Freeman Murray seems like a cool guy. iAccelerator doesn't seem to be bureaucratic like the other incubator type things I have seen in India. The best part is iAccelerator is also in my hometown of Ahmedabad. Go iAccelerator, I am rooting for you.
Is anyone here applying? What are living expenses like in Bangalore? 5 lakh (500,000 Indian rupees or ~$10,000) is a lot of money, isn't it? It sounds like they have literally copied YC, forgetting the difference in living costs!
iAccelerator is in Ahmedabad (at least that's what the faq says). 500,000 is enough to lead a comfortable life. It is about 1.5 to 2 times the yearly salary of a fresh C.S. engineering grad in Ahmedabad. But remember this is 500K for a team of 2-3 people.
Edit: I stand corrected, this round seems to be happening in Bangalore where 500K is closer to 1.5 times than 2 times the starting salary of a new CS grad.
No, May be in other towns in India 5 Lakhs is lot of money, in bangalore its good enough for 2 founders to live for 6 months. Nothing more, nothing less
Rs.40,000 per person per month is way more than good enough. Surely, we are not talking Infosys salaries here. If cheapness is a predictor of success at all, these guys have no hope. Unless they are starting hardware or biotech companies.
I think Manish's estimate is right on the mark if you are an internet startup. Things like good bandwidth or hosting or servers are way more or at least as much costly here as in Silicon Valley. Compare the rates for a 10 mbps unlimited internet connection and rented physical server space in Bangalore and silicon valley. You would probably not even make 2 3 months in Bangalore on 5L if your start up required those while 5k usd will more than cover 10 months of both in the silicon valley. Please correct me if I am wrong.
5L is not a lot of money in Bangalore but for 5 to 10% equity, good feedback and support I would be very much interested. Sadly their application deadline was September 12. :(
Approx burn per person in Bangalore:
Initial: Relocating+ house deposit+ registration+ CA + desktop + table + chair + net connection setup + office stationary: About 1L.
Monthly: Rent + utilities + food + net + cheap vps: 12-15k, Phone + travel: 5k. Extra: 15k.
So, we are looking at about 60k monthly and 1.5-2L initial burn for 2 non-Bangaloreans to go and do a start up there.
I think that is painfully high. What is the "extra" 15K? What kind of phone do you use that costs you 5K, travel included? My very expensive phone plan costs me less than 1000/mo because 75% of my calls are made roaming. I spend over 5K a month traveling, yes, but my commute is 55km each way. If I worked in the city, say, 15km from where I lived (which is high), phone+travel would be under 1500mo.
Err yes... I too am in Mumbai. My phone bill comes to 1000/mo and traveling to about 2k but you got to budget for the occasional flight to meet potential investors or for a family emergency back home. So I think a net 5k a month average is reasonable. One could certainly get rid of the 15k a month but that would probably amount to getting rid of insurance and the national savings scheme and stuff like that. That's probably a personal call though...
Is the guy on the right wiping his nose on his shirt or sniffing his arm pit? Not to be picky but that immediately shot out at me when the page came up.
It'll be very interesting to see the kidn of start-ups that come out of this venture, even if its not useful to compare it against what Y Combinator has produced.
An interesting question is what sort of bets are better placed in India.
Presumably, business models that require labour more or less linear to scale would be the right kind to base in India. That is the opposite of what startup generally gets thought of as otherwise. I see no reason why a services 'startup' is a bad idea. There is plenty of improvement to be made there.
Sorry to be all negative about this. I am guessing this would be another IIT/IIM circle jerk. Everyone else will be filtered out. I will change my mindset when I see the proof. Till then, cynical.
More obvious rebuttal: IIT is merely a mark that you were smart at a certain age. When investing in startups you don't want to disregard what they did since or, god forbid, exclude older people entirely.
Focussing on IITians at any age is like leaving stale comments scattered in a codebase and being misled by them.
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The less obvious rebuttal: Getting into the IITs marks one as smart, but not making it doesn't necessarily mark one as inferior.
In my experience those who rank 1-50 are in a stratospheric league of their own. But choosing between ranks 1500+ and the best of other indian colleges (who often didn't pass the IIT tests) is a crap shoot. There's just too many deserving students for the IITs to accomodate.
(Full disclosure: I prepared for the IITs for two years, didn't make it. It was a long time ago, but perhaps I still bear the scars.)
I think you need to enhance your comprehension capabilities. Ohh wait wait, I see you are not from IIT, sorry please don't bother then! I said, what is wrong with "IIT circle"? If other universities don't have enough talented alumni to support each other, then what's wrong with IITs? Please stop blaming IITs for your own failures in life, IITs have nothing to do with that. If you are not competent enough, learn to admit.
Hmmm, I guess they dont teach English at the IITs ??
And akkartik is right, if the IITian's rank wasnt 800 or higher then they really arent much different from students from other good engineering schools.
And to my knowledge this is how most Indians rate guys from IITs.
