There is a lot of discussion on Linkedin and Twitter about - tech companies skipping Indian enterprises due to endless "proof of concept" cycle.
Let me dissect it for you from ground zero.
We are not a startup, but we have also faced similar challenge, and we have lost crores in this rut. Fortunately, we are self funded and an established business, hence we survived. It may not be true for a startup - and hence I feel people who "skipped" are also right in their choice.
Some reason for the endless POC cycles.
1) most companies do not have AI (or any new tech) as a priority. India is a country of late adopters.
They aspire, but do not open up their wallets for that experiment.
2) they do not plan well. They like cheap software (free POC), but then infra is not cheap. When they see the infra cost, they back out.
3) they are not ready. They dont have enough data and environment to make it work. Its a nice exciting idea and nothing beyond it. They hardly think deeply about the business case and allocate fund for the same.
Many a times, they come with a one liner idea and the startup (or even grownups like us) put our energy behind them.
And worse, startups are pitching to someone who does not hold the strings to the money bag. They are working on an idea that the middle manager will present to their boss as their ticket to promotion. That is it.
Any new tech selling in India needs very critical evaluation and qualification.
I have raised our qualification guard rails instead of skipping Indian companies.
I felt the same urge as Vaibhav Domkundwar mentioned, but we decided to solve for this.
We did the same when many people discouraged us from working for Indian enterprisesnin general. But we took it as a challenge, adapted and found ways to work - profitably. and today 50% of our revenue comes from India. I enjoy difficult problems 🙃
P.C.: Me with two of my warriors who worked with me in the Indian markets and we had a lot of learning and fun.
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