India has what it takes to build world-beating products

Taking on Google!

It's the classic David versus Goliath battle being played out in the 21st century. And it's no surprise that this battle is being fought on the Web. We are talking of the great race between Web behemoth Google and Zoho, the Chennai-based underdog, to launch a suite of online office applications.

However, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of AdventNet, the company behind Zoho services, doesn't see it as an all-out battle. ``That would imply that there can be only one winner, which I don't agree with. Business is not like sports in that respect. It is perfectly possible to have a profitable, growing business without `winning' the market in the sense of being number one,'' he told Business Line in an exclusive interview.

Having said that, he adds that Zoho is working hard to offer "a really good suite of apps. I am confident we can keep this pace up, thanks to our outstanding engineering team in Chennai."
Blogs and Web sites covering Web 2.0 developments have been tracking the fight for a year now.

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Societies must allow for failure, both socially and legally

The National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN) is a network of academic institutions across India that develops and delivers skill-building programmes and networking activities, besides company-starting assistance, to new, high-growth entrepreneurs. A not-for-profit initiative of the Wadhwani Foundation, it was co-founded by premier academic institutions such as IIT-Bombay, IIM-Ahmedabad, BITS (Pilani), IBAB, Bangalore and SP Jain Institute, Mumbai.

Its focus has been on introducing a new paradigm in entrepreneurship education in India and its ultimate goal is to help launch thousands of new entrepreneurs, who in turn will create hundreds of thousands of much-needed valuable jobs for the country. Spearheading its mission to inspire and prepare new and future entrepreneurs is Ms Laura A. Parkin, Executive Director. A former entrepreneur herself, Ms Parkin is also a veteran in assisting entrepreneurs, having identified several promising start-ups, raised venture capital and worked with management teams.

In an exclusive interview to Business Line, Ms Parkin spoke on the activities of NEN and the need to foster the entrepreneurial spirit among students and what she brings to the table.

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'Entrepreneurs come in all ages and start at all points in life'

`Don't take VC money too early'

It is not surprising that one of Verne Harnish's hobbies is magic. The founder of two world-renowned entrepreneurship organisations — the Young Entrepreneurs' Organisation (YEO) and the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs (ACE) — Harnish has been helping thousands of entrepreneurs network and benefit from one another's experiences, which is nothing short of magic.

And as CEO of Gazelles Inc, an "outsourced corporate university for mid-sized firms," he helps executive teams of such firms affordably receive the kind of development that top executives at major firms get. Coming from someone who has been closely associated with entrepreneurs for two decades, many of Harnish's statements make for radical and unsettling reading. Like, when he says, that one surprising commonality of all good entrepreneurs is "an avoidance of risk taking. Yes, the best entrepreneurs are actually risk averse - they do things that appear risky to others but they always have a plan B or C (back door), which they can use to mitigate the risk. Pure risk takers are just gamblers.

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For a bit more of the `village' feeling in the community

Does the name Kijiji ring a bell? Doesn't it sound alien and exotic?

Yet, that is the name of eBay's person-to-person horizontal local classifieds site in India.

A start-up created by a small team of entrepreneurial employees inside eBay, Kijiji is currently present in 200 cities across Germany, France, Italy, Canada, China, Taiwan and Japan, and has been trying to gain traction in India for more than a year now.

"Kijiji means `village' in Swahili," says Mr Jiby Thomas, Head of Kijiji India (http://www.kijiji.in/) , speaking to Business Line.

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'I think people are wasting their time on Web 2.0 in India'

Web 2.0 is not for India





When Matrix Partners, a global venture capital company with a $150-million India fund, invested in the Yo! China fast food chain, it came as a surprise to many tracking the industry. Much of it was due to the fact that VCs are generally seen as backers of tech startups and not something as far removed from tech as food. So, what triggered the decision? Avnish Bajaj, co-founder and Managing Director of Matrix India, attributes the decision to the fact that there is a lot of "low-hanging fruit of basic consumer services that is missing. There are many underserved markets that need only basic innovation to be addressed."



In the US, all the "low-hanging fruit" that Bajaj talks about are taken, thanks to the maturity of the US economy. As a result, VC funding is directed at tech-related innovation. In Bajaj's, and Matrix's, overall investment thesis, India holds the promise of an opportunity that is far broader than in the Silicon Valley or in the US.





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Another story....

Importance of working with an `A' team

One of the biggest challenges before a venture capitalist (VC) is deciding on whether to invest in an top class management team (`A' team) with a not-so-great opportunity (`B' opportunity) or a `B' team with an `A' opportunity. There is no clear-cut answer: It is left to the VC to define his or her own yardstick in such matters. Given a choice, says Mr Avnish Bajaj, Managing Director of Matrix India, he would "ideally like to back an `A' team with an `A' opportunity, but it is a very hard to find such a combination!"

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Tech as big differentiator

He's a stranger in a strange land that is brimming with opportunities, but he's certainly no stranger to collaborating with entrepreneurs of Indian extraction to build world-class companies. Meet Mark Sherman, General Partner at Battery Ventures, who has set up base in India to replicate his company's American success stories in India in the age of Web 2.0.

A self-confessed ABCD, by which he means "American Born Commuting (to) Desh," Sherman "firmly believes" that India will become one of the core venture hubs of the world, following Silicon Valley and Israel. He has been visiting India often for the past few years in an attempt to better understand its markets.

"I see many more Indian-based management teams as they visit the Bay Area to visit customers, partners, family, etc. I hope to relive the good parts of the tech boom of the 90s while India emerges as an exciting emerging market of venture capital activity."

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'The team is the clincher'

Venture capitalists are generally perceived to be reclusive folk, difficult to get in touch with and rarely engaging in public debate. But Alok Mittal comes as a pleasant surprise in the inaccessible world of venture fund managers.

The Executive Director of Canaan Partners (http://www.canaan.com/) , who helped the company establish its Indian operations, Mittal is actively involved with Band of Angels (he's a founding member) and http://www.venturewoods.org,/ a blog that acts as an interface between innovators, VCs and anyone tracking the sector.

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