
Nearly a third of Indian startup founders surveyed are considering moving abroad - r_singh
https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/11-startups-seriously-considering-moving-their-business-abroad-survey/73782760
======
sanmon3186
India is becoming a popular destination for foreigners to chase their startup
dreams[1]. Same source.

[1]
[https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/indi...](https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/india-
is-becoming-a-popular-destination-for-foreigners-to-chase-their-startup-
dreams/73394080)

~~~
r_singh
Most of those startups (like Saavn for example) are also registered and owned
abroad (not only in India).

------
bnt
What would be their primary destination of choice, and what are the major
factors preventing them from moving?

~~~
naveensky
For us, its Singapore, low taxation rates, what we understand is low
compliance and supports online operations. Proximity to India (5 hours by
flight) makes it an ideal destination.

Factors Preventing \- Nobody in my circle has this setup, making me worried
about unknown challenges \- Double Taxation issue. I am not clear what will be
taxation liability, I have talked to multiple CAs and they all say multiple
things \- Transfer of IP - We are a product company and one of the CAs warned
us that if we move IP of the product to the Singapore entity, it gets tricky
to explain as IP was built with an Indian entity. Very gray area about this

~~~
alecco
What about finding workers and payroll costs?

~~~
r_singh
A lot of India based SaaS companies register in Singapore or USA while keeping
their entire dev team (and sometimes even the rest of it: sales, marketing,
support, etc) in India.

The incentives being ease of international transactions, capital / debt
availability, simpler tax policies.

~~~
ramraj07
You'd still need to file taxes in India right?

~~~
r_singh
The company in India only has a fraction of the total revenues and barely any
profits, reducing the tax liabilities significantly.

------
osmianski
What exactly "startup-friendly tax regime" does Singapore have and India
doesn't?

~~~
kranner
[https://inc42.com/features/the-curse-of-angel-tax-
travelkhan...](https://inc42.com/features/the-curse-of-angel-tax-travelkhana-
left-with-zero-money-after-cbdt-seizes-inr-33-lakh-freezes-accounts/)

In addition to incidents like these, corruption is widespread in India.
Exports qualify for GST exemption or refund, but in practice refunds are hard
to get (at least without a 5% or more bribe).

~~~
lonelappde
5% of how much, though? how much more than 5%?

~~~
kranner
5% (up to 15%) of the amount to be refunded, which for exporters is all of
their GST, which can be up to 28% of the gross value of goods sold.

Just a twitter search for "GST refund bribe" will show a lot of examples.

------
melling
That’s unfortunate.

India should become an economic superpower in the next 25 to 50 years.

~~~
smoyer
That would require broad adoption of Indian products and services outside of
India.

~~~
knolax
They already have the second one.

~~~
throwaway1997
Unfortunately that's only because they are cheap

~~~
zaptheimpaler
Thats exactly what people said of China 15 years ago. Just a bunch of
factories good for cheap knockoffs, not a place for high quality stuff. Now
they have Tencent, Baidu, Huawei etc and a #2 spot in the global economy.

~~~
hinkley
As someone put it: manufacturing is a ladder.

They also said the same of South Korea (LG, Samsung) and before that, Japan
(Sharp, Sony) and Taiwan.

~~~
polishdude20
Can you explain further? What does it mean for it to be a ladder?

~~~
hinkley
This is all my own interpretation, but it’s a bootstrapping problem. Feynman
complained about a consulting gig he took to try to bootstrap STEM programs in
South America. You need mentors to make more mentors. If you can’t send people
off to train or coax people in, you’re left with whoever can intuit things on
their own and explain them to others. That pair of skills is exceptionally
rare.

If you are the first factory in an area, nobody knows what to do. So you make
simple stuff with high tolerances as you build a base of skilled labor. and a
customer base.

Then you ratchet up, and ratchet up, and get nicer customers and more cash and
contacts and make products that require more and more sophisticated processes.

If you’re lucky, you make middle to high end stuff that few other people can
before the exchange rate completely fucks you vs the next up and comer.