Dude, pointing out grammatical mistakes won't make your words echo louder. Rather it will expose your very sensible thought process about the topic.
Your statement shows your ignorance about IITs and students. Please note, I din't say all IITians are "GOD", and can do any damn thing. Still, most(yeah even with rank > 4000) are better than top students from rest engineering colleges.
PS: I satisfy your rank < 800 requirement, and I am not bragging about that :P
They are the top brains of India as judged by an entrance examination. The correlation of those test scores to entrepreneurial capabilities is unknown.
As an aside, I know of no other school(s) in the world, a majority of whose students choose to append their school names with their email addresses and nicknames on websites. NickIIT* or NickIIM* is legion. One of the reasons people describe it with phrases like "circle jerk".
Actually most IIT-ians are amazingly persistent in a way that, I think, overshadows their "genius". It takes a heckuva lot of studying to get through that test. Years and years of studying. To be able to do that you have to be amazingly persistent.
That kind of dogged persistence helps when doing a startup.
The IIT-ian you need to watch out for is the one that keeps reminding you that he's from IIT. This kind of guy has usually not done anything else with his life.
Sridhar Vembu of Zoho went to IIT-Madras. He aint doing too bad!
So IIT helps but you certainly dont have to be an IIT-ian to succeed. Some day I hope to prove that :P ...
The only negative "opinion" that I have about IIT-ians (from the ones that I have met) is that they are very good at solving clearly defined problems but they have a hard time defining the problem itself. Ie they have a hard time figuring what the problem is in the first place. If you can give them the problem, clearly defined, they will solve it for you.
You should look up Sridhar Vembu's posts on anti-credentialism. In fact he prefers hiring kids out of highschool and teaching them programming rather than hiring engineers (let alone engineers from the IIT).
I love the IITs. Of the 5 enlightened professors I met in India, 3 were at an IIT. I had some of my best times at events at IITs. But using those as a filter is stupid and as you point out, in the case of those who brag about having gone to an IIT, its invariably counterproductive in my experience.
Seriously if theres one credential which you ever do respect its IIT (pre-2000) graduated. At one point of time they were either very very bright or very very hardworking. Of course this might have changed in the years after graduating from IIT.
(Note: After 2000, they rebranded a lot of the state level colleges to "IIT" status.)
There's a huge difference between respecting credentials and filtering based on them. The former is not binary. I am simply arguing that an IIT degree is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a successful entrepreneur.
Now you sound sensible, unlike your previous comment. Good for you. You have been to Gatech, so for sure you know how profs each year plan to catch new IITians to work in their groups. But your personal ego has forced you not admit this.
I cannot help you with this.
Indeed this is your prejudice. Just search for top researchers in USA in field of CS. You will find almost all the Indians that appear in that list are IITians. I hope that will clear your misconception, "they have a hard time defining the problem itself".
There was an IIM guy at the last proto.in in Bangalore who gave one of the most hilarious presentations ever that included lots of digs at the incestuous nature of the IIM incubator (not sure if this is the same one). I thought that guy was being very forthright. It's not just IIT/IIMs. There is a cascade of snobbery that starts from HBS/Stanford educated Indians and goes right down to the local college educated ones.
"When the company is formed we set up a bank account. When the bank account is set up we deposit a check for the full amount of our commitment ie. 5 Lakh directly into it. A company secretary is brought in to distribute funds from the company checking account as per the budget instructions. Adjustments to the budget can be made at board meetings. Founders do not have direct check writing control of the bank account."
You need to buy an extra laptop, wait for the next board meeting and/or get approval from the "Company Secretary".
"Founders do not have direct check writing control of the bank account!"
Sounds like a great way to run a startup!
And they have the audacity to call it "The Indian version of YC".
I doubt PG and co sit around approving line items and writing checks every other day! AFAIK they hand over the money at the beginning and that's that.
"Perhaps to prevent rampant Collusion, Corruption and Casteism in India."
(If you were being sarcastic, I couldn't detect it in your sentence, so I will respond to it as written. Apologies if I didn't catch the tone right.)
yeah sure. When a seed funder decides to spend 10,000 $ on a company after extensive interactions with the team, his first concern is to avoid "collusion corruption and casteism" and so he has to have line item veto ;-)
I wonder if PG and co lose their 17,000 $ occasionally to people who just take the money and blow it gambling in Las Vegas? After all they just hand over the money, with no "guarantee" that the team will actually start coding/running a company.
Wow. I suppose I have to scale down on my enthusiasm that this will be the first non bureaucratic incubator in India.
Freeman, you should reconsider stuff like this. People you have met and qualified as able entrepreneurs, who, in a risk averse society like India are taking the risk to start a startup - do you think they are out to steal 5 lakh Rs? If these are people who couldn't make 5 lakh Rs a year at a job or people you don't trust, you shouldn't be funding them at all.
