sabhishek - You should apply to a YC funding cycle. Deal with the visa issues later! (but not too late)
Thanks for the comment.
In terms of finances, the dollar goes a long mile in India and that is a plus. Perhaps a YC startup will probably run out of India in the future, especially because web startups are allowed 100% foreign ownership and foreign direct investment in India.
I thought it might be interesting to start a google group for all Indians who read Ycombinator and similar stuff and maybe want do a startup - http://groups.google.com/group/TechStartups-India Join in, lets find out how many Indians are around and lets chat/meet up :)
Now it is possible that there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem here. But, imho, it is not enough to state baldly that there is significant entrepreneurial and IT activity happening here. IT as in "outsourcing" or "India Development Centres" sure. But the level of talent or software startups available is nowhere near what Silicon Valley offers. The few startups I have seen here in Bangalore are all a bit flaky. Examples :- Guruji.com claims to do "India Specific Search" better than Google. Their search engine is terrible . Minglebox attempts to create an Orkut clone (there was a scandal recently about some incestous connections between the VC and a founder of the company and suspicions about the objectivity of the deal and so on).
The only half decent software startup I know in India is Zoho and it remains to be seen if they can avoid being crushed by the Google Office juggernaut.
Now as to talent. Name 10 Indians who have significantly contributed to Open Source software and are based in India. Any significant languages, frameworks etc that came out of India?
I am not saying there aren't extremely bright people or developers in India . Given the size of the population it is impossible not to have bright people . But there does seem to be a distinct lack of entrepreneurial ability and the people who do seem to be very good developers don't want to take the risks of running their own company. Which is what Google Sacca was talking about. The people who do want to run their own companies are not correlated with high levels of programming skill, who prefer to emigrate to the USA.
Having worked 10 years in Bangalore, I assert that YC will find hypothetical Indian operations massively unsuccessful. This may change in the future. But for now, YC should focus on the US.
And before anyone accuses me of "racism "or something , I am Indian. I just try not to be blinkered.
In the US specific areas/cities have historically done better in somethings - especially technology. This may never come to pass in India because of the presence of very different dynamics.
Also, you assume that India already has a world of startups - it does not, it merely has an untapped potential. I will not answer your question about programming languages that have come out of India, or Open Source intiatives - I would merely advise you to count how many Indians have contributed to similar goals in Silicon Valley, you could start back from the 1980s - I think oppurtunity called them to the US and they wisely followed. Also please check similar sources for linux, even the ubuntu flavor has Indians contributing. IMO in the future resident Indians will contribute to such projects, historically some non-resident Indians have. This is so because today's infrastructre allows us. (contd..)
To summarize, you base your argument on a assumption that India should already be SV, while I think that is a superflous criteria for making great investment decisions as far as Tech startups go. I may well be wrong - but like you I try not to be blinkered.
PS: Please look at a wider spectrum when you talk of Tech Startups out of India, a great example is an IIT Chennai startup that works in a huge and untapped Indian rural market - can't recall the name. And that's just one, there are many more, I know of many tech startups out of New Delhi, who cater to an Indian audience.
^IMO Banglore and the Silicon Valley have very little in common - Indian tech startups are not yet geo-specific and may never be. Please don't compare Banglore with SV.
^^You may extend this logic to other industries and see that it works, Fashion comes to mind, Indian Fashion designers often also do work in Paris.
Do they ask angel funds focussed on the USA to "come to India" and sponsor their visas to France ? :-) news to me - please send some references.
"you base your argument on a assumption that India should already be SV"
Huh? I said there is little demonstrated high quality technical (significant contributions to open source projects) or entrepreneurial (in the Y fundable startup sense) activity in India.
That doesn't mean I argue that "India should be SV" as you claim.
you say
"YC should actively look for great ideas from all over the world and then support the best, this may involve moving them from their current location, such as India, to one which is more conducive to their pursuits, such as SV"
The problem is , this is very easy to say and very very hard (if not impossible), to do "all over the world" . As Paul Graham pointed out, it will be a (very) long time before YC can deal with all the great ideas in the USA.
