Awarded the
“RodinStar” Post
of the week!!
India has grown as a market and economists believe that we have a long way to go. Indian Ecommerce story is not new to anyone. We surely believed that we have the capabilities as well as the strength to produce our own Amazon or Alibaba from India. Flipkart became the poster boy of Indian Ecommerce and many followed the route. However, we are still to see the actual business being built from India. A lot of investments have been done in India Inc, but almost all of them are yet to show any results.
Please don’t take me wrong, I am not saying that businesses are not doing good in India or investments made so far were wrong. All I am saying is that we are yet to see any signs of the next billion dollar company coming out of India Inc. There can be many reasons that can be attributed to this, however, I have my own inferences and observations. I have been a part of the India startup story for last 5 years now. Have worked with a few startups, from well funded to bootstrapped, almost all types of startups.
At least 4 different startups at different stages have been shut down in front of my eyes. Fortunately or unfortunately, I have been witness to their lives and I can say positively that money or funds is not the only reason for the failures.
I think there are some common links which stops us Indians from growing and until we start working on those, it will be very difficult for us to grow and beat silicon valley startups. I am putting down my observations and would like to get your point of view on the same.
- Our Selfish Nature : I think we Indians are very selfish and until we stop this behaviour of ours, it will be very difficult for us to grow. When I say selfish, I don’t really mean in literal terms, but all I want to say is that we think of ourselves, our profits first and customers later. No matter what you are doing or which team you are in, we are always told to think about WIFM – What’s In It For ME. This ideology or this kind of thought process is very dangerous for a startup. When you are working on a technology of future, when you are working on a product/service that can change the way people think, then there’s no question of what’s in it for me, the actual question that you and your team should be asking is What’s in it for the CONSUMER. But unfortunately, nobody is asking this question today, at least in Indian startup ecosystem, I find very few companies thinking from that perspective.
Let me share an example with you: Think about mobile technology. There has been an emergence of a lot of Chinese brands in India, why? Because, there is no home grown brand from India which is interested in becoming a differentiator in terms of Technology. All they are interested in is getting cheap hardware from China. Why do you think Xiomi or LeEco are doing so great in India? Because no Indian brand has been able to match the technological advances of these Chinese or Korean companies. Do you think we don’t have money or brains for that? No, it’s because we Indians think about our gains first. Nobody bothers to think about consumers. We don’t want to spend on R&D departments or Customer Service, we would rather spend on Marketing, where we could see returns on investments almost immediately.
2. We are Hungry – Yes, we Indians are hungry and that’s why we are not able to innovate and behave selfishly. Let me try and explain. Since, we are a developing nation and poor to a certain extent, it’s very difficult for an Indian middle class household to maintain a standard of living forget about investing in a startup. While a normal Indian middle class youth keeps struggling to get ends meet, how can you expect him to bootstrap or to live without a salary? Most of the Indian youths start working very early to help and support their family. Those who continue their studies, also do so with a promise to bring prosperity to the household as soon as they get a job.
So essentially, we are hungry people, and for a hungry person, bringing food to the table becomes most essential than solving the problems of the consumer. Therefore, our first attempt to any business is to earn money. And when the only thing on mind is to earn money, then rest of the things go for a toss.
This is the only reason, why you will find very few Indian companies giving free trials, or free for life products. Actually, we like receiving free, but we don’t believe in giving anything for free. It’s another topic which we can discuss later 🙂
3. We are very Impatient – See, everything is interlinked, since we are very selfish and we are hungry, we can’t give anything for free. This makes us Impatient. Impatient for results, impatient to get new customers, impatient to try new things and impatient to pivot. Impatience of Indian Entrepreneurs to try new things or to acquire new customers, is also one of the reasons for the failure.
I remember, I was once working as a consultant with a fashion brand. It was a 20 years old offline brand, they had about 13 EBO and MBO outlets in Delhi. It was my first month as an online consultant, and in a meeting I was asked very seriously by the owner, “So, when will I see our first order, and I am hoping we will have at least 20-30 other orders from Amazon, Snapdeal, etc by end of this month” . I just could not hold my smile and asked him if he is serious. I mean, it took him 20 years to reach this level, and he expects an online consultant to start delivering in 20 days!
I hear similar conversations across the industry with digital marketing teams and other online startup companies. We don’t believe in building a brand, we don’t believe in building consumers, we don’t believe in providing value. The only thing that we believe in is Revenues. Wasn’t it evident with all the Ecommerce companies running towards GMV like mad till few days back and now most of the CEOs are changing course. Most of them are now saying that they want to build an efficient operations and a sustainable business. Look at Ola, they should now seriously look at having their own search engine or an aggregator app, with so many options to search from. They pivoted their business from a Taxi booking app to a bike taxi to a food delivery to an auto booking to what not…
4. Value: For most Indians, the only thing that has Value in our eyes is Money, nothing else. We don’t value advice, neither do we value time. We don’t value relationships, neither do we value the idea.
