A YC Clone in India
ciieindia.org
ciieindia.org
Uh... nice try but no cigar, guys.
Seriously, would this sort of arrangement be acceptable for most people in India? I don't think anyone could put up with that, but for so long.
As a people, we aren't as much averse to structure as US people are, but this is taking things a bit too far. And I honestly hope that these people are only kidding when they talk about all these "we will watch you" kind of things.
Workers at money printing factories?
Guard: "Not so fast!"
Worker: "How about I split the $10 million in cash I'm holding with you?"
When you start you get water wings that say, "Make Something People Want"
However, we would like you guys to understand the Indian innovation scenario before any suggestions. In a space where there is limited innovation happening, very few university start-ups happening, very few "IT-expert students" creating anything world-class or anywhere closer (other than doing some outsourced software services) - we feel this is a step to try something new to push people into starting-up an innovative company.
Our aim is to change the statistics of number of kids starting up out of college. And believe us, if we can't make a huge difference and end up creating 3 start-ups out of this process - we would have succeeded.
For those who understand this space better, we would love to have your feedbacks and how we can use this model better.
Apologies PG and YC fans (believe me I am one of them), we are just trying to bring some disruption in our innovation system. Look forward to your inputs.
Best, Kunal
I thought people would understand that we can't be so cruel and must have been kidding. Apologies for the assumption. Yes, we do provide people mattress next to their workplace - give them the luxury of resting as and when they want. We are trying to be as friendly as possible. Thanks for your feedback. It's not gonna be a jail believe me.
Good luck, these types of programs are important...
As of one minute ago the "changed" text reads,
"We don't want you to go to your accommodation before 12 midnight - so we provide you mattresses near your workspace for resting (well, we've got limited resources - can't provide you AC accommodation - so thats the least we can do to ensure that you beat the summers in Ahmedabad). There's anyways a security guard outside your work-area - so you don't get to leave the office before 12 midnight and you don't get to sleep in the office. Attendance happens at 9:30 am every morning. Sundays are off if you have met your weekly goals! (we got to be kidding on this!!)
End results are more important to us !! "
we don't want you to leave before midnight - check
you don't get to sleep in the office - check
attendance happens at 09.30 - check
Sundays are off if you have met your weekly goals - check
Is the "(we got to be kidding on this!!)" supposed to indicate that all the above is just you guys trying to be funny?
Just a suggestion from one of the much despised Indian "hackers" who can't think of a business plan without the IIM-A grads chipping in ;-).
When you are writing about how your process works, just say what you mean. Don't try to be funny. Writing humour calls for exceptional skill in writing. All this description manages to do is make you sound like lunatics. (Note : I said "sound like". I don't say that you ARE crazy).
Just say " we'll pay each founder 200 $ (or 8000 rupees) per month and give you non AC accomodation and an office with PC s and internet connectivity".
See? It's that easy.
And your whole "YC clone" theme is a bit of a non starter. YC works because as someone pointed out earlier on this blog, It is promoted by PG (and others) who "walked the talk". One of the reasons YC can't be cloned easily is that unless you have people of roughly equal caliber backing it up it makes no sense. People don't join YC's program for the money.
A mental experiment.
Think of what YC would sound like if it was promoted by a bunch of people with no credentials in either business or programming. Err... we are MBA students and we'll pay you 200 $ a month and make you go through hell (at the least you have to listen to our "humour" ;-) ) and give you ... ummm ... an internet connection. In return you will work your hearts out and try to create a killer startup.
Yeah that makes sense ;-)
Anyone who can hack can get (with ZERO experience) a 1500 $ / month job in Bangalore with no trouble at all. A couple of month's savings will give them more money than you guys can (and they can work whenever they feel like, with no security guards ;-) ). So what exactly is your value add? Pairing with an mba student?
This is not to discourage you from attempting to "incubate innovativeness" . Your deal just doesn't make any sense. But don't let me stop you. If you can get a world class product out of the door in three months with this deal structure , more power to you. We'll wait 90 days and see. (won't we? ;-) ).
Finally,
"give them the luxury of resting as and when they want"
resting when you are tired is not a "luxury" which you "give". It is a basic human right.
You seem to be a good for nothing migrant who can't appreciate a novel attempt to promote startups in India. More so, you must be one of those guys who couldn't make it to Google, couldn't make it to IIMs and now massages your ego criticizing everything good that happens in your motherland. Ridiculous !!
We are a bunch of IIT CS grads all set to apply to this program at IIMA and take our ideas to fruition. Look forward to more of your criticism anyways. That's what you are good at?.
would you please take your sophomoric personal attacks elsewhere. Good luck with the IIMA program.
1) Do you take a stake in the new formed company ?
2) Why are you offer a stipend ? It's not that expensive living in India, and a dot-com startup doesn't require any funds really.
