
Ask HN: Why can't India produce homegrown Tech Product firms? - tkmagician89
I am curious why India does not have good product companies with global reach like TWTR, Slack, FB etc.  We have a lot of talent (large number of CS grads), but most people end up in IT services or doing maintenance&#x2F;Dev work for large companies like ORCL, AMZN.<p>Most of the so called Indian &quot;Unicorns&quot; Like Ola and Flipkart are rip-offs of successful US companies.<p>What would it take to build billion dollar product companies in India?
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nnn1234
Lets see. There is a funding gap here. Things that are rippoffs get funded
easier. Most SV vc firms have an office in India and they are pattern matching
for results. Also India still needs ELECTRICITY and INFRASTRUCTURE built. The
opportunity is not to build the TWTR/FB for india but to build the
AT&T,National Highway system, and basic amenities. There is a severe
misunderstanding of which problems to solve vs which solutions will get me
money which i will then use to solve my problems

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ashwn
I agree with this. You can build an amazing product for the Indian consumer,
but if the people can't use it, what good is it?

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owebmaster
> What would it take to build billion dollar product companies in India?

Block foreign companies (mostly Americans but in the near future Chinese),
like China and Russia did. You have to protect local companies for them to
grow. Technology takes time to mature.

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kakeadw5481
I completely disagree with this.

I run a startup here in India. Practically speaking the main problems that we
face are more administrative in nature. We spend almost 40-60 percent of our
time sorting out issues from accounting, raising capital, convincing investors
to back ideas here from India and most importantly educating them.

More protectionism will definately mean a lot more difficulty in convincing
international investors from looking seriously at us since at the end of the
day, they need to be able to take out money if the want to.

What we need desperately is a strong administrative and LEGAL framework to
support business; This will really raise investor confidence both domestic and
international. And overall give people the ability to compete at a global
level.

Indians are brilliant and dont need handouts or protection.. All we need is an
decent environment and we can take anyone on.

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owebmaster
> convincing investors to back ideas here from India and most importantly
> educating them.

Why do you think someone is going to back your idea if a foreigner can operate
overseas and get all your market? That is why you are spending 40-60 of your
time doing it (and probably without success, like all but few startups).

You will not have investor confidence without a big success, like Yahoo or
Alibaba. And you don't have a local big success if every company in Silicon
Valley has an advantage over you. I'm from Brazil, so reality here is very
similar with India.

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nnn1234
Also a billion dollar product for the indian customer looks nothing like a
tech startup in the US. So enabling that to grow is key. This is a
generational problem. Services and products are being built this generation to
lay waste to that claim

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keviv
I disagree with the OP. There are many companies in India who are doing a
great job (especially in SaaS). Companies such as Zoho, Freshdesk and many
such others are homegrown. They are doing great globally as well. The only
reason you don't hear about them is because sub-standard Indian startup blogs
are more interested in publishing click-bait articles about Flipkart, Ola,
OyoRooms, Housing.com etc. And it's not their fault entirely. Tech-savvy
Indians love reading such articles and that's how these blogs make money.

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codesternews
Brain drain is also a huge problem in india. Most of talented engineers go
abroad mainly US. The mentality of indians is take a good job in US firm. In
india their is very less research infrastructure and government polices does
not support local market like china so many young indians seek to take job.

That is reason there are many Indians at top positions in US companies.

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samfisher83
I think this is the biggest problem. US just has better opportunities.

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adityar
It's really hard to gain traction remotely so you need to be able expand your
markets by sending folks over establishing beach-heads in new territories.
Going from US to India is a visa on arrival. Going to the US (or pretty much
any place with money) from India is a ordeal and a gamble.

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pyb
It may well be that the IT services industry you mention is taking all the
talent. Apparently, the Indian ecosystem tech is currently structured such
that this is the most rewarding career path.

