At the risk of being accosted on my way home tomorrow, and also risking it all on my first post on this blog. I have a question, Why are/do people find startup’s of no interest in India?
The question is probably not that straight forward, simply because they maybe of no interest because no one knows about them. But here’s the scenario, A new idea launches in the valley, it suddenly breaks into the blogsphere, users start to us, users in India get attracted pass the word word, and voila we all start using myspace, orkut whatever.
Now assume this happened down in Bangalore, budding entrepreneurs risk life and limb , build it and then…wait, emails, calls, tell a few friends, still who cares, who knows..no one, how will they, the people who talk, don’t want to talk, why should they?
You can ask all the journos in the world (bloggers excused :-)), but they are not interested unless they can recognize a name, or you can include the word Crores in your budget or revenue stream…why is that?
In a startup the entrepreneur takes a risk, the VC takes a risk…I guess we need a few more risk takers in the mass media. Correction, we need alot more risk takers in the mass media…just maybe someone will realize that some people want to read stories other that Reliance, Tata and Bharti.
To me the ecosystem is not just money + startups, PR is crucial. Example in point Proto been doing alot top get coverage…how many people know about it.
- Building a startup in 30 mins (well 41ish) – Iqbal Gandham - December 3, 2009
- Should Facebook and Twitter bother to make money? (Iqbal Gandham) - February 17, 2009
- How we got Nivio to Davos (WEF)…and won - February 5, 2009
When i was in germany for college internship, i (with friends) started a rasoi in guest house and sold parathas and chicken curry for for 25 Euros 🙂 .. i *loved* it. But, when i told this to friends back home, no one seemed to like it.
I guess its social ego .. or as namit said their non capitalistic nature.
In country like India where ppl get 1 lakh as referral bonus (plus xbox), i guess junta is just busy minting money and making there parents proud 😉
Indian media stills captures aishwarya rai wedding and god forbid M$ CEO interviews. I guess, once we have a google/myspace from india, the focus would change.
As a side note, most of my juniors who passed out in 2007 did choose to join startup if not open once.
I feel this is because the core of this nation is not capitalistic in nature.
Majority of the people do not see person starting up a company as a hero. Parents send their children to IITs so that they can get a good job not so that they can become the next steve jobs or still closer home Narayana Murthy.
That is what years of socialism has done to our country. But I feel things are changing now. And this aspect of lives of our countrymen is out for a change too.
We are too far behind silicon valley but we are surely catching up and catching up fast.
I partially agree with you. Yes, PR is an important component in spreading awareness about anything – more so in case of a new startup/service. But for this to happen, the new service/startup has to offer something that excites people and would make people want to share it. This will take some time to happen since entrepreneurship/startups are not the things that get most people excited in India – let alone India, there are very few places – if any – which share this feature of the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
For this to happen there need to be a lot of success stories (not isolated ones) which make the media sit up and take notice. Also, in the blogosphere and media, everyone is scrambling to be the first one to report something or comment on something that excites the mass thereby drawing more audience. So if startups are to excite the masses in a substantial way, the only way is if they really touch the lives of these people or provide real, tangible value to people.
Hit the right nerve. The reason it is boring is very few people champion the idea, the team, the company or the name. Very few people realize the sweat and the blood (and disgruntled family members :D) which goes into it. This happens in India ‘coz we haven’t see a local Google or a local YouTube.
On the flipside, How many Web 2.0 cos. out of India were mentioned in Techcrunch? We can count on fingers.
Indus
The eco system is definitely much more than money and start ups. It needs an entrepreneurial environment and spirit which transcends industries. We are seeing this grow slowly but steadily in India. For example, the rise in private tv news channels which is helping shine the spotlight on start ups. We need much much more than this ofcourse.
In short we need (to grow) entrepreneurial culture more than individual entrepreneurs …