This is very specific to Bangalore and if you have not lived in India or not visited here, most of this may be “interesting” at best for you. Another warning – long post.

That India has changed significantly & dramatically in the last 10+ years is obvious. On the flip side people & attitudes are changing slower (or resisting change) is also very clear. I have this new theory that the Quality of Life (QoL) in Bangalore has not improved, but the Quality of Stress (QoS) has changed a lot.

In Bangalore now, you get a very high Quality of Stress compared to what you got 10-15 years ago (if you dont get the slight irony in this, its me not you – (grin)). Its stressful for the average individual but the quality of stress is very high. I’m not sure many people want this quality of stress, but they are plunging head-first into the global rat-race.

Quality of Life (QoL) to me is not the same as standard of living. Complex material things like telephones & communication, television, automobiles have all dramatically improved here. Simple wants on the other hand, like electricity, water, accessibility of roads, etc. are finding it difficult to keep up with the dramatic growth. The standard of living is improving leaps and bounds for the new industries (like technology) and that rising tide is lifting most other boats. But is increasingly being challenged by the dichotomy of simple wants not being met. The reason is that 50% or more of the population requires simple not complex material things.

QoL on the other hand is “well being” felt by a individual or group of people, according to Wikipedia.
“The first is a physical aspect which includes such things as health,
diet, as well as protection against pain and disease. The second
component is psychological in nature. This aspect includes such things
as stress, worry, pleasure and other positive or negative emotional
states.”

So QoL = physical aspects + psychological aspects. I notice that the physical aspects are a net neutral to slightly positive (see the previous paragraph). Within the psychological aspects; pleasure (with material acquisition) is greatly improved, but there’s more stress now and its very high quality stress.

Let me explain my theory with some examples:

1. Buying a home: Homes were a lot cheaper and loans were harder to come by a few years ago. What’s good is that now if you can breathe most banks will give you a loan to buy a home. The price of real estate is much higher, but the quality of basic home construction is better. The challenge is that if you are 2 income earning home, most accountants advice you to keep you “basic pay” small and “perks” large to avoid a large tax burden. Since mortgage interest is the only deduction to offset taxes, many folks buy a much larger home than they ever imagined (this part is not very different from the US).

The trouble is buying a larger home in India has a lot more variable costs. So most people I know who own large homes are more stressed about traffic near their home, water, electricity & maintenance.This may sound like “rich people problems” but its a lot more stressful than before.

Their “standard of living” has no doubt gotten better, but the quality of stress is now higher. Some would argue its MORE stressful now.

2. Buying a car: You had 3-4 choices of car 15 years ago. Now its an amazing variety of local and imports.  Thanks to the financing boom, loans are again a lot easier to get. So you get better cars and they are easier to afford (not cheaper to afford, just easier). But the flip side of the problem is that almost everyone with a salary can afford one, leading to 2 million vehicles in Bangalore, a 10 fold increase in 7 years. Now people are more stressed about the length of their commute, road rage and their car getting “dinged” daily.

Again, the standard of living has been enhanced, but the problems its brings are stress of a higher quality.

3. Kids and school: 20 years go public or private were two choices for schools and the “standard” of instruction were limited to 3 – Central government, State government or British.
Now there are 7 different tiers & tons of choices – Foreign-owned International, Local-owned International, State standard, Central standard, British standard, Charter and home tutoring. Most parents I know work from 8 to about 8 in the evening (if you are in the technology field, you tend to bring work home, since conference calls with the US are during the evenings and nights local time). So parents tend to choose the school based on its relative brand cachet and sign up for the “most school they can afford”. It comes with it a unique Indian variant of “keeping up with the Joneses” – you have to sign up for sports / games / activities that are aligned with the “status” of the school. Years ago I’d play cricket at the corner of my street or the playground a few blocks away. Now horse-riding, roller-blading classes are the norm – which is an alignment with global standards, I agree.

The stress that these come with require a full time nanny who has to shuttle the kids around (since parents are at work) and a car to shuttle the nanny around. Dependability and security of the kids (with the nanny and driver) become more of a stress and whether the kids can get to the activity “on time” thanks to traffic.

Better problems but more high quality of stress. What do you think?

