Mail Today on Why the Internet is the Perfect Hunting Ground for Entrepreneur
Posted on 13. Dec, 2009 by gaurav in Media, Trends
My article on why the internet is the perfect hunting ground for young entrepreneurs was published today in Mail Today. All entrepreneurship is about betting on the next big thing, and if you are a 20-something entrepreneur, your bet on the next big thing on the internet is as good as, or even better than, someone double your age and experience.
Mail Today published a slightly edited version of the article I had submitted. Here’s the original.
Almost two years back, a month after I turned 28, I was interviewed for a newspaper story on why IIM types were leaving behind their corporate careers and following their dreams, mixing work, pleasure and purpose, pursuing what the journalist called “lifestyle entrepreneurship”.
I wondered why I was quoted in the story. My blog about the intersection of business, society and technology was becoming prominent, both amongst bloggers and journalists. I hung out with entrepreneurs and sometimes wrote about startups. I had even blogged about launching my own internet startup before I turned thirty. Still, I hadn’t taken the plunge yet. In fact, I was on a fast track in the quintessential corporate career. I has joined the TAS cadre in the Tata Group from IIM Bangalore and stayed with them for almost six years. My friends believed that I had acquired the Tata gene, that I would never leave, that I would retire as the CEO of one of the iconic Tata companies.
But my journalist friend knew better. She saw my ennui with the good life and also my hunger for a different life, one in which there were no boundaries between work, pleasure and purpose. Within six months, I had left my old life behind, given away everything I owned to strangers, and moved to Washington DC to do research and teach a course on the intersection of internet and society as the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow at Georgetown University. A year later, I was back in India as co-founder and CEO of 2020 Social (2020social.com), a business consulting firm that helps Indian and international brands build and nurture online communities. I didn’t quite launch my internet startup before I turned thirty but I came close enough.
It’s a good story and I get the full attention of my audience every time I tell it. However, it’s important to ask how someone who sold cars for six years became an international expert on the internet and how it’s changing business, society and activism. The answer is simple: the internet is evolving so quickly that education and experience don’t really count; what counts instead is an obsession with betting on the next big thing and the luck to be right, at least once. Three years back, I decided that the internet was changing, and the world was changing with it, and I happened to be right. Now, I am hoping that my luck stays with me, for a few more waves that change the internet, and the world with it.
That also explains why IIT-IIM types look towards the internet when they choose to step off the corporate treadmill and start something on their own. The internet has been the ultimate playing ground for entrepreneurs because the best internet startups start off as bets on a future that hasn’t arrived yet. It’s possible to start small, with two or three friends, work out of coffee shops and bedrooms, and build a working prototype that promises to change the world, in all of six months. It’s also possible to get some good initial traction online, a thousand beta users, a dozen positive reviews, and even some positive press, leading to interest from a few venture capital firms, or from the acquisition teams at the big tech companies. Build it and sell it, after all, is an established business model for internet startups.
If you don’t want to sell your startup too soon, you can build a global business sitting in Gurgaon. If you build the next cool social networking platform, no one will notice if it’s built in New Delhi or New York and, with the maturity of the software-as-a-service model (SaaS), location is increasingly becoming irrelevant for business software as well. I only have to look at the number of Indian startups offering SaaS-based collaboration tools for global clients (Zoho, Deskaway, Uhuroo, Cynapse, YouSuggest) to know that still more will follow, and soon.
Finally, the domestic market itself is maturing beyond utility-focused, transaction-led, ticket-booking internet startups. The Indian internet space has significant gaps when it comes to building a compelling vertical offering combining rich local content and a vibrant local community. We still don’t have an Indian citizen journalism community, a thriving Indian travel or consumer review community, or even a vibrant cricket or Bollywood community.
Do note that I’m not talking about building an Indian Facebook or an Indian LinkedIn or even an Indian Twitter. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are also going to be the Indian Facebook, the Indian LinkedIn and the Indian Twitter. I’m talking about combining local content and local community on the product side and internet, mobile web and SMS on the distribution side, which is best done by an Indian startup, with an intuitive understanding of the Indian market.
I am betting that even more IIT-IIM types will be betting that they will be the ones to crack the code and build the next generation of Indian startups. May the force be with them.
Cross-posted at Gauravonomics: Social Media and Social Change.
-
wholesale jordans
-
Winnie.K
2020 Social builds and nurtures online communities for Indian and international clients, connects their customers, partners and employees, and helps them achieve their business objectives.