3) The real strengths of YC, as others have observed, are mentors and a hacker culture. How would you offer that ?
4) Is an IIM the right place to incubate ?
5) A YC like incubator does best in a place which already has a thriving hacker / entrepreneurial culture. Gujarat, BTW, is perhaps the most entrepreneurial state in India.
6) You say that "IIM Ahmedabad students shall work closely with the teams to develop a sound business plan". Is that not a little insulting to suggest that hackers can only hack :) ? After all they are the only ones who understand their product, and can possibly form a business plan.
With all due respect, our aim is not to belittle the hackers - we respect them and the whole spirit behind the program is to actually encourage them to start-up. Our interaction with a lot of tech start-ups (by tech i don't just mean IT) suggests that often the failure is rarely in development of product - it's often in the ability to understand the market and to penetrate it. We might be mistaken, but we feel that IIMA grads can do a good job on that. A good techie+MBA make a better team than an IIMA grad alone or a techie alone does.
Equity: We are a not-for-profit entity and don't plan to take equity at this stage - if we decide to provide additional funding to these start-ups we might.
Stipend: Yes, India is cheap. However our target audience is students and young IT professionals - the stipend is a sweetener. You get to work on your idea without having to think about how your expenses get paid. (Indian students typically don't take up RA/TAship in their universities and depend heavily on parental income for their education. So we are trying to provide them with a tension-free environment! Ahh, some would still believe it is a jail uh!!)
YC Model: We can't be a YC - if we are trying to be we are probably mistaken. Our aim is to be a group which is trying to make a difference to say the least. There have been no Google or Skype coming out of India - but there have been the Naukri.com and the Makemytrip.coms which are some of the more successful names in the Indian dot-com scenario. If you think that the founders of these can add some value, yes mentors would be there. We'll have regular mentoring and weekly networking dinners where you should expect a few successful entrepreneurs/VCs/investors to be around. We are beginners in this and would love to learn on how we could do this better.
IIM/Gujarat - the right place: Its at least a start to make the YCombinator culture more popular in India. Hopefully someone else - in the right city and right environment would do a better job. We'd love to see that happen. Not too sure if IIM is the best place - what else is? Are they ready to do it? We've got the resources to help the budding entrepreneurs - so we are trying. Gujarat, may be quite entrepreneurial, but there are very few hackers around. So we don't limit ourselves to Gujarat.
You ask an interesting question though - MBA + Techies > Techies. I am not sure. Most of us look at the sloanies as leeches although they did help me a little in defining the market for my project.
P.S. I hope you keep updating the blog.
Scarily enough these guys are serious. They think they are actually doing something "cool". The whole idea seems to be that "real hackers" (note the quotes) would feel "challenged" by such an environment and buy into it. After all why else would they want to attend a google interview? (ignoring the fact that Google India is no where near as cool - in terms of work done or quality of people hired - as Google California).
In short this is just managers living in their own fantasy world. No real hacker would take these guys seriously.
We are a bunch of IIT CS grads all set to apply to this program at IIMA and take our ideas to fruition. Look forward to your more of your criticism once we are successful.
the culture in india is risk averse. i grew up there, went to undergrad there and then come to an engineering school here. i had no trouble getting job offers, but declined them so I can do a startup, and my mom still feels so insecure that she asks me to take up a job with microsoft every time i talk to her.
You have to do what makes you happy, which may not be what makes your mom happy. Remember, it's you who will have to live with your choices in life, not your mom.
it represents security, 'the known'
"We provide RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com) and 8aweek (www.8aweek.com) on your systems to keep an eye on what you are doing."
"We provide each one of you (individually) with a stipend of Rs 8k p.m."
"Microsoft would be the Technology and Mentorship Partners for the iAccelerator Program."
Hmm. The original sentence was
"We provide RescueTime (www.rescuetime.com) and 8aweek (www.8aweek.com) on your systems to keep an eye on what you are doing." (B)
How are the applicants supposed to infer A from B ? Is this another attempt at "humor on the internet"?
Of course, you are not likely to find hackers, mentors (in a startup sense), or entrepreneurs there.
I love my birth country but some things we just gotta learn, like trusting entrepreneurs to work when they like(DOH).
I hope someone beats me to it because my plan is to first start a startup, learn how to do it right, make money to invest and THEN instantiate an object of a subclass of yc.
Am I applying to bschool or job; just checkout the application form.
project plan;milestones,timelines: Are we getting MS Project and free Manager there?
I would teach something to security guard and let him do some interestring work rather than keeping watch on us.
I hope it turns out well. I wish PG starts YC India chapter.
...
Now i'm waiting for waiting for a clone in Canada ...
I heartily disagree about you wanting YC to stay one of a kind though. The beauty of our capitalist society is that if anyone wants to try to do it better, they can give it a shot. It's to YC's credit that so many people want to copy it. And I think they welcome that.