I don't think (I could be wrong) YC has the bandwidth to run some kind of United Nations "Save the Startups and Good Ideas Worldwide" effort. They do their thing well in the scope they choose to work in. We should respect that choice.
Now you (or I) can ask them to consider coming to India , but if they reply "not in cards for now, we have lots to do here" then we should shut up and look for alternatives (imho) than whine that YC is not looking "worldwide" or "not helping with the visas " or whatever.
FWIW, my advice (as an Indian ,based in India and thinking of a startup of my own) is to put fingers to keyboard and start coding and "build something people want". That's great advice and that's what I plan to do, YC or no YC.
You can build software from India and you can host anywhere in the world (hosting fees are cheap enough that 3 months of work in Bangalore will get you enough funds. And someone pointed out the cost of living is so low in India you don't need angel funds) till you get a few hundred thousand users . At that point believe me you won't need YC to "get a visa" or get you VC funding.
Now as to the YC 's more intangible benefits,
Would I like Paul Graham's connections and advice working for me? Certainly.
Do I think I am somehow entitled to them just because "I want"? certainly not!
" great example is an IIT Chennai startup that works in a huge and untapped Indian rural market - can't recall the name"
I hope you can see the humour in that statement.
Anyway this is my opinion. If you think you can persuade YC to "come to India" or are depending on or hoping that YC will come to India to help your startup be successful, I wish you luck :-D
I'll go back to my code now. Thanks for listening.
2. I suggested that there is much demonstrated capability, I also suggested you do some research starting from the 1980s. I also highlighted why I think there has been lack of resident Indian success in this arena while non-resident Indians have had a better game.
3.I do not think it is difficult to identify good ideas from all over the world - YC already does it in an unorganized format. My contention is that in a virtual platform such as our trade offers us, thinking local is unnecessary and perhaps outdated baggage we carry. There is no need to deploy talent scouts or some such to find the necessary hackers, they will find YCombinator or other such oppurtunities - it just needs to be a more encouraging process than it already is.
4. I have no clue what gave you the notion of a YC United Nations save the world thingy?!
5. I am certain YC has lots to do, and I put up my thoughts for discussion on this thread that someone else started, pg has since then responded but the discussion on the Indian startup scenario can carry on nonetheless. Your comment about 'whining' is inappropriate. I will not regard it as a personal comment, just a poor choice of words - correct me if I am wrong. :)
6.I agree with your advice about hacking away and building something that people want. I hack too, have been doing it for a long while, intend to do it forever, thanks for the advice nonetheless.
7.I have some advice too, I suggest you study hosting costs along with hardware costs - there is no way any salary in Banglore(for a techie) is going to take care of your hosting costs and just how long are you planning to host for before you need help. If your startup is anygood, it will need some serious servers, If you need references for good hosting providers and thier price charts, send me an email and i will send you some. keios.titan (at) gmail. Obviously, hardware or hosting requried depends on your application. My startup project has fairly high hosting demands.
8.You said: "Do I think I am somehow entitled to them just because "I want"? certainly not!"
I said: What!?!
I would like Paul's advice and YComb's resources too, I do not think they will come to me - I will go to them.
9. Well if you suggest the humour is because i cant recall the name, then I don't see the humour. The IIT Chennai startup targets a rural population, I am not a target customer.
10. I am not in the least persuading YC to come to India, and certainly I am not betting on that. I am saying "that they should help hackers who don't know any better through all the other rigmarole involved if they shortlist them."
Its there decision and this is a discussion board you know.
Best of luck with your project, do let me know if you come to Delhi sometime :)
Really? my last job at Bangalore was a little bit more than 80,000 $ - 38 lakhs to those who want the Indian equivalent - (but I have about 10 years of experience and if I do say so myself, I am pretty good at what I do.) . I plan to take care of my n hosting for a while.
