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Category: Entrepreneurship

  • Anyone Can Build

    In 1997, Apple, pioneer of the computing industry, was floundering. It turned to its co-founder, Steve Jobs for direction and impetus, and the rest, as they say is history.

    Jobs took the company back to its roots in innovation, building tools that help people change the world.

    Jobs was instrumental in championing the vision of the personal computer when computers were considered useful only for governments and large businesses. Not only did he succeed in realizing his vision back then through the Apple II, Jobs went on to define the post-PC era with the introduction of mobile computing devices. Apple’s revival post-1997 is an amazing and insanely great story, to borrow some of the words that he frequently used to describe his company’s products.

    Over three decades, Jobs transformed several multi-billion dollar industries on a global scale through his work at Apple and Pixar Animation Studios. But Steve Jobs will not just go down in history as one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.

    The message of his life is deeper. In Pixar’s 2007 animation film Ratatouille, Chef Gusteau used to say that anyone can cook. Gusteau was a renowned chef in Paris who invited much derision from others in his community for believing that anybody could become a great cook.

    Steve Jobs showed that anyone can build. With passion, focus and a commitment to innovate, entrepreneurs can beat the odds and build great companies. There’s tons to learn from Steve Jobs’s work for anybody trying to solve technological problems in a business context – in this sense, Jobs is a Dronacharya to countless entrepreneurs worldwide.

    Silicon Valley has seen dozens of luminaries come and go over the decades, but the name and work of Steve Jobs shines the brightest in this august gallery of the crazy ones. The man has left us – but his legend will live on for centuries to come.

     

  • India Learns To Innovate

    India is regarded as the world’s outsourcing center and a production powerhouse for generic drugs. Information technology and pharmaceutical companies have lent the India story a rich layer thanks to their reputations for efficiency. Aside from creating hundreds of thousands of jobs at home, these industries have helped train a domestic labor force that suffers at the hands of a broken higher-education system. Above all, Indians who have worked at these companies have been filled with a confidence to strike out on their own, and the seeds of cutting-edge innovation are now taking root in the Indian economy.

    For a long time, India’s economy was starved for capital. Its best scientific talent went abroad because there were no opportunities at home. Monopolistic companies found their products to be in permanent demand because of artificial shortages created by government policy, so they never felt the need to invest in innovation. But business realities have changed dramatically over the last decade as India transforms into an urbanized, industrial economy. An increasingly discerning consumer base and competition in the marketplace are forcing companies to innovate for the home market. One example is Tata Motors, the builder of the $2,500 Nano car, which changed automobile design fundamentally and invented new ways for automobile manufacturing. Nano factories use “smart” technologies and automation to manage supply chains in real-time and minimize the consumption of energy and resources during production.

    Economic turmoil in developed nations and stringent immigration policies have made the prospect of returning home more attractive for expatriate Indians. Vivek Wadhwa, who researches innovation, showed that more than 60 percent of the returnees to India cited better economic opportunities as a key reason for making the shift. These individuals bring with them not just experience and skills, but a culture and professional network that is catalyzing innovation in India. Indeed, moving up the value chain this way is imperative for the economy to maintain its growth momentum and create jobs.

    Seeing the quality of people flocking to India, global investors have eagerly set up shop. India has never seen the availability of so much financial risk capital — yet it isn’t enough, and it is spread rather unevenly. Many investors believe that India is still limited when it comes to product innovation and are hesitant to back innovation-driven ventures. Instead, they choose to play it safe by focusing on outsourcing-oriented businesses, a formula that has been known to work well.

    As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist in India, I see that my nation is at a tipping point. India has always failed to achieve its potential when it comes to commercializing technology, but with the return of talent from abroad and the emergence of a large domestic market, it now has momentum.

    I have found that companies that create knowledge and commercialize scientific research can attract engineers and scientists from across the globe. Two companies that I’ve invested in include founders who used to be expatriates.

