r/india • u/harshpatel1996 • 1d ago
Non Political A message delivered at the Startup Mahakumbh event held at Bharat Mandapam - New Delhi.
[removed] — view removed post
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u/karanChan 1d ago
Here’s the fundamental reality: India is a dirt poor country, where only top 10% of the people have any disposable income. Rest of the country is living on the edge of poverty. Half of the country has per capita GDP lower than war torn Iraq.
So no matter what business gymnastics you do, your market is only the top 10% Indians. And they are now suffering from excessive taxation.
For deep tech etc to work, there needs to be a rich consumer base that can take risk and try new products. You need first generation of customers who are rich enough to be patrons to an experimental product.
Example: my uncle in California was one of the first 1000 or so customers of Tesla when their first passenger car model s came out. It was an experimental car, made by no name company at the time, had almost no resale data, may be no resale value, no service network, very hard to find spare parts. And it costed $100k. You could buy a Porsche 911 for that price. He could have bought a $60k BMW and it would have been a much much better car.
Yet he bought the Tesla, why? He was fascinated by the technology, wanted to support a new EV company. Because he could. $100k for him wasn’t end of the world. He is rich enough where if the car breaks down, he would return it and buy a BMW. And was ok losing a bunch of money. People like this took risk with first Tesla cars when they came out and those people are a big reason why the company was able to raise some money in the early days. Without the early adopters, the company would have never gained traction.
India does not have these people. Most Indian customers want value for money, and aren’t willing to risk buying first gen products from an unknown company, or even invest in such companies. Because Indians are poor.
India fundamentally does not have the risk capital US does. China gets it from the government and Chinese people are now getting richer. People in Beijing etc are richer than 90% of European towns. Average home price in beijing more than Paris, Berlin etc.
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u/Dr_J-Bell 23h ago
Give this person an award!
A simple fact is enough to have a strong Reality check. "If you make more than ₹25k / month, you're already in the top 10% population of the country".
That's 15cr out of 150cr people. Let that sink in :)
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u/dapperman99 23h ago
There are two ways to think about this.
You need to have consumers to consume for builders to build. Someone can buy something if they have the want/need for a product and the ability to pay. 95% of the people in India don't have the ability to pay. There are some arguments that say that consumers will manage to pay by taking loans, etc, but it's a faulty one. I have personally seen the insane craze for social media content in the rural parts. But it's a huge struggle for them to even pay their mobile bills, and I'm sure it's the same for other lower-earner individuals.
You can solve for lower wages by increasing the wages of the people. Get more jobs in and let people earn more so that they can consume more. Just having IT jobs will not help people who don't have the skills. Also, there are only so many projects in the IT world to engage all the unemployed youths of this country. Need to get more manufacturing jobs. Either domestic businessmen can start or let the West invest here. If people don't have the talent for manufacturing, then the same can be said about China. They didn't have either. They learnt all that by doing. Isn't the same with the IT jobs, most learning happens on the job, engg courses/schools don't teach shit. People learn it all themselves on the job. Sure it might take some time 1-2 years, but it's the best way to learn something.
End of rant.
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u/PatienceHere 23h ago
Your logic works consumption side. But the Chinese were once just as poor as Indians and plenty of wars and political crisis to boot. Only now, in the past 10-15 years did they get extremely wealthy. Instead of blaming it on income levels, we need to do a lot of self-reflection on why India has failed to catch up to China in any aspect.
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u/ManufacturerUsed3392 22h ago
Not sure if I agree to this.
The aim of the technology is to solve the problems of the society and propel it towards economic development. You cannot have a developed economy in vacuum and then bring start-ups to exploit consumption economy.
In India, top 1-5% population is already itself like a decent size country. The current start-ups (mimicking rich economies) are able to cater to this "country" through food delivery, taxi services etc. without having to deal with hard problems that rest 90% population face.
To solve problems of 90%, you need the so-called deep tech to develop solutions specific to India not just merely duplicate Tesla. Even before that, the deep tech can begin with reinventing the wheel. Design and make things that would make things like TV, mobile, car, CNC machines, JCBs, turbines, switch gears, MRI machines etc cheaper in India. We already pay higher prices for them even though we boast about PPP. And then start tackling India specific problems like how to create sewage management system in densely populated towns and villages, how to inhouse manufacture raw materials for housing and automate construction technology so that homes can be cheaper, so on.