Let me share something with you. Long back I started a small business with 2 friends. I was a little hesitant because I had already burnt my fingers once. But one of my friends was very excited and optimistic about the business. It was his idea, and he really wanted to do that at any cost. Well, after a lot of compelling, I agreed. But I made one thing clear that I don’t have money to invest, which was agreed upon by the other two.
We ran the show for 3 months, and I had left my well paying job by then. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out and I had to go back looking for a job again. I ran into this friend after a long time, and he kept talking about the MONEY he had spent in registering the company. I was shocked to know that he had no value for the time me and the other guy had spent on his project, he had no value of the lessons we learnt in that time, and he really had no value about the emotions and friendship that was involved. All he valued was the money and that too such a small amount. I am sure you would have seen such stories around you as well.
A lot of times, we miss out on the opportunity because we value money more than the exposure or the learning associated with it. We don’t value the advice which can actually change the course of our business. We don’t value the experience and exposure that is involved. Isn’t that what happens with consultants? Those who have done consulting projects in the past would agree with me. Just because you are a freelancer or a consultant, your time has no value. People expect you to spend days and nights on their projects and when it comes to paying, you hear answers like, oh it was just a 2 minutes job… it was just a few lines that you wrote… it didn’t give us any returns actually. Until we start valuing relationships, time and other non tangible things in life, we won’t be able to grow.
5. Structure : Yes, another drawback is that we don’t believe in structures or hierarchies. Rather, I would say, we do believe in structures when we are employees, but when we become the boss (Entrepreneur), we stop believing in that. It seems that there is a feeling that nobody can be a better boss than me, which causes this. We want to be on top of everything and we can’t really hire professional CEOs, COOs or CFOs. And when we do end up hiring some, we will start micro managing them.
Who says that if it’s your idea, you have to execute it as well? If you are a great executor, doesn’t mean that you will be a great strategist as well or vice versa.
The point I am trying to make here is that organisations thrive on structures. If it would not have been the case, how do you think companies like IBM, GE, Apple, Microsoft and many more became so great? These companies take pride in the fact, that they gave so many leaders to the industry. As a company or a startup, it is our duty to build leaders of tomorrow. Until and unless we start believing in the importance of having right leadership structures, we won’t be able to build teams that will take our companies to new heights.
I have full faith in the future of Indian Inc and Indian Entrepreneurs. But, if we want to compete with Silicon Valley and if we want to take it to the next level, then I guess, we should look at these smaller aspects of doing business as well along with bigger aspects like Projections, Sales, etc.
Do let me know what do you think about it or if you can add something to it.
I can be reached on Twitter @kamalkalra84
asha chaudhry
welcome back kamal!
good to see you writing again – and as always with a thought-provoking piece!
so i’m not sure these are the reasons why we are unable to produce the next fb, google etc. but yes, all of the points you have mentioned do limit us for sure.
i like the impatience one and value one the most. we really don’t value other people’s time or any intangible at all. and this isn’t limited to startups. this is our mentality 🙁
Kamal Kalra
Thanks Asha , I agree, these might not be the reasons , but these are surely the reasons which slow us down.
And Yes, We only Value tangibles , as Indians, nobody ever taught us to value intangibles in life as well !
Hiranand Chawla
Hey, Kamal you have totally nailed it and really liked the way you have shared 5 hard hitting facts of Indian start-ups.
Anirudh Ashok
Absolutely
The other day I just asked my father why you sell a certain product and he said,” It will sell and we will make a profit.”
The whole point of let’s create value is nonexistent.
Neeraj Kumar
HI I believe these reasons are from founders point of view and sort of agree with the value point. There is another angle to it from users and investors point of view. We as Indians, usually don’t like trying out new online products, unless its from western part of the world. Slowly the trend is changing though, but taking time. We are also working on gaining early adapters for a unique social media platform made to help each other take better and informed decision. Talkeees, Android: https://bit.ly/23XhX0c IOS: https://appsto.re/in/9L8gdb.i
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
I think this is a phenomenal post.
To your point, the companies from India that are making it big are now based outside of India with Indian Ops. (Freshdesk)
Kamal Kalra
Thanks for reading Alok Sir , and Yes, I completely agree with you, that is because, Indian Govt. is also not supporting startups as much. Most of the laws and rules that are made, are made keeping conservative businesses in mind.
Kamal Kalra
Thanks for reading and encouraging it Hiranand 🙂
Kamal Kalra
So true Anirudh, I also belong to a business family, and we were never taught to think about the customers, only thing was profit and sales 🙂 Anyway, I am sure people will understand slowly and gradually. Failure is a best teacher
asha chaudhry
hey kamal,
messed up the top of your post 🙂
Kamal Kalra
Wooah ! Are you serious ? Thanks Asha , it’s such a wonderful gesture , you made my day 🙂
NEEL KAMAL BHARTIA (yourhealingstory.in)
this is indeed a gr8 article, got cleared on various some topics. thanks for sharing. it was helpful.