If you are part of a startup or have a new product and are looking to expand into the “India market”, here are some tips on what I have learned over the last couple of months.

Some basic facts for you to keep in mind:
1. Although India has over a billion people, fewer than 1.5 Million people work in the “Information Technology sector”. These people tend to be the early adopters of technology followed by students in high schools and colleges. The financial services and retail sector employees tend to be the early majority and the rest are mostly laggard in terms of adoption of new Internet related technologies. However the latest in cell phone or mobile technology seems to be the anomaly in this pattern.

2. There are about 150 Million personal computers in India, and 42 Million of these have Internetconnectivity. 2.5 Million broadband connections at home. Fewer than 5% of these broadband connections deliver more than 1Mbps. India has ~260 Million cell phone users and of these about 550,000 people have data capable smart phones (Nokia and Blackberry have the most market share). The average broadband connection costs about Rs. 500 (about $12)/month, and tends to be a barrier for adoption, besides being unreliable and inconsistent.

3. Most (Over 85%) of people accessing the Internet do it at work (where broadband is available). Most companies have restrictions on accessing the Internet from work including proxies, disallowing downloads and in some cases restricting usage to certain websites. So, you are better off having a pure play “in the cloud” service than one that requires downloads. The other major source of traffic is from Internet kiosks where people pay by the hour to surf the web.

Here is what I have learned over the past few months:

1. Ensure you have a “mobile strategy” to reach the early adopter demographic: Like most other European countries, SMS has the biggest usage among the target demographic of 17 to 24 year olds. Young Indians tend to be “out and about” and tied very little to their desk or PC, so they surf the Internet, chat with friends and communicate primarily with their cell phone. About 12-14% of these folks tend to have a job at a call center, or retail, etc. so among this subset of wage earners, disposable income tends to be fairly high, since they stay with their parents.

2. Even with mobile the lowest common denominator (voice) is the one you have to support. The 24-35 demographic has 3-4 different segments – Urban professional, Urban off-the-grid and Rural. Urban professionals tend to use the Net & SMS more than Rural or the “off-the-grid” crowd. The Urban off-the-grid tend to use their mobile for mostly voice calls. Rural tend to be the same. Since incoming calls are free, most people prefer to receive than send calls.

3. Cater to local tastes in application usage. This is a very obvious one, but an important point. Broadly speaking, Indians love Bollywood (local movies), cricket for entertainment. They are voracious news junkies in general, but tend to read a “physical newspaper” more than surf the web for news. Horoscopes and astrology applications do very well in most urban and rural areas. We assumed that maps and directions would be good applications for India, but found out that most Indians, “ask around” for directions and recommendations so the use of maps and weather tend to be far and few between.

4. Assume over 80% of your demographic is coming via 56Kbps connection: Broadband at the office is fairly restricted. More people access the Internet via cell phones than PC’s in the large metros (Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkatta and Bangalore) since they tend to have long commutes.

5. To market you company, traditional media beats Internet consistently in India: To get your word out and awareness of your company / service / product you are better off using traditional media – newspaper, television and radio (not necessarily in that order). Since the number of people using the web is small, the chances of reaching your target audience (albeit very focused) is very small. Over 50% of cell phones are less than 18 months old and over 40% of them have FM radio capability according to newspaper reports. Looking at the street everyone has their headphones on (even while driving) or is reading the newspaper. The best way to get your word out is to market virally or advertise.

If you have never been in an autorickshaw before you have to go. One part like Barney Oldfield Speedway ride at Great America (only this is real), another part like a digestive system refresh after a long meal, these vehicles are a ubiqutous part of most Indian metropolis. Bangalore has a fair share of them. Most can seat 3 (with the driver in front) and in most cases seat more than 5 (I can vouch for 5 in a rickshaw personally).

I had to travel a short distance to meet a friend so I figured I would take an “auto” as its referred to here. The best part of the ride actually is the look on the faces of those traveling on it for the first time. The even better part is the “haggling” you have to do upfront to decide on the price or location – before you get confused as to the location let me explain.

Either you go where you want to go at the price they want you to pay OR you go to the location they want to go at the price you are willing to pay. Makes sense right?