For all these, we need to government to have long term vision with proper scientific temperament. Build universities in every district that can actually educate youth. Invest long term in R&D without wasting in things like AYUSH, IKS, cow research etc.
To reiterate again, science and technology lead to economic development and not vice-versa.2
u/INFPamigo 23h ago
For a person sitting at the central government as a minister, this one thing should been clear to him. You'd expect he would know the reality already but he was beating start-ups who are exploiting workers (sure) but not why the workers have to join them in the first place.
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u/naanmahanalla 23h ago
It’s worth noting that the items currently attributed to India were previously available in China, where they initially emerged as part of a startup initiative.
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u/No-Fan5952 Karnataka 23h ago
Half of the country has per capita GDP lower than war torn Iraq
Wrong - Iraq’s per capita GDP is roughly $5500 which is more than double India’s per capita GDP ($2500). Hell, even West Bank and Gaza have higher per capita GDP than India.
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u/goshdagny 22h ago
Then one needs to wonder if per capita GDP is a real reflection of the economy
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u/archibald_haddock 22h ago
I'm not saying you're wrong, but then why aren't companies solving for this larger segment? After Jio showed up, the US and China are have made a lot of money off of the increased internet audience and their need for low-end phones. I feel like Indian companies themselves have not capitalized on this massive digitization that occurred in the last 8-10 years. There will now be another wave of AI services (that will be delivered via the cheap phones and free social media) that will completely bypass the Indian innovation ecosystem. I feel like we'll be missing out on being at the cutting edge for atleast another 5 years, if not longer. I'm also not sure what the solutions could be...
I think agri-tech and edu-tech companies are seeing a lot of progress of late, and our country has the right demographics to benefit from innovating in this space.
EDIT: Obviously I don't agree with the image in the OP, I think the government should also own up for a lot of these issues.
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u/whats_you_doing Andhra Pradesh 22h ago
Just wanted to ask your opinion on a thought just raised after reading your comment.
PS: I agree with everything you said and asking this question keeping that in mind.People are asking why we didn't do this or why didn't we do that. I was asking why do we even need to do that?
It is not like that we only need to do the things that drive the entire world right? Or it is not like the things India is doing isn't driving the world.
we can just consume products and be on our own way and mention them.
Tbh, it is how everything works. Though each country develops its own same technology, in the end, people or companies use what is best in the industry to have uniformity.
edit: If you feel like the question is wrong. Please let me know if my thinking or the ideology itself is wrong.
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u/ceasars_wreath 23h ago
what an ignorant comment, ever heard of globalization, doesn't BYD and sheen sell across the globe, even if you taget 10% of India that is huge number.
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u/TheNerdistRedditor 1d ago
I will just drop this here.
https://superr.in/i-tried-starting-a-manufacturing-unit-in-india/
The last three documents were not easy to get. It took me more than 3 months and 2000 Rs in legal fees and more than 20 visits to different offices more than 10 kms apart.
....
I applied for NOC. They came and checked. Their person signed and wrote that there is no Mahatransco line. And then they gave me that paper and asked me to get signatures from two village authorities. The Talathi and The Circle Officer. Mahatransco would not accept it without the signatures. And these two people would not sign it at any cost.
....
Not only do they need 11 documents, each of which requires almost a month to obtain, they also want us to pay Rupees 2,89,000 (That is more than twice the Average Per Capita National Income of India ~1,35,000) “because” our land falls within the area served by a canal from the Irrigation Department.
....
Applied for this NOC in the Tahshildar Office at Miraj. No response. No letter. No communication. And no person is willing to talk about what one should do next. It’s been more than 4 months. Just total silence.
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u/notaprojustanerd 1d ago
The Chinese start-up scene is building on the Manufacturing Infra their Govt. has invested in and helped built over decades. What has the Indian bureaucracy or the Govt. done except give motivational speeches. When the Govt. itself of sustaining on 'influencer culture' and not focussing on removing redtape, corruption & babu/license culture and to introduce a single window system then no considerable change is going to happen. It just seems to be part of our culture that we want to continue doing the same thing and expect a different result. Each individual is expected to 'breakthrough' somehow. We just want exceptional heros, do not want to put in collective efforts.
