8 karma · joined April 9, 2008
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.
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.
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