    India can be a chaotic and difficult place to do business, consistently getting a low ranking in the World Bank’s reports on the ease of doing business. Opening bank accounts or working with the government’s tax and regulatory agencies entail mounds of paperwork and can drag on for weeks. Still, it makes sense to invest in innovation because of India’s superior capital efficiency, which mitigates financial risks. Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, an economist, has shown in his book “The Rise of India” that India requires four units of capital to generate one unit of output, while China consumes five units of capital to produce one unit of output.

    There are lessons here for policymakers as well — competition for talent and capital is now global. Nations that champion openness and freedom will be able to compete and prosper, while those that remain insular will fall behind. A lot remains to be done to cultivate such an environment in India. Outdated labor laws constrain the development of manufacturing, and the higher-education system needs large investments for expansion along with a boost in autonomy.

    India has rapidly moved on from its rigidly socialist past, setting the stage for more openness and freedom. An older colleague in his sixties remarked to me that my generation of Indians was fortunate to be able to build companies from the ground up. In earlier times, India’s economy remained so tightly controlled by the government that this would have simply been impossible. The government can encourage entrepreneurship by making it easier to run businesses, enhancing access to finance and building transportation infrastructure and new cities.

    India doesn’t have to be just the world’s back office. It can also be the innovation engine.

    Originally Published: The New York Times International Weekly

  • Watering The Seeds Of Growth

    Both Indian industry and the government agree that the economy needs a spurt of innovation. While industry has produced innovations such as the Tata Nano, the government has proposed to create dedicated venture funds for start-ups in certain areas. A coal cess was introduced in this year’s Union Budget with its proceeds earmarked for a clean energy fund. In July, the government said it is considering setting up a Rs3,000 crore venture fund to encourage innovation-driven pharmaceutical start-ups.

    While these are welcome steps, some key issues need to be kept in perspective for such initiatives to be successful. First, the government has to facilitate creation of the right ecosystem. Second, it has to adopt effective mechanisms for injecting public funds into the ecosystem.

    Under the highly successful US model for technology commercialization, it’s the universities that have been the fountainheads for innovation. Stanford, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all successfully moved technologies from the laboratory to the market, producing companies such as Bose Corp., Akamai, Genentech, Genzyme and Google, which have created tens of billions of dollars in value. It’s important to note that the enterprise capacity of universities and research institutions is a function of the broader economic system in which they exist, and the culture and policies this system cultivates.

    While India is gradually moving towards a similar knowledge-based market economy, the culture of encouraging scientists to commercialize inventions is yet absent; in many cases, they are even debarred from starting ventures. Rules and guidelines governing the entrepreneurial involvement of scientists with new ventures are loosely framed or absent. With a few exceptions, processes for managing intellectual property and the know-how to structure intellectual property deal terms that facilitate long-term monetization are lacking even in some of the top-ranked institutions. These gaps need to be bridged urgently to develop a vibrant start-up ecosystem.

    A frequent complaint among technology-driven, product-oriented start-up founders is the dearth of seed financing for such ventures. Along with a supportive ecosystem, early-stage financing and venture capital are critical for nurturing innovation. For instance, the Deshpande Center at MIT has provided $10 million as catalyst grants to over 80 start-ups in the US over the last eight years. Twelve of them have built a total market value of over $180 million and created more than 200 jobs. A key element of the grant programme is the mentoring provided by seasoned entrepreneurs.

    Effective venture capitalists not only provide finance, they also contribute proactively to the development of a start-up. They work as partners with start-up founders in building a business, providing visibility to new ventures and access to the right contacts through their business networks. This can be decisive when hiring senior management or raising growth capital. In a nutshell, venture capitalists create within the start-up ecosystem what economists term social capital.

    All this means that the government’s proposed funding scheme has to be able to meet such standards. Otherwise, it will be unable to fulfil its mandate of nurturing innovative start-ups.

    Yet, seductive as it may sound, government bureaucrats directing the precise allocation of seed capital may not work out as well in practice. Besides the opportunity for nepotism and rent seeking, there’s little evidence to suggest that governments can manage money well. That’s why one idea worth considering here is that professional, independent fund managers should be engaged to manage the proposed government funds.

    An alternative mechanism is for the government to invest in existing venture funds—public pension funds or financial institutions could do the actual investing—which share a similar vision for nurturing start-up innovation. In venture capital parlance, the government could play the role of a limited partner, or LP, in venture capital funds that would have the mandate—and a proven track record—of investing in high-risk innovation in specified domains.

