India through the eyes of local startups

An Indian friend once told me, “Indians may all look the same to outsiders, but we are all different in so many ways — in cultural background and the way we live, work and play.” That statement is as much as true as I struggle to fathom the complexity of the huge Indian market and understand how the tech startup ecosystem is like.

India is home to 1.2 billion people, the largest democracy and second most populous nation, but is not a homogeneous nation. It has 29 states and 7 union territories working with different state-level regulations, a host of major religions being represented, two thousand ethnic groups, and many different languages used, which are broadly grouped into four major families of languages and two language isolates, but fortunately, English is the working language of communication.

It is without a doubt that India has many things to offer for entrepreneurs. And to make sense and get an introduction to the market and tech ecosystem, I asked five entrepreneurs based in different Indian cities for their insights.

The rise of ecommerce

As a country prospers economically and when infrastructure permits, the ecommerce entrepreneurs come naturally. India is cited to be worth $38b in 2016, a 67 percent jump from 2015. It is slated to reach $100b in 2020, which is in tandem to the rising demand for goods and services by its huge domestic market.

And Swati Bhargava knows this opportunity. She cofounded CashKaro.com, a Gurgaon-based one-stop destination cashback and coupons site with a claim of 1 million registered users across India. According to her, the company has partnered over 1,000 sites via an affiliate model, including Flipkart, Amazon.in, Snapdeal and Paytm.

She said, “Indian ecommerce is growing really fast and the Indians’ love for deals is no secret. In fact, 80 percent of online shoppers look for coupons and cashback offers before they buy. CashKaro is the perfect way to participate in this ecommerce growth as we work with ecommerce websites across different verticals. Moreover, India is a very value-conscious market, so there is no better place to implement a tried and tested concept like ours.”

Avlesh Singh also sees opportunity in the ecommerce wave. He is the cofounder and CEO of WebEngage, a Mumbai-based global SaaS multi-channel user engagement platform, automating user engagement and helping merchants to retain and grow their user base.

He is positive of the local ecommerce market. He explains, “Despite having a globalised customer base in over 50 countries, we have an unusually substantial portion of our business coming from India, which is around 45 percent. This is not normal of an Indian SaaS company, which usually draws most of its business internationally.

India as an opportunity is pretty unique for us. As the market continues to evolve and size of the internet population keeps growing bigger, we are slated to benefit from this boom as well.

We believe that through our business model which is to ‘Engage, Retain and Grow’, coupled with the rising growth of the India ecommerce market, we will continue to see India as a significant contributor to our revenue.”

WebEngage counts notable customers like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong, UrbanLadder, MakeMyTrip and Oyo Rooms as part of their clientele.

Receptive and forward-looking tech entrepreneurs

Abhijit Khasnis finds that employers, in particular startup tech founders, are willing to change and take risks in trying new ideas to increase efficiency. Leveraging on this adaptive and receptive attitude, he co-founded and is COO of Hiree.com, a Bengaluru-based online recruitment platform that enables quick hiring and placement of tech jobs to employers.

He explains, “India’s tech jobseekers are savvy, choosy and drive a hard bargain. Employers need to present their opportunities in much more compelling ways than just job postings. We recognise these issues and help tech jobseekers find the right opportunity in the shortest time possible. It helps to have a client base willing to experiment with new methods.

Challenges of and solutions to running a business in India

Startup scenes in different cities

Advice to fellow startups

Ending thoughts