Indian start-up – Can it look BIG?

India is not new to entrepreneurialism. In fact, Indians always had the entrepreneurial streak what with higher education not being sought after in the yesteryears, and the ideal way ahead for many being setting up their own business.

Things, however, have changed today. Pay-packets have been increasing at a fast clip and competition has become global. The young, therefore, cannot be blamed when they look at other professional avenues instead of setting up businesses from scratch. Besides, in spite of the eco-system for entrepreneurship development improving, the fact remains that Indian start-ups cannot look as big as their counterparts in the US. There are multiple reasons for that.

For a start-up, it is important that at least the founding members (if not all the employees) understand the value of equity. The concept of sweat equity is well-ingrained in the US, what with even accounting firms willing to go for it. In India, however, it has just managed to take baby steps. Finding partnering accounting firms who are willing to accept it is unfathomable at present in India. Entrepreneurs here either have to pay big bucks or be satisfied with small ones that don’t have sufficient experience.

Funding is another reason why US-based start-ups can scale up more quickly than Indian ones. Angel fund or seed capital is relatively easy to get in the US than in India. With time, however, things have improved in India as well, what with venture capitalists bringing Indian companies on their radar and educational institutions setting up incubation centers.

Operations wise, in the US, there are plug-n-play facilities for entrepreneurs to set up their base. On the other hand, Indian companies have to set up their own infrastructure. This takes time as well as money what with real estate prices soaring across regions.

Power and Internet are more reliable in the US while in India we still have a long way to go in these respects. What’s more? In the US, even additional facilities like conference rooms, recreation centers and gym can be shared. So it is easier to attract and retain employees, courtesy good infrastructure and ambience.

In India, all of that is difficult. This in turn makes it tough to attract and retain employees who may prefer working in a “big” company because of great infrastructure and facilities rather than a start-up where adjustable nature and contentment with what’s available are assets. These issues in turn get inflated if operations need to be set up across multiple cities.

All of the above affect productivity levels of Indian start-ups thus making it difficult for them to look big in front of their US counterparts. This may even be in spite of them putting in equivalent effort, time and money. In fact, they may have to expend more, on all the counts.

Is India Presence an advantage for Silicon Valley start-ups?

India has always been a bone of contention during boardroom discussions of Silicon Valley based product start-ups. This is not the case with larger companies especially in services sector, for whom having a presence in India is non-debatable. That’s because India is satisfactorily able to meet the human resources needs of such companies, both in terms of talent quality and the headcount.

However, when it comes to start-ups in the technology product development space, there are questions raised with regard to quality, productivity and general mindset of talent. India as such has never had a great product development background. Therefore, there aren’t many engineers around with experience in this area. So talent availability is an issue.

Apart from that, many entrepreneurs with a base in Silicon Valley believe that the concept of sweat equity and stock options is not understood by people here. It means that out of the available talent, not many may be able to trade their monetary compensation for the satisfaction of development of a great product. They may in fact expect at least a 20 per cent hike every year simply because the market decides that rate for them.

The problem does not stop there. Once that talent is recruited there is a constant fear of losing it to other competing firms. High attrition levels in India form the basis of these fears.

Nonetheless, there are multiple reasons for start-ups in product development space to have a presence in India as well. The low cost of operation, courtesy the difference in salary levels of Indian Vs Silicon Valley based engineers ensures that value is created while maintaining low burn.

Besides, it speeds up execution because on an average you can recruit three people in India at the cost of one in the US. So with more number of engineers working on a product, the pace of execution increases. India is also home to companies (www.persistentsys.com) today that do not mind partnering with start-ups for better product development, unlike earlier when the few big companies that the country had were interested only in multi-million dollar deals.  

There is another side to this multi-faceted cube as well. With India specifically, and APAC in general becoming potential markets for growth, it makes better sense to have a presence in India so as to be closer to the customers.  No wonder then that corporates like SAP and Cisco have made India a hub for the Asia-Pacific marketing and sales activities.

So what’s the final call? Well, the balance finally tilts in favor of a presence in India , provided that certain parameters are taken care of. These include trying to rope in people of Indian origin willing to move back to the country after gaining significant product development experience abroad. Minekey (www.minekey.com) is a case in point.

Apart from that, it helps to ingrain and practice the concepts of stock options among employees in India . PortalPlayer (www.nvidia.com) and Party Gaming are good examples of companies that have followed the stock options route and helped generate wealth for their stakeholders.

Tools like Skype and Video-conferencing should also be used significantly to ensure that work progress becomes location-agnostic. India, therefore, is an advantage even for Silicon Valley based product start-ups provided that the upsides don’t get pushed under the carpet of avoidable inefficiencies.