    In fact, this could even stoke the local venture capital industry. So far, it’s primarily foreign investors who have backed Indian venture funds. India’s private and government financial institutions, major corporations and high networth families haven’t nearly invested in venture funds on the scale that they should. The symbiotic inclusion of Indian investors will be transformational for India’s start-up ecosystem. Industry stalwarts could inform the investment decision-making process at funds and allow start-ups to tap networks and best practices suited to the Indian context, improving investment decisions, start-up operating performance and capital allocation across the economy.

    The stakes are very high. If the government’s initiative is not able to show success, the essential mission of nurturing innovative start-ups would also be tainted. This would be undesirable for both Indian industry and the aam aadmi. Research published by the Kauffman Foundation in July has shown that start-ups are not just major contributors to an economy, but the only contributors to net job creation and job growth.

    If India is to become a knowledge economy and translate its scientific prowess into equitable, sustainable economic growth, it is imperative that policymakers make the right choices to nurture India’s nascent start-up ecosystem, and structure any proposed funding initiative optimally.

    (Co-authored with Dr Shiladitya Sengupta.)

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/1iTBmYU

  • Reinventing The Wheel For India

    AFP/Getty Images
    India currently has just one automotive company, Tata Motors, in the global top 20, while China has three in the top 20.

    The transportation sector in India is witnessing rapid growth as India urbanizes and the economy continues to expand. Car sales for July recorded a jump of 38% from a year earlier, rising to an all-time high. Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata are all building up mass-transit systems. The national capital has just opened a swanky new airport terminal and the civil aviation industry has never been more competitive.

    Consumers today have lots of choices in how they choose to get around. This is a far cry from the earlier times when government carriers dominated the skies and entry into the automotive industry was heavily regulated and just a handful of players allowed to manufacture cars. With the exception of railways, which continue to be a government monopoly, every sector of transportation is witnessing a vibrancy never seen before in India.

    The upward shift in the standard and quality of transportation in India is one of the most visible and tangible benefits bestowed by economic growth. The problem – and investment opportunity – is that we have only scratched the surface.

    India currently has just one automotive company, Tata Motors, in the global top 20, while China has three in the top 20 and ten in the top 30. Interestingly, many of China’s large automotive firms are home-grown, while international auto companies like Suzuki, Honda and Hyundai dominate the Indian market.

    Vast regions of the country are yet to be connected by roads and airports. Conventional approaches and legacy technology cannot meet all the new demand. The 300 millionth car to be sold in India may not even run on petrol or diesel. There is a need for innovation to ensure that transportation capacity scales in step with mushrooming demand in every sector, be it aviation, passenger cars, commercial vehicles or mass transit.

    Relying only on technologies and ideas from the West is not feasible, since there has never been a transportation need of this scale in the developed economies. Indian policy-makers and entrepreneurs must think for themselves.

    Investing in auto startups and building companies in the transportation sector is certainly not for the fainthearted. Building an auto company from scratch is extremely difficult. Most investors would balk at the idea of funding a car company, given the capital investment required to manufacture cars. But it is all but impossible for an entrepreneur to start up without financing.

    Tesla Motors, the electric car company funded by leading Silicon Valley VC firms and built by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk went public recently in the first IPO by a US-based automotive company since Ford Motor Co. in 1956. Mr. Musk staked his considerable personal wealth behind the venture, using his own money when institutional funding was difficult to obtain. Without Musk’s calculated gamble, Tesla wouldn’t have survived.

    There are other ways of entering the industry. I met Dilip Chhabria, the founder of automotive design firm DC Design, at an event organized by IIM Calcutta last week and he said the time was right for investors to form a consortium to acquire the rights to rebuild and redesign the Ambassador, an iconic car produced by Hindustan Motors, the one-time market leader that is now struggling financially.

    One should remember that while the precedents which are the basis of the negativity about automotive startups are from abroad, the Indian context and market represent a new dynamic – and that can make all the difference. The structural factors driving the growth of India’s automotive market are not going away anytime soon. Rather than facing a headwind, there will be a tailwind assisting those venturing into the Indian automotive industry.

