TiE Business Delegation From US

Today I attended a business delegation from US arranged by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs). It was my first such networking conference in India.

The day went on quite well and I met quite many people on a single day. Was quite different from my usual day doing and writing software code.

The day started with various panel discussions. All the panel discussions were quite good, led by extremely talented people.

First panel discussion: Where is the Indian IT Industry headed moderated by Kiran Karnik, President, Nasscom with panelists Ajai Chowdhry, Chairman &CEO, HCL Infosystems, Dan Sandhu, CEO, India & Head of Offshore Business, Vertex, India, Atul Dhawan, Deloitte Haskins & Sells.

One important thing that was part of the overall discussion was "scale". Companies in India growing at a massive rate and that was important to make India a global hub. People talked about statistics comparing India and China and talked about growth potential of Indian domestic market in hardware, internet (creating broadband content) and software (SME, health services and education). Dan Sandhu had an interesting perspective where he said indian operations should have "scale, scope and depth" in order to succeed.

The panel discussion and Q&A mainly dealt with India offshore operations, IT, BPO. I was happy to see the rising numbers but it made me ask my first question of the day! So in Q&A I asked:
What holds for technology startups in India? How can agencies like Nasscom and others help young entrepreneurs? When will we see the next google, amazon or ebay coming from India?

The answer to my question was mixed. And I think people know that there are lot many problems that still need to be solved. Some of them which they already talked about in the panel discussion. But this fact pinches me personally at times, we have such a big software industry, why isn't google, amazon, ebay really happening in India. Perhaps this is because of the fact that I am running my own startup, trying to establish my own small niche.

The second panel discussion:
Q&A with companies with investments from US based VCs on their experiences and expectations moderated by Bimal Sareen, Founder & CEO, Avaana and panelists Sushil Gupta, Vice President & MD, Atrenta India & Chirag Jain, VP & Head-India Operations, firstRain Software Centre Pvt.Ltd.

The discussion focussed around the issues of an Indian company getting funding from US VCs. The most important tip is: Get funding from where your customer is. If a company has customers in US, try to raise funding from US VCs as they will provide you with much needed contacts, networking and valuable information of the market. Both Avaana and First Rain raised good amount of money from the venture funds and performing good. Chirag provided another insight that a company should focus on the core product rather than trying to do short term gains for the numbers and this is what they learn't from their US VC.

In both these cases, the initial company formation was in US. So weather those are indian companies or US companies with india operations, its hard to draw the line. This was what even Kiran Karnik said in the first panel discussion. What is meant by an Indian company? Is it a company incorporated in India with global operations; a global company with 90% of its workforce in India or a company focused in Indian domestic market? Its hard to draw the line.

Third Panel Discussion:
Learnings recap : Moderated discussion with 3 members of the VC representatives, Frederick Bolander, Jorge Del Calvo & Ann Ralston on their experiences and learnings in India moderated by Vivek Agarwal, CEO, Liqvid eLearning Services Pvt.Ltd.

Some of the US venture funds are now trying to look into early stage ventures in India. Their experience about India has been very positive. But on the other hand they haven't got any breakthough or disruptive ideas from the people. Most of the people are pitching for low R&D cost which they say doesn't succeed in the long run. Secondly the idea has to be big enough in order to appeal.

This part of the talk was interesting and also led to my second question of the day! Apart from venture money, the key thing that young entrepreneurs need is mentorship. I am myself an IIT Delhi graduate, running a startup, know other 5-6 startups incubated in IIT Delhi, but in India there doesn't exist an ecosystem for startups. How are venture firms or other firms helping startups in that? There are no forums or not at the scale of what exists in silicon valley.

For that, some person from the TiE association told me that TiE has a mentorship programme for young entrepreneurs.

I was happy to know about it and I thank him. But I think that was not an answer to my question. so I raised a follow up question:
If people want to get together and discuss technology or want to mature their idea, where should they go? If I am in a university or a young entrepreneur, I want to do something, my efforts might not lead to a successful company at the moment - there is no platform or not at the scale what exists in silicon valley to discuss.

I didn't get an answer except that TiE provides mentorship activities. I appreciate what TiE does and its a brilliant forum. But I think we need not one TiE but perhaps 100 more TiE's. These have to be accessible to general people. Like easy access to capital, "Easy Access to Mentoring" is very crucial. Along with some business meetings in Taj, some workshops need to be conducted in campuses, lecture theatres, hostels.

Last Panel discussion was about Opportunities in Chandigarh. Being myself from around Chandigarh, I wanted to see it develop as an IT hub. I think government policies in the past have screwed it in a big way. Let's hope things change for a better in the future. Good to know there is an incubation center in PEC(Punjab Engineering College) which is incubating 8 companies.

Last but not the least it was a wonderful day, met some many nice people. Had some discussions about my own venture, Wirkle. Thanks to TiE and all the other people for arranging such a nice event. Hope such activities are arranged much more often.