A friend of mine and I, had this elaborate discussion on some of the advantages of actually being in the valley. Well, Thomas Fieldman is proving himself to be right with the globe turning more and more flat as the years pass by and I am quite positively sure that position holds not that much of a relevance and trumph card anymore.
As it is, I understand that most startup projects that are happening in the valley are being outsourced to companies here in India to be developed. The reason being cost and the availability of talent.
The fact that the dollar is dropping, added to the fact that the ruppee is appreciated is really not helping the case. In most cases, apart from the added headache of managing your team remotely, your cost also ends up being the same. What is even more empathetic is that most of these silicon valley companies end up handing their product developments to companies that probably aren’t the best of the breed when it comes to development – the biggest issue when it comes to outsourcing.
I am all for outsourcing service-related work. Management of networks, servers and mindless crunching of data and numbers seems to be a valid point, but would a startup want to outsource its most crucial asset – the product itself? Hmm… I am not sure if thats the right way to go.
So, what does a startup need anyways?
Access to the market, capital, human resources and the depth in a market to build a product that actually makes sense. An entrepreneur from the valley will always have his roots there, and does have the liberty to fly to and forth, along with taking advantage of the evolving business models of the east.
Being a global entrepreneur, might be the trend of the future to match up with the world becoming flat.
I question, Why don’t most of these silicon valley entrepreneurs move to India anyways? It might not be the way to go as the business scales up, but for being on bootstrapping mode and to get a product and team together, I strongly believe that India is the way to go. If you are the next Mark Zuckerburg trying to build the next big thing, India is very much the place to be.
An elaborate post on this, is soon to follow.
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Deepak,
Let me put it this way. If India has to emerge as a technology leader, and I know that can be done if we garner the dispersed smarter minds together (and lets say that by the luck of the dice, it happens), what will be our strategy?
And with the US dwindling and slowing down, and i am not having too much hopes on them at the rate that they are going, Europe will probably be the next big market to target. Does that make things easier for India?
Vijay, even with time zones and communication issues, we can compete globally, it’s just that much tougher for a startup.
If you resolve those, we have tons of other issues, but those are fairly common for any startup (marketing, talent, motivation, sales and support).
Deepak, That would be a yes.
and I agree with you. The role of a Product Manager is still very vaguely described here. He is almost a program manager and an architect put into one in reality, whereas there are very few who are qualified for that position.
So lets say Timezones and communication issues are solved, can we compete globally?
(sorry about the last comment, I have no idea when I hit submit)
Vijay: So what’s you’re saying is that India is perhaps going to find it very difficult to create, from scratch, a high-tech, patentable product from here and sell to the US? And VCs won’t invest in such companies here?
And that perhaps having a person based in the US can help solve the problem by establishing the trade link?
That question is best answered by thinking of this: Where is the critical component of success? In communication with customers? In the thinking up the idea? In the building of the product? Yes “all of them” is the correct answer, but it’s not in local optima (excuse the goldratting) but in the whole process. And by separating the team geographically and introducing a 12 hour lag you can optimize every bit but still have a horrendous total output.
Why I harp upon time zones is that it hurts the communication aspect big time. While you can work nights, it is a short-lived solution, especially for those that have children.
Sagar: I wouldn’t agree we don’t have talent here (heck, I’m here and I’m obnoxious enough to think I’m talented) but to be honest there are some huge lacunae in parts of the product development process. Doc skills for one, user testing for another. Another thing is people don’t quite verbalize their thoughts – in the oral or written form – as well as they seem to do in the west. (Gross generalisation, yes)
Regardless of how good a developer is, his ability to communicate (transmit and receive) is far more important than his ability to deliver – which may not even make sense, but that’s how it is. A mediocre developer can do extraordinary things if he’s able to get his point across clearly and succinctly. Unfortunately the “communicators” are spread way too thin.
Vijay, Okay I was thinking of a completely different angle, the consumer internet side of things.