    While this doesn’t imply that any automotive startup will do well, high capital requirements should not be a deterrent to investing in the opportunity presented by the Indian auto sector at this stage of India’s growth cycle.

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/TcuDmV

  • Riding The Indian Education Boom

    India’s education sector is seeing hectic entrepreneurial activity and private equity investors are deploying significant capital in this sunrise sector. Funds focusing exclusively on education have emerged. Recently, education company Kaplan announced the formation of Kaplan Ventures, which will invest in the education sector in India and other countries.

    There are a few structural drivers to the boom in India’s education sector.

    First and unusually, the Indian government has made a commitment to restructuring the policy framework, including the setting up of foreign universities in India. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has taken a few steps forward, and some backward, but for now even the mere promise of reform and more openness in the sector is sufficient to generate hope and excitement that spurs investment and business plans.

    But some caution would be apt. There is a strong case for regulating the sector and putting in place standards and guidelines for what it takes for an educational institution to be recognized as a university or school. Without sound regulatory norms in the early stages, the education boom may fizzle out to the detriment of investors, entrepreneurs and India’s economy. Regulation, however, should be left to individual school examination boards and professional accreditation bodies as far as possible, distributing rather than concentrating authority.

    For instance, there has been a profusion of institutions offering the International Baccalaureate program for high school students. The IB is governed by the IB Organization based in Switzerland, which sets its own standards for what it takes to be an IB school. The government should empower Indian boards to set standards in the same way, for this would allow for competition between boards. Schools, private and government-aided, should be free to choose the board they want to offer, to design the admissions mechanism and to charge the fees they wish.

    Second, India is entering a phase of demographic change that has far-reaching consequences for society and the economy. According to research from Deutsche Bank, India will be adding almost a million people to its labor force every single month for the next 20 years till 2030. That’s a staggering number of people, equivalent to the current populations of U.K., Germany, Spain and France combined. The only comparable demographic shift from recent history is the post-World War II baby boom in the United States. Skill development, training and education will be among the first areas where all those consumers will want to put their money.

    These trends will only accelerate, making the education sector very attractive for both entrepreneurs and investors. Moreover, without private capital and the participation of entrepreneurs, India simply cannot train and educate a workforce of this size.

    While projects such as building full-fledged schools and universities would be beyond the reach of most first-time entrepreneurs and are typically not “fundable” from a venture capital perspective, ancillaries like infrastructure, technology and services are attracting investments.

    In 2009, TutorVista, Career Point and FIITJEE were some of the companies offering training for competitive university admission examinations that saw substantial investor interest. The most successful companies in the sector so far have been those that are providing information technology and software solutions to brick-and-mortar institutions. Companies like Educomp Solutions and EdServe Softsystems have combined the high margins of the software business with the scale and opportunity in the education space.

    Education is a very large canvas. The challenge is to identify the areas within it that will be the most profitable. As the sector evolves and grows, opportunities which cannot be anticipated today will soon emerge.

    Originally Published: WSJ

  • The Genesis Of Jobs

    Speculating whether India can spawn innovative companies like Apple and Google is a favourite parlor game among venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

    It’s clear that there is staggering talent and creativity in the country, and it seems more a question of when and not if, provided the proper environment is created. Young entrepreneurs and engineers are bubbling with enthusiasm and energy and spending time with them fills one with optimism about the country’s future.On the other hand, a casual scanning of the daily news can be rather depressing. Riots, murders, suicides, mass protests, corruption, political scandals have become so commonplace that they are no longer a surprise. Human tragedies have been turned into mere statistics. While India is touted as a growth engine for the world economy, it also has the largest number of children suffering from malnutrition and among the highest incidences of crimes against women.

    Businesspeople and entrepreneurs are said to make up “India” while farmers, laborers and other low-income groups form the other India, known as Bharat.

    The government tries to put the interests of Bharat before India, calling for inclusive growth and championing job creation programs.

    How can India and Bharat be bridged?