All auto’s here have a meter which supposedly displays the fare and is kept up to date. The rise in fuel prices however have not reflected on the fares for a long time probably so most drivers prefer to negotiate a price upfront. I.e. how much will you have to pay above the price quoted on the meter.

I had really no idea of the distance (except for knowing its short) I had to travel so there was no way I could decide if I was getting a fair shake or was being “taken for a ride”. I walked up to a fairly crowded rickshaw stand and noticed about 5-7 of them waiting. I went up to the first driver, mentioned I wanted to go to “Old Phillips building” and prepared to get in.

“No sir, I cant go there, I dont have enough petrol (gas)” he ventured. Hmm, was my thought, then why dont you either a) put some when we are on the way or b) go and get some in the tank rather than standing here.

Oh well, I figured there are enough of these here, going to the next one.

“Its too close and I wont get someone to ride back” claimed the next auto driver. I was going to say something about what do I care, when I realized it was a futile attempt at commiserating with him, so I bit my tongue and moved to Bachelor #3.

He was clearly happy listening to his radio station and could not be bothered to move. “I cant move until the two in front go” he said, not even waiting for me to mention where I wanted to go.

Not wanting to waste time, I went back to bachelor #1. “I have time, lets go and fill gas”, I ventured, not really confident I had any time, but hoping he took that as a positive sign.

“The engine will get hot” he complained, adding “Petrol is too expensive now, so I can’t fill it fully so I have to use less oil”. Dont ask me about this line of logic, he presumed his response would satisfy me so I would just go away.

So he would rather wait here and do nothing than go somewhere to make money was my thought.

Bachelor #2 was none to eager to get going, but at least he was willing to listen to my counter offer.

“I’ll pay you 10 rupees more” I ventured.

“No sir, the road is a one way, so I’ll be stuck in traffic”. he replied.

Relegated to the point of name your price game, I asked him how much he’d take to go. “Rupees 50, and I have no change (as in you pay me Rs. 50 exactly or I wont return any money back)” was his reply.

The metered fare, I was told by my friend should not come up to more than Rs. 25, so the spot price was 2X.

” I’ll give you Rs. 35, and if you dont come I’ll take your number and report you to the cops”, was my best response.

“Okay, you can do that” came the reply not even bothering to look up. So much for my counter offer and my “be prepared to walk away strategy”.

I started to move away from the stand noticing another rickshaw coming up, but not yet on the stand. I gestured him to slow down and was about to name the destination, when bachelor #1 shouted “Get back in line, we have been waiting a long time for a customer”.

I mentioned to the other rickshaw driver where I wanted to go and he seemed okay until I got in and he says “its too short a distance so you have to pay me Rs. 15 over the meter price”.

So much for the right price. The market price it seems was about Rs. 40. Wish I had known earlier to save me 15 min in the hot sun.

One of the most important things you have to get when you come to India is
a bank account – why? Most US credit cards “fail to be approved”. My credit card company consistently declined transactions “for security reasons” they claimed. Since there are no credit agencies here, banking is a
relatively “personal process”. Too personal one might conclude, if you
are used to the automated, impartial and objective “credit score”
process in the US. My mom has an account in the Indian bank, close to
home, so I figure why not go there.

The
personnel (all the way from the branch manager to the “water-filler
person” and the cleaning lady) know her by name. Obviously my mom is very well liked. Favors have been done consistently from both
parties. One side is happy listening to stories of how her
grandchildren in the US are “very smart”, and the other side
consistently puts large amounts of money in certificates of deposit for a less
rate of return than you’d get from micro lending $50 per year to a
vendor selling coconut-water in New York City (for those of you that
dont get it, vendors selling unprocessed food in NYC are prohibited, so
there’s a slim chance you’re going to get your principal back).

So
in due course of the first week I made my way to Indian bank to open an
account. As you’d expect, I had none of the things they’d expect any
person wanting to open an account would have – 3 set of passport size
photos, original and photocopy of PAN card, original and photocopy of
address proof, LPG card or Ration card, Driver’s license and copies of
passport and a “statement
from a known person”.

I walk in with my cousin, fully expecting
to be there for at least 2 hours. They all seem to know him – Good, I
think. I hear “Mrs. Mohan’s son” from a certain lady. Expecting her to
inquire me about mom, I was prepared to answer, when I realized she was
talking to my cousin. Of course I think, what did I expect.