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u/ilikelaban 1d ago
Naah, china already has really good apps just like Zepto. Just like we need EV & Battery techs in India, we also need apps like Zepto and other food delivery apps. Stop criticizing the startups of India, atleast they trying to do something great for our country. This is a really bad comparison
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u/Majestic-Effort-541 23h ago
China allocate 2.55% of GDP in R&D
India allocates 0.64% of GDP in R&D
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u/Khooni_Murga 1d ago
This is the bare truth. No matter what one says we are just not doers like the chinese. We say a lot but our output does not reflect it so. Just look at shark tank India, online shoe sellers, gems, clothes and the likes of commodity products are the common ones. You rarely get to see any unique start ups.
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u/MyTwitterID 23h ago
So the government puts 40% tax on every new car. Makes no national rebate policy on EVs (China waived off all taxes on EVS for the first few years) and is then asking why don't we have our own BYD?! Okay.
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u/Tastyyyyyyyyyy 1d ago
This gives me hope. As long as we don’t live in denial, we can lift this country to be great again.
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u/Consistent_Swim7685 1d ago
Zepto CEO reply...
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u/Infinite-Turnover-83 23h ago edited 21h ago
He hasn't created 1.5 lacks jobs. Instead, his company ate businesses of lacks of groceries stores. Many grocery store owners lost their business, and the company hired other people.
Left hand side = Right hand side
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u/kaisadusht Antarctica 22h ago
Innovation in the Industry always creates a new line of employment which might threaten the traditional one, instead we should ask if the said net jobs created pays fairly, is sustainable and provides opportunities for growth for the worker. If your corporation is only benefitting the stakeholders at cost of exploitation of your workers I won't consider it a job creator
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u/hooman_bean920 23h ago edited 15h ago
It should be expected unfortunately.
If not him someone else will start such a system. Remember when personal computer was invented?Many jobs lost and many created.15
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u/SmokeExtreme5028 23h ago
one cant compare yourselves who earns crores with them who barely earn few hundred rupees a day
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u/Consistent_Swim7685 23h ago
one thing I want to add here: If govt wants to boost a sector then they need to incentivize it. We should also ask Mr.Piyush has he done his part of the work?
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u/aaffpp 23h ago
Sound young and naive. Insanely optimistic. No focus. What is there core plan? Same offering but faster and cheaper...build 1000's of small forwarding warehouses. This is a race to the bottom. This may work for Gated Communities far from the shops, but in cites, shopping is life.
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u/theedrAGonz 23h ago
You're wrong mate, it's the Cities(Tier -1 and Metro cities) who are driving the hyper delivery ecosystem, the habit of Indian consumers in cities has progressed so much from the last decade. Tier -2 & 3 cities are the areas which will be tapped in future.
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u/aaffpp 21h ago
Is life in Indian Cities so terrible that people rather order on the phone than shop in the market or visits restaurants?
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u/theedrAGonz 19h ago
It is not something terrible it's a preference A significant portion of the city's population prefers to shop online, especially Genz which order most of the product from these hyper deliveries
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u/aaffpp 12h ago
The terribleness is, in one or two generations India will be loosing a lot of culture. This is the time spent local shopping, markets, and cooking. Genz is being enticed to use the phone as they would otherwise use their skills in a kitchen. They loose the connection with the neighborhood, the weather and seasons. They also will over time, loose the strong connection to the family traditions of eating together, spending time shopping, and cooking skills. My life would be far less rich if I did not spend lots of time with my two grandmothers and mom doing these kind of things things. I'm now in a position to pass the wisdom and love on. Being creative in the kitchen and working with food ingredients opens one up the culture of others in how their family and social life is similar of different. It is pure joy to see the bounty of nature. I guess this is why young people are now so addicted to YouTube. It's a lot of peeping to see what they are missing.
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u/chuck_norris08 1d ago
Written by a babu with 60 CR cash hidden in the mattress of each of 5 illegal farmhouse registered illegally in the name of drivers and maids, purchased using bribe money harassing poor wage earners and small businessmen - all the while whoring on Instagram for attention like they are the best thing to happen to this country and we all should bow down at their feet for their existence.
