Here is an interesting take on why India doesn't have many good product companies.
You [IT Service companies] have changed our image from being a land of snake charmers to the land of software programmers. But my thanks stops right there. You are also the culprit of taking away complete attention from other important industry. You rob us of passion of the young minds to make them Xerox machines. Your growth is welcome, but its avarice and appetite is overwhelming. We are not able to proceed to the next step. Our fear is we will get stuck right here
Word! But we only have ourselves to blame :(
Does the situation change with all the VC money pouring in? $1 billion invested in VC money in 2007 alone
NO. The reality is totally different.
From the comment section, I found these statements :
1] In India most of the Graduates are self-contended with any type of Job, they compare with their neighbors & start fantasizing to become like them. Example: If A & B are Friends, If A got the Job in Infosys [pakka service], B starts fantasizing about A & B feels himself inferior and degrades himself. In this scenario B never thinks of starting a company.
2] In India, parents never encourage us to start a company because they want us to marry a good family girl as soon as we get the Job.
3] In India, most people rhapsodize other’s success but never get self motivated enough to start his/her own concern.
4] There is a lack of awareness about entrepreneurs in India. Only those who have entrepreneurship in their blood begin to search for information due to his Interest in Entrepreneurship.
5] There is tremendous lack of awareness about new technology in India. Very few in India know about Ajax, Web 2.0 & the upcoming Adobe’s Apollo project [ which i am much interested in].
6] People are very very reluctant to learn new things.
7] Most of the graduates don’t know HOW important product companies are and why.
8] There is trend in India which is inherited like this: Senior to his Junior [who wants to start his own company] “First get experience for about 4 to 5 years and when u become PM you can get your own Clients [again Service company mentality] and start developing your own company”. After 4 to 5 years he is almost 30; Parents start urging him to marry. Once married he never again thinks about starting a company.
9] The person who wants to become an entrepreneur will fail to become one after getting a job in a good company because of the hefty salary.
10] It is hard to find similar mindset [Entrepreneur & Techie] in India. When they think starting about product company they begin to compare with GYM and the rest, forgetting they too were startups once.
I think I'll have to agree with those statements.
There is hope. Few percentage of youngsters are trying to make a difference. My favorite is DhanaX. It is a startup by ex-employees of Oracle and GE, in the Micro-finance area. A startup to make a difference and makes a lot of business sense in an economy like India.
Informationweek covers DhanaX
2 comments:
Hi Babu,
Thanks for writing about dhanaX.
It is exciting to see a whole bunch of young startups trying to build products focusing on Indian markets.. The future is exciting:-)
At the same time there are lots of ppl who really want to do some thing but dunno how to do it. They are just waiting for some oppurtunity thinking it will be created for them somehow rather than they themselves creating it..
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