I
was escorted to the branch manager’s cabin, a nice enough man, who
after asking me for the third time if I had breakfast proceeded to ask
me “Do you want to buy gold coins?”.

Huh? I think, gold coins? That’s a new one.

I tell him I want a simple bank account.

“No problem. We can do it today, but also please consider buying some gold coins sir” he says.

I
get a new account form and I proceed to explain that I have none of the
things he wants from me except for my US driver’s license.

He
cuts me short – “Oh you are Mrs. Mohan’s son? Ok. No problem. We’ll open
an account. We dont need those other items now. Just please consider
buying some gold coins”.

What’s with these gold coins I go out to ask my cousin.

He’s
busy filling out some paperwork for my account, and pauses for a
second, “Every bank’s been calling me to buy gold coins. Its the new
thing they are selling”.

I wait for a few minutes still not
having to do anything to “open my account”. The branch manager has
filled out the details from his side, my cousin’s taking care of my
information and all I have to do is sign. In fact my mom can
countersign for me, so I dont technically need to do that also.

I see posters for Akshaya Trithi and put two and two together.

Turns
out there’s an auspicious time and day (April 18th) to buy gold in
India and if you do buy on this day that gold multiplies during the
year. “Like rabbits” prompts my inner evil twin.

Well long story
short – Every bank has been given a “quota” to sell gold coins during
that season and if they dont sell them, the branch manager’s given hell
daily.

So now jewelers and banks are all competing to sell gold and obviously there is a lot of unsold inventory.

I
get a last plea before I sign the 5 page of the account application
from the teller – “Sir, we have very pure gold coins if you want to
buy” she says.

“Not right now” I reply sweetly, claiming to have bought some last month – liar!

Had
to move the application to another gentleman who was the supervisor. He
looks at all the paperwork, seems a trifle irritated and opens his
mouth to complain when he sees my cousin and a shifted grin appears.

“How is Mrs. Mohan?, he asks, “is she coming today”?

“She will come later” replies my cousin. We are all liars, I opine to myself.

“Ok, so you are her son” he gestures me to a seat, “Did you just come from US?”.

“No, I came here a while ago” I reply.

“Oh”, seems disappointed “You could have bought some gold coins from us. No?”.

I may not make a lot of friends with this post, since most people prefer “all you can eat Internet plans”. Other utilities are already metered like water and electricity, so why such an uproar over Internet access is not obvious to me. Internet usage here in India is already metered. This morning Time Warner is attempting that in US. The main reasons why metering makes sense for the cable provider are obvious.

1. It prevents freeloaders. Many people in the US do not secure their wireless router with a passcode since they dont pay by amount downloaded. If you are going to pay by amount used, you will secure your wifi and ensure your password is guarded.

2. There’s incentive to invest in the network as application bandwidth intense applications are more prevalent.

3. Allows for structured provisioning and capacity planning of their network, thus ensuring that more Earthlink type fiasco’s dont happen.

For consumers, there are benefits though:

1. Makes your home network more secure. If you do put a password on your network, you tend to prevent unauthorized usage, typical to not allowing people to come by and use your network for illegal means – I dont mean downloading free music or the like, but for really nefarious activities.

2. You pay for what you use and dont have to pay for those that abuse the network at the high end of usage.

There is an negative (positive depending on the way you look at it). I have stopped viewing videos on the net and my use of YouTube has dropped by 80%. I used to view all videos that my friends recommended to me, but now that’s rare.

The downside is there are over 500 pictures I have taken in the last few weeks that are still waiting to be uploaded.

I love hanging out with my cousin. The last two weeks I have spent more time with him and he consistently keeps me in splits. More about that later. This was our fridge buying experience. Remember the Reliance Digital store with no electricity? Well, we were back there this time for buying a new fridge.

The selection of fridges left me impressed. The latest LG refrigerator with built-in Television has apparently been in the top 5 bestseller list. It costs $1200. Whoa. That’s more than the annual pay for over 60% Indians. I dont even have a Television at home, so having one with the fridge is a ridiculous proposition to me.

We had been there before to check out the selection and had narrowed down on an LG model (530 L), which is very large and looks real nice. The saleslady had noticed us eyeing the same model the previous time, so I think she knew that we were interested in it.

