaged in this noble issue of building startups. It’s difficult, but it’s quite possible. There might be site in waiting that could really connect experienced guys with start ups. Who knows, because Indians always springs up with surprise like recent missile announcement by DRDO? I’m not kidding!
No seed can grow if it is dug up and examined every week, and for people to innovate and get things done, sometimes they need some time and space and resources… The one in a hurry can of course hop on to Amit’s [ tried and tested perhaps
] idea above…
@Satpal,
Have you seen MTV bakra
you know, i think, in retrospect, we were bakras of incubation unit being experimented upon to get right policies. And these inspiring blogs are encouraging enough to produce more bakras. Ha ha!
Thats just my opnion and i could be wrong as well. Believe me, i have seen it all. Sell undergarments on ebay,rather than creating youtube here in india, you will do much better business.
you took that discussion off the topic
Yes, you are right even 99% of the startups fail in the valley. But the question is whether you can create google or youtube here in india. The answer is NO. Ofcourse you can create BPO that could be as big as another infosys. Often Young people get misguided when they read such inspiring blogs without taking stock of situation.My only point was that when you write such fancy stories also present the true picture along with them .Ofcourse, you can create a business in india, Infosys is an classic example of that . I am not denying that it’s impossible to do business in india. But please don’t lament about innovation etc and presence of youtube and myspace in india. Yes, wait for environment for the evolve. But i guess by that time you bloggers are gonna kill another 100 more entrepreneurs by publishing such stories.
@amit
Let us assume we dont have necessary environment. Then ?
Does that means we shud not try our best?
.Who will create envinronment?
How will that envinronment get created?
Slilicon valley is not created in a single day.Neither expect google or myspace being created from India in single day .What we expect is genuine attempt from identifying a local need to deliver a above average product to stify that attempt.Before a successful GOOGLE we will have hundreds of unsuccessfl XYZ.com companies.
Why dont u take ur attmept as a start of a new era when a collge passout India instead of looking for a fat salary decided to do somthing different more risky but worth trying.When we had such time in past? Slowly things are changing.And some day we do have furtile soil of failed start-ups to support a google.
This blog is a important part of ecosystem we want to create.By vitue of this we know about your story and I find intersting people like Iqbal.And yes, we all understnad that being “entreprenuer” may sound sexy in pink paper but its a challenge in reality.We cannot blame our failer entierly on ecosytem.We have sufficient example from history that no matter how tough condition are,”true entreprenuer” always find their way to success.I am sure you too know that very well.
How many times has Alok been invited to IIT Delhi to educate young startup?
I did not see him at incubation cell for atleast two years of my stay. You guys have been projecting techtribe as the ultimate platform that could have brought a new dawn . Guys we need 100s of such sites. Entrepreneurship needs conducive atmosphere and markets not just inspiring blogs. In that sense india has long way to go before we produce larry page. No point in waiting for good results if you have not prepared well.
can companies like meebo and youtube be created without an ecosystem like valley? Try to answer this question first and then compare india and US.
Wow.. great thread I guess. As an entrepreneur from Silicon Valley who is currently in the middle of building a venture in India, I would who heartedly disagree with the perception that it’s not a good time to start a venture in India.
I have worked with 20 plus “first time” entrepreneurs in India over the last 9 months, and am currently working with 6. In my humble opinion, there is NO SHORTAGE of good ideas in India, NOR is there any dearth of money for good teams that are looking to and CAPABLE of solving real problems. Yes, there isn’t much money for people who want to build a me-too company - as there is in Silcon Valley as well.
I can sense the furstrations from people posting in the thread itself. A few thoughts - random.
—- Are people really looking for advice, or are more/most looking for someone to tell them how great their idea is?
—- When VC’s turn down an investment, do they do it because they don’t want to fund a startup/take risk, or do they turn it down because the risks far outweigh the potential rewards. No amount of risk profile will cover a small market etc. I’ll make money by google ads is Web 2.0 for I’ll lose 10 dollars per retail transaction but make it up in volume.
—- As for someone complaining about shortage of mentors and advice, I’ve got a simple question - how many people have you mentored? Advised - honest advice? Just because we have 3 months of entrepreneurship experience doesn’t mean we can’t helps one who has 2 weeks.
Bottom line - we can sit back and wait for the eco-system to be built, or we can help build it. I know there’s a huge gap between the Indian entrepreneurial system and Silicon Valley’s today - BUT, take it from someone who’s straddled both - It’s a lot more fun building a company in India - it’s like the valley in 1994-96.
hi
there is one thread common across all the entreprenuers who havent received funding from VCs/angels. They are quite bitter and blame India etc and look towards going to US.
My advice to these entrepreneurs. (I’m not a VC.)
I know it is frustrating to be turned down. But why do we start with the assumption that every VC that we go to has the obligation to fund us. Its his money (??) and he is free to either give it to us or not.
I’m an entrepreneur and I do not have a investible team, I’m all alone in a field where I dont have qualifications/experience. Rather than wasting time on chasing VCs and hearing “TRACTION”, how about getting a few customers and let the money speak for itself.
I know it delays the project by a few months, is very stressful and involves a lot of scrimping on costs, but its much better than leaving India and starting all over again abroad , where living costs itself is high.
I now work on a 40-year old iron table and a broken wooden stool… A new table and chair will cost me 6000 Rs which I dont want to invest in at this stage. but I’m happy because before I started the venture, I mentally prepared myself for these hardships as well as my ego getting hurt each time I would be turned down.
Just like a good salesman, keep your spirits high after being turned down repeatedly for every cold-call that you make.
All the best to all you guys.
Regards
BB
Satpal is very correct here. We indians need to learn to be more trustworthy and vocal. We lack the basic feeling of trust, and hence, fail to discuss ideas for fear of them being stolen..
Ideas are dime a dozen ! Wat will matter is it’s executions and barrier of entry which you create.
So the next time you have a bright idea, don’t fear to share it.. Just don’t share how you wish to tackle or develop that idea.. leave that part to the other parties..
Even at BarCamp, i have noticed that people rarely ever come across and say ” Hey, you look interesting.. wat do you do ? ” . Mostly people are either introduced through contacts/friends are are busy lapping up the news on the latest startup/technology in their own group. This totally beats the idea of an “unconference” which a barcamp is supposed to be !!
Let me cite a simple example of the ecosystem here in India. I myself am in the process of bootstrapping a startup, and at a recent meet of entrepreneurs, i discussed with a few people i met the product we were working on. The typical response : ” Find out why didn’t XYZ company do it” OR ” Which technology are u using ? Java or RoR ?? ” !!
It’s so frustrating sometimes to hear these questions.. I can imagine that if i was in silicon valley and was discussing the same topic with people there, i would have surely had some questions like ” Using google maps ?” OR ” Why not do this too… it’ll rock !! ” OR ” Have you thought abt IPR/trademarking/ approching VC’s ? i cud help you there ! ”
I guess you could yourself judge now from the above example as to how much we lack, both thinking wise as well as the maturity of the ecosystem.
I had a chat with the founder of TechTribe, Rohit Agarwal, and he said that techtribe’s initial aim was to promote entrepreneurship among the young generation, by providing them a platform to collaborate and discuss.
Outcome : Not even one serious tribe was made on techtribe which actually resulted in a startup or something close to starting up. Except for RouteGuru, which was already started long before TechTribe emerged, no one made use of the excellent platform and opportunity that TechTribe provided to network.
I also see that we Indians have a tendency to wait for things to happen for us rather than making things happen for us. We are always seen wanting help and advice, rather than looking at the right places for advice and help !