Welcome to the world of immigration. Common sense makes very little sense that. Is not a case just for India, it is the case for every country out there, including the US.
It is mostly easy to get a short term visa and then extend it, rather than asking for a 5 year visa. lets turn the tables around, would the US issue a five year visa to a entrepreneur trying to come in?
Does that make US a bad place for entrepreneurs? I call bullshit.
Bottomline: the definition of early adopter as the west calls them, is a bit of a scarce populace in India. Thats what i was hoping to get at, and it looks like we agree.
Not at all complaining about whats all in place (in terms of security etc) - we might have avoided the credit card scams to a large extent thanks to that. No debates there. Just that the prevalence of all these checks and balances, makes India a harder market to grow a company like its grown in the valley (but the metrics set by the investors are predominantly the same), which comes back to bite indian startups.
I Love your spirit David. Hope you will share some of this in building the local community as well, someday (with your real name ofcourse).
Now shall we leave the personal attacks to rest and attend to the topic at hand? - if you do have something to contribute, that is, so that we dont take much of the time of folks from this community.
Thanks in advance.
PS: Am just another guy building a startup. Cant say any more credits beyond that. FYI.
You mean to say "Dharma". In the Indian context they are two very different things.
Also did the read the bottom footnote?
>>> And My Apologies, I lied. Its not a drought. There are amazing customers who can build you an empire – they are just not waiting to be sold to, they have to be taught, nurtured and groomed in – Probably not the early adopter kinds with an impulsive buying habit perhaps. Simply hard nosed buyers.
India is a very strange market. The customers are quite hard nosed, but wont flich so easily to alternatives so easily. They like to touch, feel, weigh things before they buy and once bought they sell their hearts to the brand.
All the big empires here, be it Amul, Tata, Dabur etc etc have built their brands as such.
Adoption doesnt come quickly though, and pouring venture capital into a business in India to gain quick adoption is akin to asking nine women to give birth to a baby in a month here. Which is also the issue that startups face, when they are funded by US based VC Firms cause they are expected to act and deliver like US based startups - fast, quick, wham-bham customers who come and leave, but still "acquiring" them is what investors care for.
Its a long story. There is no J Curve with Indian Startups, but the ones that manage to sustain and build, build a moat so large that they are IPO worthy by any measure. Its a different kind of enterprise building, that the investors from the west, arent quite "getting"
Disagree. If you arent hallucinated by the vision that you can somehow change the world, you wouldnt dare step out either. One has to be a masochist to want to set up themselves for failure.
Once again, its not the embracing of failure, but what you perceive as failure. Most start out for the fact that they love what they do and would do it even if they werent paid for it - its the learning along the way, the friends they make and the experience that drives them. The payout, is a bonus. Failure is not going anywhere, and not even getting a lesson out of it or growing a new skill.
There is nothing wrong with the article. You are setting yourself up for some trouble when you claim you know the "real" reason - backed by zilch data, and just pure perception :)
Very Sensational. And very little proof to back it up.
I dont know if IIT Delhi is the most entrepreneurial - because some is running around with a watermelon helmet and produced a movie? :)
Any cohort, be is the top 20% or the long tail, will have few risktakers. how does having the IIT Tagline make things any different?
Even by your own thought process, I wouldnt say they dont want to fail, they just have a very different notion of success and I'm sure they believe they are successful. Let them be.
At the end of the day, whether we choose to become entrepreneurs, fight the daily battles of life, or take a route that pays well - we have to stay true to our Dharma (that's really what it all comes down to).
PS: It does look like IITians and IIM grads find their way into the ecosystem - most of them as venture capitalists. About 60% of the Associate Partners in Indian Venture Capital firms come from IIT / IIMs (lower from 80% as to 5-10 years ago). Thats out of a sample of 1500 AP Positions (roughly)
I wonder if they are bringing him in, to setup an internal incubator of sorts, now that labs is shut down, perhaps they think its time to do it in some structured form. I know that there was talk of it, sometime back inside the company.
Hehe, I can empathize with you. And Yep Failure is very much an option - most of the time it is the startup that fails, not the founder, not the team. But yet, more than anymore its those two sets of people who take it the hardest. That was the context.
My mentor used to remind me often that we are the final product, and that "phase" when we are building a startup is all towards enabling the product (aka us) to grow a skillset - or a new feature, if you'd call it that.
I worry when entrepreneurs and visionaries anticipate and call for a world that would embrace failure. I have no idea what that means, but failure - on a personal level - to accomplish that set task in a phase in a life, still would hurt, if not anything, just for the mere sake of the confidence and drive we put into it.
But every entrepreneur worth his or her salt will survive it.
I strongly believe, this would be just the beginning. Mobile phones give you three things - (recently, Horsepower), Mobility and Identity. And there are a plethora of things that could be powered with a combination of the three.
It is mostly easy to get a short term visa and then extend it, rather than asking for a 5 year visa. lets turn the tables around, would the US issue a five year visa to a entrepreneur trying to come in?
Does that make US a bad place for entrepreneurs? I call bullshit.