The model was a discontinued one and the only available piece was the floor display unit. Having been to Fry’s several times and knowing all about display units, I was uneasy recommending its purchase. But of course, wives rule, so this was the unit we needed.

“Hello sir, do you like this model” says the sales lady, adding “it was a bestseller last year”. I bristle. “If ever model was a bestseller, then which model did not sell?” I countered.

“The ones that did not sell, we returned to the manufacturer”, she replies not missing a beat. Probably adding under her breath “moron!”.

“Since this is a floor model, we want a discount, there are some dings, scratches”, says my cousin.

“Please wait” she says returning in 30 seconds with a younger kid who’s got a calculator in his hand. This ought to be fun I think to myself.

“Okay sir” ventures the young kid (possibly not older than 19, “We can give you 5% off”.

“Huh? 5% is not even a discount, it wont even cover VAT” (Value Added Tax, like Sales tax), I protest.

“No sir. That’s what I can give you” he replies.

” I want a minimum 15% discount” professes my cousin.

“Not here sir” he says ” the computer wont let me give you more than 5%”.

Liar, I thought. “Okay, we’ll go elsewhere” – seemingly being the best back up plan for us, knowing fully well the wife would give us both hell for not getting her what she wanted.

“How about buying a new model sir”, the older sales lady offers.

“No, we want this model or we are not buying here”, I reply.

“We can give you 8% maximum sir” the young kid now replies, “but you have to take it as is. This fridge comes with no box, and if there are scratches, you have to adjust”. The dreaded adjust word again.

“No we want 10% or we wont buy” counters my cousin.

“Sorry sir, then you will have to go elsewhere” the kid replies.

“How about we throw in free delivery and setup” offers the sales lady.

I get a little excited and it shows. Having bought stuff at Sears and Fry’s before this was at least $100 I thought.

“That’s always free. Every store I know provides that free” counters my cousin.
 
Value of local knowledge I think to myself.

“We can give you 8% sir and give you delivery by tomorrow and also give you a voltage stabilizer” is the kids final offer, since he was willing to walk away.

“9% and the voltage stabilizer” counters my cousin.

“No, sir, sorry, you have to buy another model or go elsewhere” is the kids final word as he starts to walk off.

Okay I think, buy it was going to be my advice to my cousin. But, he waits for the kid with the calculator to walk away, then looks at other models, and sighs “Okay, we have to go to eZone (another electronics store nearby”.

“Sir, if you take the floor model I can also put your name in a daily draw for a surround sound theater system” offers the sales lady.

That seemed to have done it for us. Ahh the daily draw. The chance of 1 in 10293223424298423 to win a surround sound system. The chance to tell the wife that we got a good deal and PLUS we were entered in a draw for a surround sound system. Never mind that we did not ever need it. We can always blame it on luck if we dont win.

I thought we were done, but he bargaining had just begun. The payment method was the next – credit cards would be charged 1% extra, if you needed it bubble wrapped that’s extra, if you needed to have it delivered to a location more than 4 miles, that’s extra.

Oh bargaining by a 1000 papercuts, I dont think I can handle the back and forth anymore I thought. That’s where they get you apparently. Wear you down so you pretty much give in. Unless you are prepared for a 2-3 hour session.

I am not good at bargaining. I was taught by my mom years ago to bargain well when she sent me grocery and produce shopping but after being in America for ages, those skills just wore off. I think I try to do the win-win negotiation, but quite honestly that does not work in India. Its always someone wins and the other person negotiating loses. Most cases its NOT a negotiation, its just a bargaining. So what’s the difference – well let me explain.

1. Negotiating: I walked into a local car dealership with my cousin the other day. Good day to buy a new car. There are over 50+ models to choose from – very different from the last time we went car shopping in India – there were 3 models. You either bought a Fiat (localized for India), an Ambassador (from Morris Minor) or a Suzuki (also localized). Well walking into the dealership was interesting in itself.  Before we had a chance to  acquaint  ourselves, there’s a nice lady that walks by to  “greet” us with a paper in her hand.

“Hi” she says with a half smile “Are you looking to buy a car”?

We nod in unison.

