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As usual, Ravi is spot on here. When I lasted looked into them, most startups in Bangalore were run by MBA-types who seemed to be intent on just copying the la
by microarchitect 15y ago
As usual, Ravi is spot on here.
When I lasted looked into them, most startups in Bangalore were run by MBA-types who seemed to be intent on just copying the latest fad from Silicon valley. Even some of the most successful Indian startups - naukri.com and makemytrip.com are just copying well-established international websites and derive their success from paying attention to the Indian market before the country was on the radar of those players. It'll be interesting to see how these companies do now that they have competition. In any case, as Ravi and many others have pointed out, only the founders got rich out of Naukri and Makemytrip.
The other thing Ravi alluded to, about having credible proven founders is also important. I know a few devs* who, if they offered me a chance to work with them, I'd jump at the opportunity. However, the vast majority of these startups guys were folks I'd want to avoid working with even in GenericBigCorp.
* Unfortunately I don't know Ravi personally but if I did, he'd be near the top of this list.
- krat0sprakhar 15y ago"copying well-established international websites and derive their success from paying attention to the Indian market before the country " I'm not sure if this is such a bad thing. Flipkart copied Amazon and its thriving in this country.
- microarchitect 15y agoI'm not saying it's a bad business goal. Obviously, a lot of companies have succeeded doing this. My point is that such a policy is not very attractive if you're an engineer who "wants to build cool stuff".
- gaius 15y agoOh yeah, but the margins in arbitrage always come under pressure.
- malnourish 15y agoVery tangential, but I was just checking out Flipkart and some things are extremely inexpensive. Portal 2 and Crysis 2 are under $20 USD.
- xubz 15y agoMost new PC games are prices less than Rs.999 in India (not just in Flipkart). Pre-order price of "Duke Nukem Forever" for example is just Rs.444 ($10).. I suppose it's one solution to rampant piracy of PC titles. (XBOX 360 and PS3 titles are more or less priced the same as elsewhere)
- aksbhat 15y agowhat is even more interesting is that books are also much cheaper e.g. Algorithms by Cormen, et. al. cost only 6$. It would be interesting how eBooks are priced in India, as compared to US.
- zorked 15y agoUnfortunately they only ship to India...
- mark_h 15y agoabebooks.com (and I'm sure plenty of others) frequently middle-man for sub-continent re-sellers.
- signa11 15y agothese are generally titles meant for countries in the indian sub-continent e.g. india, pakistan, bangladesh etc. usually, paper quality, printing quality etc. takes a nose-dive. for example, i have a sedgewick book with almost translucent pages, which makes it next to impossible to read anything...
- jagira 15y ago->Flipkart copied Amazon and its thriving in this country. Would you say the same thing about Jet Airways? Did they copy Delta Air? Or did Tata Motors copy Ford? Or did Airtel copy AT&T? Some companies are about management and execution, and not about idea.
- kamaal 15y agoFlipkart did well because they executed the Idea well. They still have a long way to go. But last time I checked they too hire and give a lot of preferences for people from IIT's.