    In a few days, Cupertino, California-based Apple’s hotly-anticipated iPad will hit the market. Led by the legendary Steve Jobs, Apple has upended many industries in the last decade, including personal computing, entertainment, wireless telecommunications and retail. His vision continues to guide strategy and product development at what is arguably the world’s most innovative company. His personal story is just as illuminating for how economic and individual freedom catalyze innovation.

    Steve Jobs was born in 1955 to a Syrian immigrant father at the height of the post-War Baby Boom. Before co-founding Apple in 1976, Jobs dabbled in calligraphy, electronics and psychedelic drugs, even travelling to India in search of spiritual enlightenment in 1974 after dropping out from college. Back then, electronics and computers had no serious hope of becoming as mainstream as they are today, and were the exclusive preserve of hobbyists.

    The vanguard of this group was a motley set of people who styled themselves as the Homebrew Computer Club, which would probably qualify as the first industry association for the computer and electronics business. Steve Jobs was among the early members. From unlikely beginnings, Jobs co-founded the company that became the vanguard of the computer revolution. He did not go to an Ivy League college, nor did he come from an affluent family. In fact, Jobs recounted recently how he’d travel to the local Hare Krishna temple every weekend while in college because he didn’t have enough money to eat.

    It’s not for nothing that America is known as the land of the free. Steve Jobs is one of the best-known examples of how a culture of freedom and openness in America has allowed individuals to prosper based on ability and effort. That culture cannot be replicated quickly or easily. The first step is to boost economic freedom. Much to the disappointment of venture capitalists and others in India Inc., job creation and not economic liberalization has been high on the agenda of the government.

    The distinction between job creation and income growth is not as well understood as it should be. Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman once visited China at the height of Communism, and was taken to a construction site. He asked why the contractors were not using machinery and modern equipment, and was told that the project was part of a government job creation program. Friedman replied that the spades used by the labor force should be replaced with spoons, and that would increase employment even more! The lesson is that it is easy to “create” jobs, but harder to grow incomes because incomes rise only when productivity increases. Productivity increases when companies compete and innovate.If we are serious about creating jobs, we should focus on creating an environment where people like Jobs prosper. Bharat will become more like India.

    In the current regime, India is being turned into Bharat. Well-intentioned policies that claim to employ the poor are distorting the labor market by incentivizing people to migrate back to villages from cities. The country must urbanize if it has to develop economically, it cannot continue to live in villages.

    Much has been made of India’s demographic dividend. An average of nearly 1 million people will be entering the work force every single month for the next 20 years, a scale unprecedented in human history. The only comparable event is the post-World War II Baby Boom in the US. This is an opportunity, and can be a huge challenge, because all those people will want to be well-fed, educated and productively employed. It would be futile for the government to even try employing so many people. If harnessed properly, this talent pool can transform the Indian economy. If the creativity of this human pool is allowed to flourish, it can change the world. India can produce many Apples and Googles.

    Otherwise, the country will remain impoverished and torn by social strife in coming decades, and will naively celebrate the success of its diaspora, for the best and brightest will simply migrate in search of a better life.

    Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of the Reliance group, famously said once that it was imperative to manage the environment when doing business in India. The environment should be changed so that entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs can create jobs and businesses can focus on managing innovation instead of the environment.

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/1nNU8sm

  • Not Just Luck By Chance

    This is Part 2 in a two-part series on Bollywood and Entrepreneurship. Read the first part here. 

    Conviction: In recent times, one of the best films about the film business was Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance, released in 2009. It tells the story of Vikram Jaisingh, an aspiring actor, and his efforts to make it in Bollywood amidst cut-throat competition. Vikram believes that success and failure are simply choices people make. In a dramatic scene, his girlfriend breaks down when she learns that she has been overlooked for a lead role in a movie she had spent years chasing. Vikram tells her that so far you’ve believed in and relied on others, now believe in yourself.

    He tells her that opportunities are not found, they are created. Apne raaste par chalte raho, chalte raho…dheere dheere saari duniya tumhare raaste par aa jaayegi (Keep traveling your chosen path, gradually the whole world will start following you on that path), says Vikram Jaisingh. Played expertly by Farhan Akhtar, Jaisingh goes on to become a superstar. The movie keeps the viewer guessing whether he was just lucky or “created luck” by sheer hard work, drive and conviction.