“Okay, here’s the price sheet. Please be seated, I’ll send you a sales person”.

Whoa! I thought, price sheet first. Wonder what Seth has to say about this.

The price sheet was pretty detailed, cost of the car, taxes, registration fees, insurance – all inclusive. There were 5 models of cars to choose from and about 4 types of cars in each model. From the basic (no power anything (including no power steering!) , no seat belts, manual shift and no AC) to the fully loaded (this still has no airbags, no car stereo – optional, no sun roof, etc).

We sat down and Rakesh came to greet us, “So, which car do you want to buy?”. My cousin says “Santro”.
“Okay, do you know which type of car?” he asks.
“What’s the difference?” I venture.
A more detailed explanation of the features ensures.

We finally settle on a model and type. Turns out the same prices are valid throughout Southern India for every dealer. The only difference is what options you can purchase. But wait, even with that the prices are set by Hyundai.

So putting my best negotiation face I say “Why dont you throw in the stereo for free?” expecting a tough, grueling session ahead.

“Okay” replies Rakesh, “If you want free stereo, the I can only give delivery in 2 weeks”.

“But we want the car tomorrow”, my cousin volunteers.

“Then no free stereo” he explains still smiling.

“Hmm, what about color” my cousin questions, “We want blue”.

“No problem we have that in stock” he replies, and before we can ask any further “does not matter which color you want, we have all in stock if you want delivery by tomorrow, without stereo”.

So much for negotiation.

I try the walk tactic “Well if we dont get stereo in the car and by tomorrow, we’ll go elsewhere”.

“Sure sir. Its your choice, but every dealer will give you the same price, same time of delivery and same options” says Rakesh, “Our difference is we are closest to your home. Would you rather drive another 1.5 hours to go elsewhere? In this traffic?”.

He has a point that man. Why buy a car and drive all around town? We are just buying it to park it at home are we not?

End of story. No more “negotiation”. Everything is set – you get a choice of delivery date in exchange for a free stereo.

I realize this post is already long and the bargain & haggling stories are kinda juicy so I’ll save those for another post.

Assuming you have been told (or your asked) to go to Bangalore to spend a week with your India team, what’s the best set of things to do? How can you get work done and at the same time enjoy what Bangalore has to offer?

This is one person’s view – YMMV.

1. Most likely you are arriving either from Europe (East coast – NYC, Boston, etc.) or via Singapore (SF, Seattle, etc). You are going to land in Bangalore directly (if you arrive from Bombay or Delhi, ignore this point) late in the night (later than 10 pm). All international flights land late at night. Use that to your advantage. Get a quick eye (an hour is fine) on the plane. With the new Bangalore airport its likely going to take you an hour or two to get to your hotel. A pre-paid taxi is the preferred route (if you have not already made arrangements for cab) to get to your hotel.

2. Get some sleep to get over the jet lag. If you’re still hungry, grab a quick bite with room service (since most Bangalore restaurants are closed by 10pm) and hit the bed.

3. Day 1: Early brisk workout in the gym (if provided at your hotel) or a quick run (if you wake up before 6 am) is ideal before the traffic hits. Stick to running around the hotel or ask your concierge for a quick 1-2 mile path. Most roads will have some form of pavement, but dont expect it.

4. If you are up to it a local breakfast (at your hotel) is awesome (idlis and dosas are great, and if your hotel serves Rava idli is a local specialty). Most coffee is served latte style, but you can ask for black if you wish.

5. Make arrangements for your taxi / cab ride to your office. If possible leave late since most companies I know that work here start work at 930. There are exceptions, but hopefully you are staying at a hotel close to your office. If not, plan on at least an hour of commute.

6. You will be served multiple cups of coffee (or water if you wish) throughout the morning, which you can choose to politely decline. Avoid a buffet style lunch the first day (since there’s a big propensity to nap later). I would also avoid salad and US style fast food. Be aware most Indian teams have lunch late (130 pm is usual) and its usually a 1 hour or more affair.

7. The lull of the afternoon is the best time to have back to back meetings with interaction & Q&A as opposed to presentations. By late evening you are most likely to be tired and sleepy, so I recommend a quick walk on M. G. road (if you are close to it).

