
Can India be next Y Combinator destination? - sabhishek

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pg
I realize there are a lot of talented hackers in India, but our next
"destination" is the 99% of hackers in the US who could start startups and
instead just go get jobs at big companies. Even in the US, we've just begun.

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jey
Probably not, but YCombinator could be an Indian's next destination. I don't
think India has the startup culture nor tech culture etc that is enjoyed by
America. (neither does Europe, apparently)

sabhishek - You should apply to a YC funding cycle. Deal with the visa issues
later! (but not too late)

~~~
rsdighe
i asked the same question to google's chris sacca -- i was wondering what
could be done to have a Y combinator sort of a thing in India. he shared a
similar opinion to what ur saying, in india the entrepreneurial culture is a
little missing + in addition he thought indians were very good at backend
stuff and not necessary in aesthetics. it might be debatable you don't need
the whole of indian IT engineers god in aesthetics to support y combinator - i
was in silicon valley , and currently in UK. but u do see a difference in
culture but yet i can tell u there are lot of people who do cool stuff here,
in america people the impression i get the english is the only language people
worry about here u are dealing with french, germans, italians, spanish and
they are very different, no wonder u find clones of US starts ups in europe
adapted for european markets.

~~~
budu3
"Entrepreneurial culture" missing in India? I beg to differ. Indians have an
entrepreneurial culture that has been cultivated for years due to their unique
set of circumstances. Must Indians are self-employed and have a very self
reliant attitude. I think what you meant was "Tech-startup culture".

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Keios
IMO, YCombinator should fund startups in India. Contrary to popular belief
there is significant entrepreneurial and IT activity happening here. I would
not take anyone seriously who generalizes a whole nation, especially one as
diverse as India, in one fell swoop. I am not saying the startup levels are
anywhere on the scale of Silicon Valley, I am saying that there is sufficient
talent of all types available in India. Unfortunately, these questions come up
for the wrong reasons such as Visa problems. If YCombinator helped with Visas,
then I don't think this question or other similar ones would pop up.

In terms of finances, the dollar goes a long mile in India and that is a plus.
Perhaps a YC startup will probably run out of India in the future, especially
because web startups are allowed 100% foreign ownership and foreign direct
investment in India.

I thought it might be interesting to start a google group for all Indians who
read Ycombinator and similar stuff and maybe want do a startup -
<http://groups.google.com/group/TechStartups-India> Join in, lets find out how
many Indians are around and lets chat/meet up :)

~~~
plinkplonk
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.

~~~
Keios
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..)

~~~
Keios
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.

~~~
plinkplonk
"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.

~~~
Keios
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
:)

~~~
plinkplonk
"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

~~~
Keios
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.

~~~
plinkplonk
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

~~~
Keios
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.

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sharpshoot
In between summer and winter funding sessions, when does pg have time to take
a break?

~~~
pg
Exactly what I was thinking...

~~~
sabhishek
Can you consider persons who could telecommute ?

Thanks a lot for responding.

~~~
pg
What YC does, we have to do in person. Kind of like a university. So founders
have to at least be able to get here for the 3 months. They could return to
their home country after that, but they'd be more likely to succeed if they
stayed in the US-- partly because it's a better environment for startups, and
partly because it would be easier for us to help them.

~~~
sabhishek
Thanks for the comment pg. I will apply for the next YC funding cycle,and will
bother about the Visa and all after getting called :-).

------
jsjenkins168
This is answered in the YC FAQ:

<http://ycombinator.org/faq.html>

~~~
akkartik
Do you mean the question about YC in your town?

If so, not quite. Moving to a different town to start a startup is just a test
of commitment. Moving to a different country, though, dilutes the test with a
bunch of bureaucratic stuff.

~~~
bluishgreen
Kartik, Right on the mark! You haven't seen ugly until you have seen
buracrazy, but you've got to do what you've got to do! :)

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juwo
It is high time India (and Russia, China, Vietnam etc) founded their own angel
investors. People willing to risk, willing to believe in their own people.

We rely too much on the generosity of America.

The IT boom in India has been largely, IMHO, as a result of American projects
rolling in.

Why cant we generate our own?

All the Valley VCs from India (they are too well known for me to mention)
should be ashamed of themselves. The top VC in the world is Indian.

that is why Bill Gates gives $100M and plenty of his time and energy to
eradicate diseases in India's children. LN Mittal who is the 3rd or 4th
richest man in the world, gives how much to his home country? (no reports of
his giving).

Selfishness. that is the bane of India. That is why you have beggars on the
streets alongside Mercedes Benzes.

And yet another unpopular post from me. :)

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ralph
The advantage of the US seems to be a large pool of candidates can move freely
between states. The other place I can think of like that is the EU where a
resident is allowed to work in another country without requiring a visa, etc.
The differing cultures of the EU's countries is an extra benefit.

------
budu3
The US might be the most favorable environment for tech startups but it is not
the only breeding ground for great tech startups. South Africa (Ubuntu Linux),
India (Hotmail), Brazil (Orkut), Sweden/Denmark (Skype), China (Maxtheon
browser) and the list goes on.

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subhash
Do you mean YCombinator should come to India? Or have such a phenomenon work
in India?

Personally, I think angel funding is not very relevant in India because the
startup costs are extremely low. Also, VCs are not as prevalent as in the US
(that seems to be changing with proto.in etc) so the VC contacts that
YCombinator provides might not apply either. But the advice and ideas of
someone like Paul Graham would do wonders, but I can't think of a resident
Indian in that place.

~~~
sabhishek
What I wrote is what I meant .. :-) You are right Subhash unfortunately
there's is no PG equivalent in India , and thats the point. Angel funding is
not an issue, what PG advices is what that matters most.

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nrohan
I guess IIT Powai had started KRSIT course for this sort thing. Although, it
seems thats not very much successful.

Anyway, the main reason as already stated is that such people land in US
rather than in India to become rich!

And even if someone builds such product in India, US is the main market to
sell it. Selling the product remotely is not that easy!

------
gyro_robo
How far does $20k US go in India?

~~~
jey
A lot, lot further than it would in the US. Your average Indian worker
probably earns somewhere between $75 - $150 USD per month.

~~~
plinkplonk
an average Indian _programmer_ gets significantly more. the average salary for
someone just out of school is about 1200 $ /month (in Bangalore, as of today).
Companies like Google pay much more.

~~~
jey
Yes, but I think he's asking about lower-bounds on money needed to survive
while starting a startup. When you're starting a startup, you can't afford an
opulent lifestyle. In the US, a programmer would make a lot more than $6000
per 3 months, but YC only gives you about $6k to $7.5k per person, _and_ this
money is expected to sustain you past the 3 month YC program until you get
external funding. A programmer in the US probably earns between $70k and $90k
per year. (Although it can be considerably higher in places like Silicon
Valley)

~~~
plinkplonk
very good point! I missed that totally! I should know better than to type when
sleepy!

------
pageman
I don't think there's enough visas at the moment (even without YCombinator
getting into the fray)

~~~
falsestprophet
I bet you could get creative enough with the law to allow foreigners to work
without a proper visa.

I am not a lawyer but I imagine if the team can get a tourist visa for three
months, their new company was incorporated off-shore, in Ireland or the
British Virgin Islands, and paid them in their home countries in advance for
three months work that they could live in the Bay Area and participate fully
with the added bonus of lower corporate taxes.

Or everyone could go to jail.