    Conviction is indispensable for entrepreneurs, particularly the truly innovative ones. Success is elusive and hard to come by. When starting out, family, friends and everyone around you wish you well but they also harbour doubts. Personal conviction is paramount, but it is also very important for entrepreneurs to have a mentor and guide who has unfailing conviction, someone who can advise and course-correct when required while believing in the dream. While it’s difficult justifying a stressful lifestyle and long work hours indefinitely without showing some accomplishment; as an old saying goes, the distance between madness and genius is only bridged by success.

    Contentment: Clarity, confidence and conviction mutually reinforce each other, eventually leading to breakthroughs. A hint of success and achievement can alter public perceptions. The idea of the personal computer was considered outlandish, but the entrepreneurs who pushed its development are part of business legend today – history is replete with many such examples.

    Success and recognition are accompanied by pitfalls, and they can breed a sense of contentment. Contentment breeds a stasis that can destroy an organization. Again, the role of a mentor who helps maintain the entrepreneur’s focus and passion is critical. Contentment can quickly undo the positive effects of the other three Cs. The biggest risk is not taking enough risks.

    The hunger and drive never really dies in effective entrepreneurs. In the movie Guru, Gurubhai asks his shareholders whether they want to become the largest company in the world, now that the company is the largest in India. Vikram Jaisingh describes a friend working in theater as “content” – after working in theater for several months, he had achieved some success and was unwilling to rock the boat.

    When entrepreneurs combine the first three Cs and ward against the fourth, stars are born.

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/1hyzk5J

  • Guru, Deewar and My Lessons From Bollywood

    I’ve written earlier about the parallels between film-making and entrepreneurship. Much like management guru Philip Kotler’s 4 Cs for marketing, we can also define 4 Cs for entrepreneurship, and these can be illustrated with scenes from Bollywood movies.

     Clarity Intellectual and operational clarity come from continuous effort and relentless application. In Mani Ratnam’s Guru, which is an unofficial biopic of Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani, the protagonist Gurukant Desai, also known as Gurubhai, is asked to defend himself from charges of tax evasion and bribery in front of a government investigation panel. Gurubhai begins his speech by asking, Khada ho jaaoon, ya iske liye bhi license chahiye? (Should I stand up, or do I require a license for that too?). He goes on to question the very legitimacy of India’s now-infamous license-quota-permit Raj and government interference in the economy, which strangulated entrepreneurs through the 1970s and 1980s, and continues to constrain entrepreneurial activity today:


    In the full glare of the media and a powerful, antagonistic government commission, Gurubhai unapologetically explains why he did what he did, and how his actions were necessitated by government policy. He is able to hold his own and emerges triumphant because he has an uncommon clarity of purpose. He rejects the charges of government, saying he does not feel the need to apologize for building a world-class business. Agar paisa ban sakta tha, to maine banaya hai (If money could have been made, I made it), he says.Confidence Kishore Biyani, founder of Pantaloon Retail, was asked at the TiE Entrepreneurial Summit in Mumbai last year what he felt like when deep-pocketed companies like Reliance Industries entered the retail industry. Mr. Biyani gave a pithy reply – he recalled the confrontation scene between Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor from Yash Chopra’s classic Deewar, released in 1975. Amitabh Bachchan chastises his younger brother for being impractical and idealistic. He tells him that his honesty and commitment have earned him no material gain, to which Shashi Kapoor delivers one of the immortal lines from Indian cinema, Mere paas Maa hai (I have my mother).

    Kishore Biyani, known to be a movie buff, invoked the scene in the context of his response to seemingly unbeatable competition. He paraphrased Mere paas Maa Hai to Mere paas Indian consumer ki understanding hai (I understand how Indian consumers think and behave). That was his competitive advantage, and he was quite unperturbed despite the perceived threat to his business because he knew his strengths and weaknesses well.Entrepreneurs typically don’t have enough resources, they have to be resourceful. Just money doesn’t always do the trick – and this applies as much to startups as it does to large companies attempting to do something path-breaking. It has been several years since Reliance and others entered the retail industry – while Pantaloon has managed to scale and grow profitably, the deep-pocketed contenders continue to struggle.This is part 1 in a 2-part series on Bollywood and Entrepreneurship.