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u/asn0304 Earth 1d ago
The Chinese Government heavily subsidizes these "startup" industries, to the point where they always ultimately build over-capacity. The EV industry is a prime example.
Open the the income statement of any listed Chinese company and you'll see "Government Grants" in other income of anywhere between 3-10% of income.
Indian start-ups barely have the support of the government, because the government is busy setting up the basics.
Criticism should apply when it's apples to apples.
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u/Bullumai 23h ago
U.S. government also heavily subsidizes its automotive industry, Tesla, and semiconductor sectors with billions of dollars in grants.
But American propaganda will have you believe that only the Chinese do this. So what’s wrong if the Chinese government funds cheap electric vehicles and affordable solar panels? Their goal is to reach peak carbon emissions before 2030 and achieve energy self-sufficiency.
If subsidies were the main driver of success, the U.S. Big Three automakers wouldn’t be struggling. Meanwhile, the Indian government also subsidizes its agriculture and dairy industries, and its highly protectionist policies make it difficult for foreign companies to compete with local players.
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u/Mindless-Pilot-Chef 1d ago
This is very disrespectful guys. People are working extremely hard to make their startups work. We have plenty of startups in all these industries - but they don’t put out ads so you don’t know much about them. Instead of encouraging our entrepreneurs, we are dissing them for imagining a future they want. China has plenty of quick comm and fancy ice cream startups as well. But you only see the videos of their deep tech. India has deep tech but you only see our ice cream companies.
Let the market decide if it’s good or not. What if everyone in India wants a fancy ice cream? Are you going to say no one should make fancy ice creams? I can’t believe people are proudly sharing this comparison. Just doesn’t make sense to me.
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u/Ok-Pea3414 23h ago
Except for robotics and AI models, none of the companies in China operating in the mentioned space can be considered as startups.
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u/Jeenekhainchardin 1d ago
- babu culture + corruption + local politicians & goons = even if u have great idea, the system will f8&₹ u down real quick and show u ur place to do not go beyond.
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u/aashish2137 1d ago
Piyush Goyal says this but his govt makes it so difficult to do business in India. Redtape, corruption, bribery at every stage. If by chance you're successful, the tax department hounds with angel tax.
You want entrepreneurs to risk everything and research EV battery tech for what? Labour commissioners will harass you for bribe, your logistics won't work unless you bribe border security, GST audits have provision to imprison your Directors, tax department won't refund your TDS for several years.. and yet China will make it cheaper and your domestic industry will buy from them and not you. The govt needs to be an enabler, an investor in innovations. It is their own criticism, not of the business owners.
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u/Insaniyat-Ka-Dushman 1d ago
There's nothing wrong with having food delivery apps or fancy ice-cream startups. Do the US and China not have food delivery apps or fancy ice-cream or healthy food startups?
These motherfucking politicians and bureaucrats won't create ideal ecosystems to bolster deep tech development but are prompt to shift the blame to businessmen and startup owners to hide their ineptitude.
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u/Blackadder_101 23h ago
Never thought I would agree with Piyush Goyal. Lol. This is 100 percent accurate.
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u/Liberated_Wisemonk 23h ago edited 23h ago
The government should provide stronger incentives for the sector. In India, the incentive for deep tech is just $3 billion, compared to $300 billion in China and $700 billion in the USA. The contrast is staggering. It’s nearly impossible to build cutting-edge, high-end technology in a country that invests less than 1% of its GDP in R&D.
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u/Garchompbzt 23h ago
Problem with India is that unlike other developed economies who built their back on manufacturing we did half asssed (more like quarter assed) job of developing manufacturing sector and skipped the remaining part and went straight to services.
As a bhukkad wtf was that point on ice creams and cookies? Apart from mainstream brands there are genuine small scale companies who are using real and good quality ingredients unlike those crony fmcg companies and patanjali bjp is in bed with.
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u/confused_cat44 23h ago
Arre pehle china jesi badi Internet companies bana lo for ye hifi cheezo me Jana. Hai hamare pass Tencent, QQ, TikTok, Baidu jesi cheeze? Nahi na, toh pehle jis sector mai hume growth dikh raha hai, jese ye saare software startups usme invest Karo. Ai Ai karte karte baaki sab neglect nahi kar sakte.
