sure, i do. as i mentioned the last time around, i do understand your point. there is nothing wrong in what you have written.

the line in para 4 “twenty-something college…..fail and cry hoarse” seemed to be aimed at sujai. hence the retort. amit kumar (above) also refers to that.

thanks for the clarification.

2. You can do a lot more with a gun and a kind word than with just
a kind word.
- Robert De Niro , The Untouchables.

Two contradictory quotes on the face of it. But exactly mirrors the
undercurrent feeling in the ecosystem here:-).

My comment was not referring to any singular individual experience. It threads to the main post on “creation of sustainable ecosystem” by Vijay Anand, my dear friend who is working hard at sculpting an ecosystem through his brainchild Proto.in

It was his statement “There is absolutely no way to fast track this entire ecosystem without also layering it with frailty. The only way this can happen, is if it evolves on its own and thats going to take time” - that drove me to write this comment, hammering down my pov that benchmarking often leads to despair. It casts a spell of gloom if we don’t measure up to the standard - Silicon Valley in our context here. Let’s keep hacking in our own little ways, and who knows, we may end up building something far better, far more effective in that it blends well with our own limited risk appetites and high cost of failure that dims our entrepreneurial instincts at the outset.

Guess you get the picture.

point well taken. however, pretending that we are not in ‘the valley’ applies to both sides.

sujai was hurt more by people (on the other side) monopolizing and saturating media with braggadocio. he has not yet failed (and one hopes he never does) and is not crying hoarse at being left out.

it is similar to the anguish we, as middle class urban indians, feel when the government makes tall claims at bringing inflation under control. i know nothing will bring the prices down but giving a black-eye to chidambaram has its own pleasure.

at least this is the impression i carried after reading his post.

I beg to differ from you on this issue. History is filled with examples of entrepreneurs starting companies without any prior exposure to business world. If you look at all the great companies in the world today, all of them were started by school drop-outs, and i am sure none of those guys had even luxury of getting their first jobs. Now why those guys were able to build such a great companies? The answer is ecosystem.

Yes, you are right in questioning that who will create this ecosystem. The answer is the first generation entrepreneurs like Mr. Murthy who have wealth of experience and money at their disposal. They can be mentors to these young inexperienced people. If i am going to build a startup, i don’t need learn all aspects of running a company. Something called “teamwork” can compensate for my weaknesses.

Also, I am sure Indians are not afraid of taking risk. We are born strugglers. Among the immigrant population in US, Indians start maximum number of startups.

Lastly, no one is crying, not even sujai. I think, its the VCs who cry the most. I often read articles lamenting that VCs are not able to find quality deals in India. Well, its they who suffer in the end. Determined entrepreneurs will ultimately find they way out with or without. As sujai rightly said “only the struggle gets a bit longer”.

Over n Out

That’s my impression in recent TIE delhi conference.
Sorry! if it hurts.
thanks!

Ok. We don’t have a Valley-like ecosystem. Now what? Wallow ourselves to death? I go the paucity of an ecosystem is glaring only if we engage in doing something for which we need external support. Everyday a new restaurant opens, a new agency gets floated, a new franchisee outlet is thrown open. In choosing an enterprise that can go live with what we have, we’ll find our release.

We can keep longing for a Silicon Valley right here, but that’s not going to help matters. That’s because, besides all resources that it is famous for, the Valley represents a typical risk taking mindset that is endemic. At best, we may recreate the buildings and the roads or even the VC firms, but we can’t recreate the mindsets. That’s more a cultural construct than something to be built out of a budget.

Knowing that we come from a different culture, let’s not do it like how they do it in the U.S. Why do our twenty-something college grads attempt a startup, fail and cry hoarse? Why don’t they take up the first couple jobs, travel far and wide, gain enough worldly wisdom, have the good sense to build some savings and then take a shot at entrepreneurship? May be it’s not racy and glamorous, but it’ll have fewer roadkills. In fact, it’s smart. That sets them up with a realistic frame of mind to decide which road to take, what to build, what it would cost, how to go about and get clued in on the odds of success.

To be valuable from a business point of view, you don’t need an ecosystem. You just need to be market savvy and innovative; and that comes not from youth, but exposure. Work towards delivering a differentiator that drives customer preference. In this light, the big challenge may not be coming up with the initial deviation—there are usually lots of good ideas in play. The real challenge is coming up with all the supporting innovations that reinforce the initial vector, aligning all the other functions and processes to it. This will catalyze new value proposition, creating a sustainable differentiation that can generate deep and lasting competitive advantage.

Then we realize we’ve co-created the ecosystem….