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/1pEOxEr

  • The Potential Of India’s Offline Market

    India is a unique economy in many respects. Though Indians conduct cutting-edge and mission-critical research for Fortune 500 corporations, few Indians actually think of building products that compete with them. While the print medium is dying in other parts of the world, leading print publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, Harper’s Bazaar, Technology Review and even celebrity gossip rags People and Hello! magazines have launched print editions specially for the Indian market.

    While the rest of the world has seen a boom in online media and social networking, India, which has less than 80 million Internet users in a population of over one billion, has seen meteoric growth in traditional electronic and print media over the decade. As Europe and the US debate the virtues of distributed power and how the electricity grid can be upgraded, India is starting with a clean slate. Large swathes of the country are still far away from grid connectivity or are shrouded in perennial power cuts.

    In a nutshell, the rules and principles which would work in markets in the West do not apply directly to India. Over the last few weeks, I came across a few companies that represent the potential of India’s “offline” market.

    Large parts of India are still not connected to the electricity grid. Sometimes the connectivity is there, but electricity supply is unreliable and inadequate. Bangalore-based Duron Energy has developed a solar-powered domestic lighting solution for exactly such areas. One of the most popular reasons consumers and families are willing to invest in purchasing Duron’s product is to enable their children to read and study after sunset. Duron is competing with the kerosene oil lamp, and is offering a solution to customers at the bottom of the pyramid who would probably never see electricity in their homes for at least a few years, even though a massive government push for infrastructure investment is already underway.

    At IIT Bombay’s Entrepreneurship Summit, there was a company called Five Shells which is developing board games. Yes, board games. Conventional wisdom dictates that board games are dead. After all, we live in the era of Nintendo Wii, PlayStation Portable and Xbox 360. Games these days should be developed exclusively for console systems like the Wii and Xbox, and hand-held devices like the PlayStation Portable, iPod Touch and even the iPhone.

    Except that in India, the conventional wisdom doesn’t quite apply that neatly. Most of the consoles and hand-held devices are priced way beyond the reach of the average Indian. It costs a great deal of money to purchase electronic hardware, which can cost tens of thousands of rupees, and supplement that with game title purchases, which start at a few thousand rupees. In short, the spending required is simply beyond the budget of the average family.

    Hence, there is clearly a huge market for inexpensive and fun board games priced at a few hundred rupees, assuming a small percentage of Indians enjoys playing board games. Moreover, few companies are designing board games keeping in mind India’s history, culture and consumer tastes.

    Why should Indian consumers only have a choice between Risk and Monopoly? Having said that, designing and marketing board games is no mean task. It requires an incisive understanding of consumers tastes and psychology to produce a game that is fun and easy to play. A company like Five Shells would also do well to protect indigenous intellectual property, and should avoid producing cheap knock-offs of game ideas from abroad, focusing on innovation and new ideas instead.

    Another company that is innovating in an allegedly dying industry is ReleaseMyAd. Founded by former Microsoft employee and Wharton School graduate Sharad Lunia, ReleaseMyAd allows customers to take out print classified advertisements in newspapers from across the country using the Internet, eliminating the cumbersome process of finding and coordinating with a local agency. Print classifieds have been transformed from a billion dollar business into a million dollar business by the likes of Craigslist, but in India, print still rules.

    The death of print has been greatly exaggerated. In India, no website comes close to the reach and readership of a newspaper, and the old-media print classifieds market stands at some $300 million. ReleaseMyAd charges nothing extra to consumers for its service, and is in fact growing the market for print classifieds by providing those who wouldn’t otherwise use print classifieds an easy, seamless and transparent way to do so.

    Focusing on technology for the sake of technology can result in missed opportunities. Both entrepreneurs and investors would do well to remember that India is different. Those that build companies addressing this market’s unique and specific needs will be the ones that emerge as big winners.

    Originally Published: http://navam.in/1o9kz9s