The (Product) Nation Responds
On May 14th, Avinash Raghava wrote a post questioning whether India has the DNA to build great products. If you haven’t read it yet, head over to the post here.
The post evoked strong responses from everyone in the industry. It was heartening to see that the software community in India is deeply passionate about this topic. A lot of comments came to us from various channels outside of Medium, and we felt that we need to collate them at one place — to keep the conversation going, and build a movement around this idea.
… I may be horribly wrong about this — but I think this whole discussion is only about timing. Meaning, its only a matter of time before you see global innovations out of India. The reason its taking time is founders are still on a different point of the arc in India. For instance, the b2b software market is very nascent in India and as a result we can’t learn fast enough since our customers are all in the US and other places. We have to do this from a distance where as founders here have been dealing with the problems of their customers for many decades. Also, the economies of any business in India reward a different kind of behavior (cheap, fast in consumer apps). So founders are unsure if they can take any other risk. They long to replicate an airbnb but all they end up doing is copying it with some tweaks. …
Nice post Avi, but even if founders do all these things what will happen if VCs don’t back them in their vision? Problem is product ideas that really hit it out of the park need to ignore monetization for years…during which they need VC money. Where is that? Which is why you see SaaS startups focusing on revenue/profits right from year 1. Which means blue ocean vision suffers, right?
…The US has not only silicon valley but a huge economy with almost everyone who can contribute to a product’s meaningful adoption and eventually monetization. India lacks that, and due to that nothing grows big here… And if it isn’t big here, there is minimal cha de of it going global. The economy and consumption needs to match up to that of a mature economy.
Airbnb became what it is due to millions of people “together” using it at scale, and then the silicon valley advantage came in with funding , expansion etc… Same for Uber, Netflix and even Google.
In the US things automatically grow if it is a good product, India doesn’t have that capability yet as the economy and the consumer isn’t as evolved.
My belief is that the solution lies in bringing together infrastructure, and layered support at each level for an entrepreneur to become rock solid.
Entrepreneurs in India aren’t exposed to the global landscape. They need help to get there. I believe that the entrepreneur should have mentors who have been exposed to the global approach at each step of the way. Effectively — at the first stage, they shouldnt have to worry about funds, or best of class talent. Someone will work with them closely to help them navigate this stage. In phase 2 — how do you bring together the best team, without losing sight of the bigger goal. Some one who is great at this stage helps them here. It’s about inculcating that approach. Won’t happen easily — but if 10 such companies could be brought forward through dedicated support by various people — the ecosystem as well as those folks would know how to do what… and the ball will start rolling!
Stay tuned for more from us in the coming weeks as work towards building momentum around this initiative. And if you want to join the conversation, become part of this movement and help India become a product nation, drop us a note below and we will get back to you.
