A couple of weeks back we asked Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch and Satish Dharmraj, a valley based Indie-American investor a simple question: “how far in the future do you see a global web company emanating out of Asia (NOT JUST INDIA). Is herding nature gonna bring out another bubble? “.
Satish’s overall answer was, uh, a plain no. He went on to explain about the eco-system in valley (which is true, coz a lot of talent from Asia flows there), available capital in the valley (that’s the ‘herding nature’ isn’t it?) and its culture of innovation (one can argue on this, coz a lot of innovation comes from outside the valley too!) and then he reassured that he does not see a billion dollar web or mobile company emanating out of Asia.
Well, let us accept it: Satish probably you are right about entrepreneurship in India. And probably Asia as a whole does not have a chance against the valley, even though the same Asians have all the possibilities when they go and do it from the valley. And that you’ve never heard of Asian entrepreneurs before, and you do not see anything remarkable happening in mobile space in India/China.
Let us believe that things are gonna stay status quo. Hell, you haven’t heard about our small blog called NextBigWhat.com either!
But if I were to believe some of the awesome stories a couple of big-big ideas materializing into finished products & successful web/mobile startups coming out from India itself in the last four years, then guess what: valley-or no-valley struggle for me is immaterial from entrepreneurship point of view. Even the growth of readership of entrepreneurs on NextBigWhat.com strongly indicates the prominence of startup momentum in this part of the world.
Look, look at the graph. Look at the numbers and then talk.
I mean, how far are we really from building a billion dollar web/mobile business? Is Asian entrepreneurship community so far from the biggest one of the silicon valley? How remotely is a typical Asian entrepreneur placed from elements of innovation? Or is it just as simple as getting our techie brothers back into Asia and then doing Dim-Dim and Google story from here itself? (BTW China is doing that already – getting their brothers back!)
Capital – ah that’s where the problem is and probably our regulations undo ourselves a bit too.
But saying that a billion dollar web or mobile enterprise cannot come out of Asia, IMHO, is radically flawed and little about living in a fools paradise forever. And dear investors, with all due respect, you are at least a 1000 feet above the ground. See just the entrepreneurship community of India is blip-ping on your graph already, despite the lack of capital, angel infrastructure, likes of Ron Conways & Marc Andresseens in this part of the world.
How long will it take for us to reach the tipping point? Time is the only gap between you and us. Keep running!
What’s your opinion entrepreneurs?
Cheers,
Arvind
He who says can’t reach the Stars is actually Un-ambitious
For sure there will be a global Web Giant from South Asia very soon(I.A)
A billion dollars is a lot of money in India. But in the US, it is big but does not have the same purchasing power. You see, the US is in top of the consumption chain. Their earnings put them in a position to afford so many things that would only be a dream to Asians for many years to come.
For instance, an iPhone costs $199 (subsidized by telecom operators). With a minimum wage of $10, an US citizen would have to work only 20 hours to afford it. That would roughly translate to 3 days wages. Even if you take an average Indian’s salary to be Rs. 30,000/- per month, it would take us one month to afford the same. Not just the iPhone, it is the same with any technological commodity. Commodities are truly commodities in the US. This is not true in most of the countries. Even in China. The situation will correct itself only when countries like China and India develop. The US has an incentive to keep us poor. Cheap labour elsewhere will fuel innovation back home. If you are at the top of the consumption chain, everyone will come to you to sell their products.
How easy is it to solve this problem? Well, it has to be a concerted effort. India is fighting its internal problems. There is no unity among policy makers to steer us ahead. The targets are much less aggressive. China would have but it is now caught in a debt loop which is more detrimental to them, than to the US.
Blind patriotism will not solve the problem. It is not a simple matter of rolling up your sleeves and slogging out. It has to be a complete change of mindset. Our country should come out of poverty in the first place. Create a domestic market that can consume our products. To that end, the Govt could think radically and do something like
1. Install fiber optic cables throughout the country and make broadband cheap.
2. Introduce 3G asap and make data plans extremely cheap. Probably price it at Rs. 10/- per month.
3. Introduce English as a compulsory subject and make every child learn it well.
4. Profit from the income tax that will be paid by numerous successful businesses created out of this environment.
5. Waive all duties on electronic goods for the next 10 years. Subsidize PCs. Stop stupid schemes like free television boxes.
In the long term, such a strategy would fetch more money for the government than auctions or other measures of selling spectrum and several other license schemes. Such a scheme is beneficial to create a market and profit from it in the areas of Internet and Telecommunication.
Just my two cents,
Ram
-1 Ram,
“To that end, the Govt could think radically and do something like”
We don’t need nothing from the Government except to stay out of our path.
+1 Tarun , I agree
+1 Ram, I agree. And all this is possible only in China, because here the focus is on how to eat money, digest talent and then fart from the face.
Way to go guys! That is the spirit. I dont think we need to take this pessimism anymore!
Time to rise !
Ram has a great point. Arvind . Good article but don’t see much point in that pluggdin vs tc thing. You make pi look desperate so please Mr Editor , think twice and sober up before you post.
@ramesh I disagree with Ram’s message, except that his thought is a great measure of our economic & infrastructure reality. But Tarun is right, if we wait for the Government over here, or we let it come in between we are definitely not going to succeed.
See the article is not Pi vs. TC, what i meant to say is that the entrepreneurship community in this part of the world is fairly large. Does the article sound “drunk” :-)
- Arvind
Action speaks louder than words. So lets create the products and the market and shut these guys up.Satish and others can obviously spread their gyan about how better silicon valley is when compared with other eco systems and they may be right….until we prove them wrong.It was not too long ago when australians were gloating about their cricketing system and how it is the best.Well, we now see where they actually stand.The system is only as good as the people in it and I have absolute confidence that the Indian system is changing for the good and it won’t be long before we have billion dollar companies.
In any case, till then we at least have the IPL ;)
In any case, most Asian countries still are socialist or communist in nature than pure capitalist.So though we may not have a billion dollar company(private) I am sure some government owned ventures are surely that big (IRCTC, chinese government ventures etc)I am just guessing here though.
Agree with Ram. But then yes we need to run and prove ourselves… but till then we lag behind
i think you have come long way as an internet entrepreneur start up. i am an start up entrepreneur and i am expecting you will keep us updated by sharing your experiences.
any one can succeed if they work hard and i think its the same case with you
I think one area where we have failed is in creating India’s … e.g. India’s facebook, India’s twitter etc. Look at China.
Did you know, for example, that facebook is the world’s SECOND largest social network?
Read this: http://statspotting.com/?p=32 (Facebook Is The World’s Second Largest Social Network. Who Is The Largest?)
Once we have many India’s … , we shd be better.
@StatSpotting – Thats misleading. The document says 637 MM active IM users. Besides, the user base in China itself is 384 MM (according to the document). Also, alexa says tencent.com is ranked 819 in China. Considering all these, I must say that its a completely wrong report.
I feel the startup ecosystem is getting into shape in India, hopefully if we give some time it will be a quite successful and competitive place soon.