Do you mind sharing (here) how much you think hosting would cost? YCombinator companies seem to get by for quite a while on comparaitive amounts of money.
But I could be wrong I was estimating about 250 $ or so per month for your own rackmounted boxes to start with.But let's say about 900 $ a month - . Do you seriously estimate spending more than 10,000 $ a year on hosting before hitting ,say, 100,000 users , at which point you'd have no problems attracting funding?
If you have about 2 years of experience, you can earn 10,000 dollars in 6 months (trivially easily) in Bangalore (if you are any good at coding). As I said earlier people just out of college are paid about 1200 $/month.
Also for "significant contributions to Open Source" (by which I mean something like "wrote and maintains the tcp/ip stack in Linux" or "added and maintains SSA based optimizing phase to the GCC trunk" or even "wrote Ruby on Rails or Django" (not things like "contributed documentation to Ubuntu" or "localized Strings to Hindi"), please name specific people and specific achievements. of the magnitude stated above.
And then tell me how many of those people live in India so that folks like YC should look for them here.
And you can't brush the "not resident in India" part away. That is the point. The really good technical people from India move to the USA or Europe for the tech and startup culture (and of course $$$ :-P ).They still do. To find he most talented Indian Hackers therefore, a search in California is better than one in Bangalore. .That was MY point.
Ahh I am spending too much time on this. I have work to do and code to write. Ciao
Server costs can vary, but I would estimate my needs at around $1300+ within 6 months of launch (I will know exactly only once we have launched, I am hoping this turns out to be an understimation ;) and I am looking at service providers such as rackspace.com, servint.com, datapipe.com and serverbeach.com to name a few. Also what kind of servers are we talking here - in terms of hardware? Are you considering a separate db server? Can you refer me to some reliable host who has rack-mounted, dedicated servers at $250 and provides decent support.
I don't know how long most ycombinator companies get by and on how much. It might be interesting to know. I would 'assume' that $15,000 finish in the 3 months. That's a fully loaded cost of $5000 per month. Typically people and hardware are the biggest costs, because there are no employees I think the larger cost may be servers and connectivity. And so it seems server cost is significant. Maybe someone with facts can add to this.
anyway , using your figures, 1300$ for 12 months = (approx) 15 k.
Are you saying a good technical person with about 3 years in the Industry can't get together with a couple of friends to fund their hosting ? (A good dev with 3 years exp can get 15k annual pay easily in Bangalore)
Yes it is a little bit more difficult for people just out of college but hey all of us have to tailor our plans to our resources. If you can manage a decent user base in 3 months (3 months is how long YC funds their teams iirc ... hosting will cost bout 5000 $ - Even two kids just out of college should be able to manage that) you should do well with the vc folks.
Now, if you are saying that you need lots of moolah in the bank before you attempt a software startup, I can only say my perceptions differ.
Maybe you are right and I am wrong. Time will tell.
I am too tired to continue. Been coding the last 15 hours or so. Ciao
http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Contributors
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/india/article_1226891.php
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com/
Also: CDAC is doing some interesting work - http://www.cdac.in/
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Ok now to your list of people.
This is good work ! Thanks!
But ... Do you know what these people actually do or are you just pulling names off a google search?
I believe I explicitly asked for names and specific contributions . All those pages are light on the specifics . I gave some examples of specific cntribs earlier.
I asked explicitly for significant contributions with details.
On the linux India list, if you remove all the "internationalization" type of contributors there are a bare handful left. But Do you know if any of those people (good people no doubt) are major contributors to their projects?
As for CDAC, do you know people who work there? I do. They are severely hit be people leaving to -- guess where -- the United States. Many of their projects (not all) don't have much more than web pages. (Like wise for the DRDO - Defence Research and Development Organization for the non Indians reading this).
Again (just to stop arguing _ I will be glad to continue offlist ;-) ) I will concede the point.
