Comment by plinkplonk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by plinkplonk | Hacker News Reader

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Please name some successful startups that came out of India. Acquisition data would be nice!

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.

Chicken and egg indeed. Your perspective seems to be based on a very "US" centric view, which is perhaps one way to look at the issue. Needless to say entrepreneurial activity may not evolve in the same fashion in India as it did in the US. For example there may never be a specific area or city in India which becomes a Silicon Valley^(SV)

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..)

If the most important criteria for any seeding firm is how many startups exist in any given geographic area - I humbly disagree. It just indicates how easy it is to do business in a specific area, ideas and skills are not born in specific areas they occur universally. YC should actively look for great ideas from all over the world and then support the best, this may invlove moving them from thier current location, such as India, to one which is more conducive to thier pursuits, such as SV^^.The core competency for a YC type seeding company is to find talent and YCs primary service is to help hackers by providing an environment which gives them a shot. YC should be hunting for hackers who can create stuff that people want to pay for - in some fashion. Having existing startups IMO is not the criteria unless you wish to confound your judgment.

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.

"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.

1.As far as fashion is concerned, they do ask for both funding and contacts to sell merchandize, you should check. It is not cheap to do a ramp show in Paris or New York, it is not always succusful.I am not suggesting sponsoring visas - I never did.

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 :)

"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. "

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

Are you suggesting the average coder earns over $80K+. I don't think so. If the average age for founders is 26, then they possibly have half your work ex, which translates to a significantly lower salary. Here we are talking about people in general not your case specifically.

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.

Read my post very carefully I never said "average coders gt 80 k" you are reacting to a strawman. "Average coders" probably shouldn't be attempting a world changing startup (strictly imo) Please react to what I actually said. I explicitly mentioned I am an outlier.

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

Friend, I say are you 'suggesting' not 'saying'. I said this because I don't know why else you stated your salary. Maybe I was mistaken. A good dev with 3 years of experience will have to spend money on absolutely nothin else if he spends $15000 in hosting annually. Surely you are not suggesting that ALL income can be put into hosting.

You said: "Enlighten Me" - then you edited it (I think) Anyway here is something about Indian Contributors to linux, The links below will prove my point.

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/

I did "edit the post" . As I said I am too woozy and making some mistakes. So when I see a typo , or just feel I am being too sarcastic, I use the edit button. I must be doing something wrong because my posts were cut off a few times.

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,

You must not have read some of the profiles which are hyperlinked in that page. Anyway, this discussion seems to have become to trivial. Cheers

i do believe that something Y combinator could be the early initiators of change, of course the startups are flaky but I wonder why google can hire top talent in bangalore and something like guruji cannot build a better search engine?? it can't be lack of talent ? zoho is based in pleasanton if i am not wrong its just owned by indian that hardly makes it a Indian startup. anyways it doesn't have to be Y Combinator 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 wonder why google can hire top talent in bangalore and something like Guruji cannot build a better search engine?"

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.

what i meant was that if google can get good people, a incubator with a strong backer like sabeer bhatia who is known in india should attract lot of good talent.

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 !.

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