Arjunsinh Chauhan
Very very good post, and I strongly agree with your 5th point. And here is my thought, I want to mention.
US developer/programmer know that we can monetize this thing later, while our most of Indian developer/programmer don’t know anything about how monetization work. They think about money first, because of family. While in USA, student can earn and learn both things together.
Our education is very very poor in most of all colleges except IIT colleges. I remember those days, when people don’t know how to start desktop and doing computer engineering. I know some of my friends who choose computer/IT engineer, because they want to work from chairs, they want high salary, they want companies bungalows and cars.
Search on quora how IT guys lifestyle in India’s TOP IT companies like Wipro, Infosys ….Do you know most of our government software build from that kind of top companies, and do you ever think it is good? Even whenever any college result declare, then server goes down, I mean what kind of people are managing that kind of stuff, Why they don’t read our syllabus book like Advance Computer Technology(Cloud service + Load Balancing).
In second semester of computer engineering, there was one book about Micro processor(8085), which is very basic, so students can understand it how things work, but later in fourth semester, I see another book, that name was Advance Processor, and do you know what is that advance processor? it was 8085 and 80486, they have added one last chapter about P4 processor, which I was used in my home computer when I was study in 10th class.
When you want to build something big, then each and every node, play a critical role into it. Whether it is government, education, media, lifestyle, family, society etc.
Brijesh Kumar
Kamal, This is a sincere straight forward post. I’m with you that these are some of the reasons which stop us raising our bars to grow and think really big as entrepreneurs, if not all, some of us for sure. You’ve very nicely elaborated your points with examples. Please keep writing!
Anil Rajan
A very well written one.
India is a country with people who are very hungry for money and we don’t value time, relationship. I see the more hunger very unfortunately are with the middle class like me who got free education and still want to get more for our kids.
I always believe a generation like mine need to wait, stop and take action and say, I grew enough, give an opportunity for some one else to grow. I don’t understand why happiness, spent time with kids ,working just 6 hrs a day is not good enough for my generation when my parent did the same. I grew a happy kid, my parents had enough that I was educated well and make a life out of it.
What is my generation searching for, why do I need to buy 2 cars and 2 homes. Why I need to buy a flat in every city I have job when my parents just believed in renting out. Why I need to buy 2 or 3 phone which are so expensive that it is good enough to buy 30 pairs of good clothes for someone else.
What is the point of making so money after all, do we think my son will need it for higher education, I will have a easy retirement … all such thought are western influenced , internet driven or the new generation banks driven.
I just hope my generation must wait and say we grew enough, let other grow. My kids will also have a better future if I did so. We don’t need to be another US or UK, we need to be only India.
Nishant Patar
Kamal I agree with you in all this point.
As a entrepreneur I have suffere same fate in some worst form.
1 Point : Whenever I see any companies or work with them I found common things they just don’t give a shit about people and consumers. For them they are just like goats. This why we don’t have companies like Apple or Google who true purpose was making people happy.
2 Point : As a Indian, I just can’t escape family burden. First get degree, than get naukri after get Chokri and then Bacche. Yes hate it but this reality. At age of 20 get job, age of 25 get house, than get wife and last create kids. Yes this is our life.
3 Point : We don’t want to wait. I worked in many companies as a Digital Marketer and found one thing common that they have no patient. They want less than month best ranking in google, in few months millions traffic and less than million dollar turnover. They think internet as money making cows and us as Cowherd.
4 Point : We have no respect for other people’s value. Same as you I had worked for friend’s startup. Same I had no money but have skills, so had worked for months. It turn out to be disaster. I had waste my time and money, but still I did not get respect for it. So I just end my friendship.
5 Point : Rather than structure I will say true leadership. I grow in Kutch-Gujarati family where we are not much educated but we are born and raised businessman. We have don’t have MBA but we know how to run business. I have learn many ethics value from them. Believe me they are far better than IITians or IIMians.
6 Point : Education – We have just shity education, who don’t people like us to grow. I learn one thing, I was last bencher and sucker in class, can’t go to IIT or IIM, get dropout but still can make my career and skill by my handwork and talent. What we need is respect for last bencher who are not good in grade but still they have kickass talent and skill.
7 Pont : Freedom – We need freedom of take risk and do business. Do you know how hard is to start business in this country ? Do you know how much red tape in this country ? It is easy start business in other country than our.
Last we need freedom to follow a our dream and live. So some respect who are doing and last who failed do. Because this peoples are our country true future.
No matter what, how many times you fall you have to learn to standup on your feet. Go and make word up side down…
Nishant Patar
Sorry for some grammar mistake, it happened due to rushed, Sorry..