The Linux Kernel, GCC and other open source efforts would be hamstrung if all the Indians suddenly disappeared ;-)
You are right. India is a powerhouse of open source contribution. ;-)
This thread has deteriorated too much. Apologies to all for my part in said deterioration.
This is my final post.
Take Care,
Ha but that was my point. The really good guys prefer to work for companies (and mostly emigrate to America) rather than start their own companies in India.
Guruji can't build a better search engine because they aren't as good as the folks who work on Google's Search Engine.
hint: that (kind of core tech )work doesn't happen in Google Bangalore anyway.
hint2 : look at the bios of Guruji's founders and employees for evidence of significant technical expertise. Compare them to Page and Brin and the others who created the Google search engine :-)).
Someone will outcompete Google some day. It won't be Guruji.
Do you know how hard Google has found it to hire the (very few) people they have in their Bangalore centre in spite of offering astronomical (compared to the rest of the market) salaries? Talk to someone in Goog recuiting for their tale of woe.
I have friends in Goog India and I know what they work on - believe me it is nothing of company shaking importance.
The technical centre of gravity of Google (or Yahoo or Microsoft, or Oracle, or Intel) , especially on the innovation axis (which is what we are discussing here) is well away from the shores of India.
Google hires some 'technical talent' in India sure enough.But do they hire people good enough to create the next killer startup? There is no evidence yet. I'll be glad to be proved wrong.
"I think there are pretty smart people will India who will start it sooner or later it just remains to be seen who it will be."
I agree. But I'd bet on "later". It is not about how smart people are. Given a billion people one would expect quite a few smart people. It is (among other things) about what the culture is like as (you report) Sacca pointed out.
in any instance, I find your arguments to be all true in the present but not necessarily forward looking - we all know that india in good in certain things and not in another. i have heard similar arguments when i moved to UK that people are not entrepreneurial but look deep enough and you find enough evidence that there is change happening they aren't just out their thumping that we have done this or that.
- the question to be answered is what has to change to make it a reality !.
Yeow I hope not! INS's visa rules are a legal and procedural snake pit, with plenty of people abusing and bending the rules to get a chance to come to the USA. IMHO YC should keep to doing what it knows best . It is bad situation but not YC's problem to solve.
I would imagine that YC has (a LOT) more work than it can handle. Why would YC want to add to it by expanding to India (or anywhere else. If India why not China? If China ... )
user: plinkplonk created: 135 days ago karma: 17 about:
Thanks a lot for responding.
If so, not quite. Moving to a different town to start a startup is just a test of commitment. Moving to a different country, though, dilutes the test with a bunch of bureaucratic stuff.
We rely too much on the generosity of America.
The IT boom in India has been largely, IMHO, as a result of American projects rolling in.
Why cant we generate our own?
All the Valley VCs from India (they are too well known for me to mention) should be ashamed of themselves. The top VC in the world is Indian.
that is why Bill Gates gives $100M and plenty of his time and energy to eradicate diseases in India's children. LN Mittal who is the 3rd or 4th richest man in the world, gives how much to his home country? (no reports of his giving).
Selfishness. that is the bane of India. That is why you have beggars on the streets alongside Mercedes Benzes.
And yet another unpopular post from me. :)
Personally, I think angel funding is not very relevant in India because the startup costs are extremely low. Also, VCs are not as prevalent as in the US (that seems to be changing with proto.in etc) so the VC contacts that YCombinator provides might not apply either. But the advice and ideas of someone like Paul Graham would do wonders, but I can't think of a resident Indian in that place.
Anyway, the main reason as already stated is that such people land in US rather than in India to become rich!
And even if someone builds such product in India, US is the main market to sell it. Selling the product remotely is not that easy!
I am not a lawyer but I imagine if the team can get a tourist visa for three months, their new company was incorporated off-shore, in Ireland or the British Virgin Islands, and paid them in their home countries in advance for three months work that they could live in the Bay Area and participate fully with the added bonus of lower corporate taxes.
Or everyone could go to jail.