How to Build a Global Tech Business from India
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Transcript of How to Build a Global Tech Business from India
How to Build a Global Tech Business from India?
Krishna Mehra@kpowerinfinity
21-May-2013
The India Growth Story is Quite Fascinating
Which is probably why all of you are here…
A Little About Me…
• Entrepreneur, co-founder @capillarytech– 5 Year old startup in the Consumer CRM Space– 10,000 Stores, 70M Consumers, 10 Global Offices– $15.5M from Sequoia & Norwest
• Earlier Researcher at MSFT, B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur, Worked at Minekey Inc.
• Family into the Book Publishing
How’d all Begin?
Choosing the Space• Mobile & Retail looked like a great opportunity
– Easy seed financing from alma-mater– Wanted to do something similar to Groupon… before Groupon
• Early Challenges– The “Indian Baniya Businessman”– Cost of Data– The Mobile Savvy Indian Customer is probably not so savvy
• The Pivot into CRM
Getting Initial Traction
“You” are the “Product”
Traction begets Money
• Angel Funding Eco-System in India is harder– Real revenue
traction expected
• Focus on Business, Funding will happen
The Team is the Clincher
• Hiring is hard!– Money– Equity– Marriage– Distance– Work– Passion
Picture taken from http://therodinhoods.com/profiles/blogs/flat-marriage-and-family-3-reasons-why-young-indians-don-t-turn
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
Growing Pains
Selling Software in India• Indians Buy a Phone Number
– @mukund, http://goo.gl/RE9B1
• Nobody wants to be a “Sales Guy”– Sales as a function is not as well
established
• Fragmented Channel for Selling Software
• The frustrations of Getting Paid for your work
India Runs on SaaS
• Op-ex based Pricing & Servicing model better suited to Indian Customers
• Fuse Products & Services together
• Prevent Piracy
The Product vs Services Debate
• Initially, it doesn’t matter– Getting traction is most critical
• It’s always going to be both– They can’t exist without each other
• It’s where in the continuum you fall – Strongly defines the growth curve
The Decision to Look Abroad• Is your product sellable in global markets?
• Market Size Challenges in Scaling up– Lack of a large local market– The Currency-Conversion Factor
• Investor Pressure? Many VCs (at least in India) today prefer a Global Story
• Regulatory Challenges in building a Global Business from India
The Advantages of Jugaad
• Frugal Innovation: Indian Customers are more forgiving to product defects
• Talent Availability, and ability to iterate quickly
• Capital is Easier than many other parts of the world
Thank you!
@kpowerinfinity