8. Dinner at Three Quarter Chinese is would be my bet on day 1. Its a good mix of local and “Indian Chinese” cuisine and the ambiance is just right. Its moderately priced with your meal ranging from $15 – $20 per person with alcohol. They serve a killer buffet at lunch so if you wish you can come back another afternoon for a quick lunch.

9. After dinner I would recommend a walk down Brigade road to browse the shops. Hit the sack early so you can dance and experience the nightlife and dancing tomorrow.

I know there are over a billion people in India. Its not lost on me. Also not lost is the sense of pride and self confidence that a job provides, but honestly these three jobs have to be eliminated.

1. The parking ticket hand-outer. Driving to Bangalore airport the other night to pick up my wife, I entered the parking lot. Well actually you cant really call it a parking lot in the real sense. Its more like a cluster-park, anyway I digress. The driver slowed down at the toll booth to pick up  a ticket. I expected him to lower the window, stick his hand out and press a button, get a ticket and go past.

Its not quite like that. There’s a man in a booth, who presses the button for you, and since he’s in the booth, he does not want to hand it to you. Kinda like my professor at U. Md., who sent the teaching assistant to give us our reviewed reports – since he felt beneath him to hand it to us direct. So this man hands it to another kid who’s outside the booth and he hands it out to my driver. So there are 2 people doing the job of none.

I asked my driver why this was the case. Turns out the system was automated. The ingenious (or nefarious, depending on your point of view) Bangalore crowd would take the ticket from the machine, park, return to the toll booth on exit, “pay about 50% of the fee direct to the toll-booth-operator (in essence a bribe) and keep the ticket for “return next time”. So vastly underreported parking fees prompted officials to keep 4 people to “check, double check, verify and confirm” the parking at the airport.

2. The Elevator call button depressor. The large (and swanky too) elevators at high-rises world-wide have an “elevator operator”. A person that operates the elevator so you dont have to press buttons to tell the elevator which floor you want to go. I dont quite understand even those, but lets move on. One in every 2 elevators in Bangalore has one of these “elevator operators” – they are called “lift-boys”, since elevators are called lifts here.

I wonder why they need these elevator operators since most times there’s no electricity and you end up taking the stairs. Anyway, back to the main story.

I was attending a dinner last night at one of the local “5 star hotels”. Over 15 floors. Here’s the best part – EVERY floor had a elevator call button depressor. Basically a kid that stands all day waiting for someone that wants to go either up or down and presses one of two buttons.

So the talented Mr. Mohan asks them why they had this person on every floor. I should have expected this – some of their neuvo-rich rural clients, kept pressing the buttons (just to be sure) and broke the buttons on a few floors – which had the elevators not working for 2-3 days each month. The clients expected instant response from the elevators and thought they have to keep it depressed for the elevator to show up faster.

3. The staple-remover and re-stapler. Oh! the horror of mountains of paperwork. Every organization (including the progressive Vodafone India and Airtel – the local mobile carrier) makes you sign every piece of paper in triplicate, provide your father’s date of birth and his favorite color, essentially every piece of information you will never remember after filling out that form. A simple cell phone connection (since there are no credit bureau’s like Equifax here) takes you 4 different forms and 3 photographs and 13 signatures. Plus they will physically send a person to your home or hotel to check that you really are staying there.

The Regional Transport Office (that’s the Indian DMV BTW), I was at the other day, is one of these government organizations. I wanted to “tag” along with my cousin and dad – we wanted to get his license renewed. After submitting a lot of paperwork, 3 photographs and his previous 3 license cards – all stapled together, there was a lady who looked at the form – DID NOT CHECK ANYTHING on it EXCEPT the staple on the paperwork and seeing it was stapled horizontally, removed the stapler, then re-stapled them in vertical orientation and send it off to the next counter, where they check to verify your form is filled correctly.

I know you are thinking “Come  on Mukund, you are pulling a fast one”. I was actually surprised myself, and asked my cousin who clarified that horizontally stapled paperwork is harder to review quickly – I am not kidding.

Here’ the best part – that lady who’s doing the restapling has NO other tools at her disposal at the desk she was sitting at – no pen, no bar-code-scanning unit, nothing except a stapler, the back of which was used to remove the previously stapled paperwork.

