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Some Indian start-ups shun funding in bid to retain independence
- kamaal 14y agoFirstly, Congratulations Paras. One more company that comes to my mind is HasGeek(http://hasgeek.com/ http://hasgeek.com/). HasGeek is definitely the best thing to have happened to the entire scenario. And they are based on pretty much the same lines, which is they are totally self sufficient. For all those people with MegaCorp day jobs. You can do a lot of low bandwidth side projects to start up. If you are interested and persist enough then much can be achieved in spare time, both learning and money wise.
- kushsolitary 14y agoI would add browserstack too.
- kislayverma 14y agoBrowserStack +1!!
- paraschopra 14y agoFusionCharts is another fantastic Indian bootstrapped story! Here's an ebook on their journey: http://www.fusioncharts.com/story/ http://www.fusioncharts.com/story/
- moha297 14y agoThis is a huge paradigm shift....I feel happy that it is happening in India :)
- piyush_ranjan 14y agoOne more is http://browserstack.com http://browserstack.com and another is http://errorception.com http://errorception.com
- Hitchhiker 14y agoLive free or die hard ;-).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kislayverma 14y agoThree cheers for startups that manage this! I attended a talk given by the Hyderabad Angels some time ago and found their outlook to be very strange. "We only fund companies with a proven and existing source of revenue. We don't fund ideas. We are here to sponsor growth of an established idea." For angels level investors to take this line was very strange for me. It is likely due to this that mostly clones are getting funded in India.
- kamaal 14y agoThere is a different angle to look into when it comes to these problems. A while back the Karnataka state government had set up a fund to help start up's grow. It turns out most of the money was taken by NGO's, and the answers for justifying that was given as charity work. Not only did the money go into the wrong hands. It turns out most NGO's who took the money were not even actual NGO's. Most were simply trusts set up to park money for tax evasion. Such things are very common. There is a degree of risk involved in funding such ventures in India. Unfortunately that risk is not that businesses may fail. But that some one might be taking money from you without even having a business. It might just be a phoney venture set up to take investor money and run. Therefore investors wish to do some check on how serious you are before funding you.
- crimsonzagar 14y agoYou lost it at this point: > Therefore investors wish to do some check on how serious you are before funding you.
- markdown 14y agoWTF, every single one of the ~20 links in that article points inwards! I regret giving them a page view.
- Hitchhiker 14y agoIts actually a rather interesting / cunning behavior in contrast to the given ecosystem. Abstractly, this coupled with a suitable robots.txt could unravel the Google economy. Perhaps even establish a linear relationship between " yahoo, everything is free " people.
- paraschopra 14y agoYes, we were hoping we would get link back to our product or company. Linking inwards really is a pathetic UX, even at the expense of SEO. I hope Google sees and penalizes such UX.
- criley 14y agoI'm a bit surprised that people find this new or interesting. Many sites have played the "dozens of links inward" game for some time. Almost every business site will provide links for every business or stock mentioned, all heading inward into their site further. Here's an example: the first article I clicked on on the first page I knew behaved similarly: http://www.cnbc.com/id/100644923 http://www.cnbc.com/id/100644923 Looks pretty similar.
- markdown 14y agoThis isn't new to me... most major websites do it, but I've never seen it done for every single link.
- nnnnni 14y agoUgh, yet more startup news? Is this Hacker News or Startup News?!
- facorreia 14y agoEr, I suppose it's Y Combinator's site? The startup funding company?
- nnnnni 14y agoEr, so what? It's called Hacker News, not Startup Funding News.
- facorreia 14y agoI know, but honestly I can still get some value from that kind of article. IMO it's the political activism which is more out-of-place.
- nnnnni 14y agoI can agree with you there. I'm just annoyed by how every other story is about "startups" when the name is Hacker News... Meh, I don't know, just saying.
- krmmalik 14y agoCongratulations Paras! I love hearing about boot-strapped stories.
- paraschopra 14y agoThanks :)
- rikacomet 14y agoCongrats Paras, nice to hear that you share the same urge for independence as myself as well. Can we perhaps arrange a meeting, if you live near Delhi? Add me on skype if so. My skype: carl.theteuton
- neilxdsouza 14y agoHey, If you are planning an HN meetup in and around Delhi, please let me know too. nxd_in at [[ yahoo dot com ]]
- rikacomet 14y agoIts a good idea, we can do a HN meetup in future, I'm working on making that possible somehow.
- paraschopra 14y agoYes, I'm based out of Delhi. Shoot me an email: paras {at} wingify {dot} com
- rikacomet 14y agoEmail sent.
- helloamar 14y agoYes that's rite, I've turned down two VC, now entered our 11th year with 6 companies.
- chiph 14y agoI think if India can get past the "Entrepreneurs are losers because they're not doctors or engineers" social aspect, they'll have a lot of advantages that SV doesn't have. Mainly because they're natural crowd-funders. What I've observed is that friends in India are very tight -- they'll do almost anything for each other. And if you have a friend with a startup, you'd certainly lend them some money. So, they may not need VC money, and may not need angels, but they do potentially have a lot of "micro-angels" to raise funds through.
- ashray 14y agoI think this is absolutely awesome! Congratulations to all the startups who are pulling this off! I do however think that when startups have proven themselves, and have a steady cash flow, but want to race to the top, VC funding may be the way to go. I personally experienced this with a startup with a very healthy balance sheet. The reason for VC funding was pretty straightforward "We need money to expand internationally". Local market dominance is usually quite possible with bootstrapping however international expansion poses a totally different challenge (first challenge: hire an experienced management team for it..). VC funding plays a big role when it comes to the big guns. If you want to be the next Mc Donalds or the next Hyatt, it may be important. Local market dominance is also great while being bootstrapped, if you want to play acquire-me, but that could just as easily be stomp all over me. I guess that's what makes this business so exciting ;)