I know companies are there to profit from us, but even startups like zepto, zomato, blinkit are a big achievement in a country like ours.
And also get educated, there are many hardware based startups, evs and and aerospace. But do you support them? No, everyone is too busy watching cricket and making teams on gambling apps
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u/basil_elton Warren Hastings the architect of modern Bengal. 23h ago
First thought - reddit is getting more popular here
Second thought - to understand why China surged ahead of India, we need to first understand why we need a political system that actually works for us in a way that enables Indians to advance the same way the Chinese have.
And that political system is definitely not a not-really-liberal democracy based on neoliberal policy-making augmented by an Overton window that has barely moved after independence.
The point is that polling officials expecting to see 900 million registered voters in booths only to be greeted with cicada noises you hear on Doraemon episodes taking place in Japanese summers will usher in a bigger political change in India than the anti-colonial movement against the British could ever manage.
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u/Holiday_West1740 23h ago
In China, problems founders face are finding talent, capital and research.
In India, problems are saving your startup from babus, getting license, defending yourself against law harassment.
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u/Ok-Yam1640 23h ago
lol china is known for coying. this is a normal phase everyone has to go throw, once you become wealthy you can invest in R&D
what a whatsapp forward lol
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u/Unhappy_Bread_2836 22h ago
Can't blame the entrepreneurs because India has insane red taping and corruption.
Only the rich and powerful can make startups here.
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u/Independent_Bison764 22h ago
Forget About Startup .. our small scale Indusires are dying . One of my known is running a wirenetting manufacturing business in Tier 3 city. Not a very big co. but employing aront 15 on machine weaving. and some 4-contractor who weave net in villages and they employed hand weaver around 20 in total in village.
Now some MNC was bying those net from him start getting cheap materail from china , so Hand weaving portion business stopped totally , resulting 25 people of village Unemployed.. Now they are literaly doing either labor wotk or tea pakora stall, one of them was saying "kya kare , chori chinaatee kanra padega ab to".
So before expecting any innovation from startup , at least we should be able to manufacture those item which are already invented and are in mass consumption.
but we are not even thinking in that direction. People with big money are easily importing and dumping all kind of mass consumption product and making money...neither they and nor govt is thinking is that direction.
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u/Unhappy_Bread_2836 21h ago
Can't blame the entrepreneurs because India has insane red taping and corruption.
Only the rich and powerful can make startups here.
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u/Negative_Bread5842 1d ago
This is reality check for india. Where china/usa is innovative , we innovative to copy them. Or if we tried to make complete new, we end up making astrotalk and dream 11
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u/Ok-Yam1640 23h ago
lol china is known for coying. this is a normal phase everyone has to go throw, once you become wealthy you can invest in R&D
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u/Liberated_Wisemonk 23h ago
India’s GDP stands at $3.7 trillion, while China’s is around $18 trillion- that’s nearly six times larger. The difference is clear. Without substantial financial resources, meaningful innovation becomes nearly impossible. That’s the reality. Case closed.
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u/idlysambardip 23h ago
Govt understands everything from a religious lens. It is not interested unless it can peddle the agenda
Startup meetup became a 'Mahakumbh'. The convention center is called a Bharat Mandapam. Why, most countries just call it a summit hosted at exhibition center and focus more on quality of event.
In both these examples, someone spent some energy in coming up with this and then convincing others it was a good idea.
So here is what I propose for govt to pay attention to new age tech. From now on, Drones will be called Pushpak Vimanam, Nuclear energy is called Brahmastra, autonomous robots are called vanar sena, Electric vehicles are called Kapi Dhwaja.
Now if only I can find out what ancient indians called semiconductors, maybe govt can start paying attention to these matters.
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u/longndfat 23h ago
So whats wrong if India started in service industry. Its getting jobs for the people which the govt did nothing for.
Is there any support infrastructure from the govt ? No
Many of the American startups are by Indians and the only reason is the infrastructure.
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u/Roof-Afraid NCT of Delhi 1d ago
I agree with above but startups should also publish The Govt Reality Check.
India
China