Warning:
Long (essay type) post.

You would
expect Silicon Valley of India to have more software entrepreneurs. I spoke
with 4 of my local venture capital friends (2 in Chennai and 2 in Bangalore) who were lamenting the lack of good quality
local software startups in Bangalore.
Their claim was that there are more “me too, copycat” software attempts with a “local
flavor”. No wonder – they saw 7 proposals for “Facebook for India”, 5 for
“Indian Admob” and countless mobile social networking ideas. I am going to punt
on the existential questions about the necessity of software startups for this
post, so let’s assume they are good to have.

 Here are
the main reasons that they claim is the reason for the lack of such ventures.

1. There are not many smart
   engineers outside of IIT OR The top engineers from IIT go to US and Europe

The IIT’s (Indian Institute of Science) are premier
institutions no doubt, but the number of graduates are very small (relative) in
number. There are very street smart individuals I have met from the tier 2
regional / state colleges that are more willing to take a risk than your IIT
graduate. Even in Silicon Valley this plays
out – the number of companies started by Indians from other colleges far
outweighs the number started from IIT. Increasingly most of these individuals
prefer to stay back in India,
where they see a lot of opportunity, unlike 10 years ago. But IIT is a proven
name, which is why venture capitalists prefer to fund them. Plus the number of IIT grads are returning per Rediff.

2. Social stigma against no name
   brands OR Culture prevents risk taking OR Culture does not support failures

This is true to some extent. In most cases, after you
graduate, close friends & family will pressure you to join a “brand name”
such as Infosys, Wipro, Oracle, etc. Why? They feel a stigma in mentioning it
at dinners, parties, etc.

Although software startups are risky so are any of the other
kinds of ventures. There’s a perception that starting a new venture in a proven
field reduces risk, which is why you see more restaurants, home builders,
infrastructure providers than new ground-breaking innovations from India.

3. Since individuals need “strong
   brand name” in their resume, its hard to hire good quality engineers for
   risky startups

This is the same argument as the previous one. Most “fresh”
graduates don’t want to take a risk with their first job out of school – they
prefer to work for a well established company than a unknown startup. I believe
that’s changing. Most of the work done in India the last decade was
maintenance & support. Now,
there are some good cutting-edge Ruby-on-Rails and AJAX technologies that are being adopted, which is why I believe  it will take a few years, but  not for another 3 years to see a “new” idea emerge from India.

4. Starting a service company is
   easy way to make money OR alternative types of startups are easier.

Services or consulting is immediate revenue, so the need for
capital is little and success is mostly assured. For every Infosys (that’s
proven) there are 100’s of other small 10-50 person companies that exist in Bangalore. Each company
is trying to be a specialist in a niche area in an attempt to get acquired by a
US or European company to
expand their operations in India.

5. Bureaucracy prevents anyone to
   start companies easily OR There is insufficient infrastructure (unreliable
   electricity, bad roads) to support
   software startups

The paperwork in India to start a company or any new
venture is arduous and cumbersome. That’s changing in my view and you can
easily pay to get things done faster. The infrastructure question is a whole another
topic. Without good transportation and guaranteed electricity software startups
will not succeed. My personal view is that this is not going to change for the
next 3-5 years. 

6. Not enough angel investors OR
   There are no successful software startup founders to mentor

I have heard more of the lack of good mentors than angel
investors. The VC’s obviously feel there are not enough of them since there is
not enough deal flow. Many first-time founders are looking to network, learn
and get some guidance, but the available pool of experienced startup mentors is
far and few between.

There is a TON of “dumb money” in India, which means capital is
cheap, but the cost of getting money with connections is too high for most
founders.

7. Education system promotes rote
   learning not creativity OR Local universities don’t provide research
   environment unlike Stanford, Berkeley

I don’t quite believe this to be true. Yes there’s a HUGE
emphasis on math, repetition and students are drilled to learn their subjects
more by repetition than by experimenting. The thing that’s changing though is
there are a lot of new international schools that emphasize “complete learning”
and are empowering students to think more about what they want to do than are
told what to do. 

In a post later on I will try and provide some ideas and
viewpoints from entrepreneurs on how they believe they are going to change the
situation and prove me wrong. I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong
on my title.