5 types of startups we would love to see out of India
I love this land.
I’ve grown to love it even more even since I came back in 2010 with a promise given to myself to find and fund most highly prospective Indian startups.
With an administration that strongly encourages collaboration between government and education institutions and literacy rates quickly sweeping past 80% and 90% of graduate completion programs, there is virtually nothing this country can not achieve. That power. The energy one can feel around. The propensity to stretch and push for possibilities never envisioned of before. It has never been like that. Not in my childhood at least.
Yet, there are dozens of problems none of us really addresses as a collective and no entrepreneurial spirit puts into its agenda. Maybe because they look politicized or maybe they are not captured by the wave of cool we would all rather want to be part of.
However, they are real, even painful and if addressed with passion and persistence could produce the next great wave of companies in India solving India-specific problems and awarding the entrepreneur who makes them part of her agenda. Here are some of them:
Farmer suicide
There is a complex web of challenges that wrap themselves around this problem ranging from climate conditions to information scarcity that makes farmers prey to the dozens of middlemen between themselves and the market.
There have been more than 100 farmer suicides reported this year and that is surely a conservative estimate considering the weaknesses of the system in estimating the causes of death in India’s most remote areas. Indian agriculture is full of bottlenecks but has nevertheless attracted very little attention from the entrepreneurial sector.
The failure of the first Green Revolution in Punjab has never before called for a better time in innovation around multi-cropping, organic food production and everything that goes along with it. Are we going to see more entrepreneurial spirit around our food-producing web?
Public healthcare
Several pharma startups have done an amazing jobs sorting out the many hassles that exist around the Indian public healthcare system. But the benefits seem to be distributed only towards the few. As long as we see streams of patients waiting around AIIMS for basic attendance, there is plenty to be done. I would hope to see more startups that make care more accessible and the costs of care transparent.
Alternative Education
While India has gone far in taking education to the most vulnerable of its groups, very little has been done around introducing depth around it. In a nation with a billion people nation, our basic education curriculum can be summed around few words. Engineering. Science.
Portals for better preparation for entry examination doesn’t call for real innovation. The Indian middle class’s polarization around several branches and programs is a matter of concern and the country is not able to produce talent with unique alternative skills that encourage creative and critical thinking so highly sought in today’s job markets.
The era of robotics and automation will ensure that within a decade all the jobs we prepare our children for will be wiped out. There has never been a worse time to be a mere computer graduate and never a better time to be that amazing graphic artists turning himself into UX engineer. Any startup initiative that will introduce and imbibe the need for alternative education is likely to harvest nicely here in India.
Garbage disposal
That even in the 21st century, India still suffocates in it’s own litter is an old problem discussed countless times and unfortunately still considered one that can only be resolved if the government decides to do something about it. Good statehood means taking every problem we are concerned about as our own. And India, with its estimated 100 million tons of litter, is is ripe for innovation in waste management. Several enthusiasts have already ventured into this space with some pretty amazing results — check out Seelampur in East Delhi.
Electronic Thrift Market
I believe only one such market exists — in Mumbai, India.
Electronic thrift markets are essentially stores for hand-me-downs. Computer parts still remain very expensive. Corporates dispose of “old” laptops and PCs (less than a year old by current standards and therefore extremely useful to a second-hand buyer, a gamer or enthusiast) and those PCs go straight to OLX (online marketplace for second hand and used goods) or to scrap. A typical computer has about 300–400 rupees ($5-$6) worth of silver and gold wiring in electronic scrap apart from other reusable parts. Look at the numbers and tell me if calling this market a profitable one makes me too detached from reality.