Having said that, I think the initiative is good, though its not mature yet. They are evolving over time, they have come from saying something like "we will put in a big place and give you a bed, table, pc and Internet connection so that you can work whenever you wake up" [treating as kids or just coders, 2008] to saying something like "we will give 5L and open an account for the company" [treated as entrepreneurs, 2009]. Still, a long way to go.
You want 10pc equity for 5 Lakhs and all you are going to do is setup a bank account, which cannot be directly operated by the founders??? Top it all of with a Wordpress blog for a website, and you're not really instilling much confidence.
Comparisons to YCombinator is highly unfair to YC.
52 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 120 ms ] threadEdit: I stand corrected, this round seems to be happening in Bangalore where 500K is closer to 1.5 times than 2 times the starting salary of a new CS grad.
Approx burn per person in Bangalore: Initial: Relocating+ house deposit+ registration+ CA + desktop + table + chair + net connection setup + office stationary: About 1L. Monthly: Rent + utilities + food + net + cheap vps: 12-15k, Phone + travel: 5k. Extra: 15k.
So, we are looking at about 60k monthly and 1.5-2L initial burn for 2 non-Bangaloreans to go and do a start up there.
Disclaimer: I live in Mumbai.
In any event, the world needs more of these.
In that case, this one: http://iaccelerator.org/wp-content/themes/primepress/headers...
Presumably, business models that require labour more or less linear to scale would be the right kind to base in India. That is the opposite of what startup generally gets thought of as otherwise. I see no reason why a services 'startup' is a bad idea. There is plenty of improvement to be made there.
No doubt, they are top brains of India. PERIOD
Focussing on IITians at any age is like leaving stale comments scattered in a codebase and being misled by them.
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The less obvious rebuttal: Getting into the IITs marks one as smart, but not making it doesn't necessarily mark one as inferior.
In my experience those who rank 1-50 are in a stratospheric league of their own. But choosing between ranks 1500+ and the best of other indian colleges (who often didn't pass the IIT tests) is a crap shoot. There's just too many deserving students for the IITs to accomodate.
(Full disclosure: I prepared for the IITs for two years, didn't make it. It was a long time ago, but perhaps I still bear the scars.)
Man, I seriously recommend you to come out of this grudge and look at this recent report: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-3752658,...
I am utterly sorry for you my friend. After witnessing your witty and intelligent remarks, I feel you must have been admitted to IIT. You are amazing.
All in good faith :)
PS: I din't say students from other universities are all fools. But sad, your comment has made me to feel so.
Hmmm, I guess they dont teach English at the IITs ??
And akkartik is right, if the IITian's rank wasnt 800 or higher then they really arent much different from students from other good engineering schools.
And to my knowledge this is how most Indians rate guys from IITs.
Your statement shows your ignorance about IITs and students. Please note, I din't say all IITians are "GOD", and can do any damn thing. Still, most(yeah even with rank > 4000) are better than top students from rest engineering colleges.
PS: I satisfy your rank < 800 requirement, and I am not bragging about that :P
As an aside, I know of no other school(s) in the world, a majority of whose students choose to append their school names with their email addresses and nicknames on websites. NickIIT* or NickIIM* is legion. One of the reasons people describe it with phrases like "circle jerk".
That kind of dogged persistence helps when doing a startup.
The IIT-ian you need to watch out for is the one that keeps reminding you that he's from IIT. This kind of guy has usually not done anything else with his life.
Sridhar Vembu of Zoho went to IIT-Madras. He aint doing too bad!
So IIT helps but you certainly dont have to be an IIT-ian to succeed. Some day I hope to prove that :P ...
The only negative "opinion" that I have about IIT-ians (from the ones that I have met) is that they are very good at solving clearly defined problems but they have a hard time defining the problem itself. Ie they have a hard time figuring what the problem is in the first place. If you can give them the problem, clearly defined, they will solve it for you.
(Again this could just be my prejudice :) ...
I love the IITs. Of the 5 enlightened professors I met in India, 3 were at an IIT. I had some of my best times at events at IITs. But using those as a filter is stupid and as you point out, in the case of those who brag about having gone to an IIT, its invariably counterproductive in my experience.
Seriously if theres one credential which you ever do respect its IIT (pre-2000) graduated. At one point of time they were either very very bright or very very hardworking. Of course this might have changed in the years after graduating from IIT.
(Note: After 2000, they rebranded a lot of the state level colleges to "IIT" status.)
Discloser: I have been to Gatech.
http://blogs.adventnet.com/svembu/2005/11/03/college-educati...
Yeah Right!
From the FAQ
"When the company is formed we set up a bank account. When the bank account is set up we deposit a check for the full amount of our commitment ie. 5 Lakh directly into it. A company secretary is brought in to distribute funds from the company checking account as per the budget instructions. Adjustments to the budget can be made at board meetings. Founders do not have direct check writing control of the bank account."
You need to buy an extra laptop, wait for the next board meeting and/or get approval from the "Company Secretary".
"Founders do not have direct check writing control of the bank account!"
Sounds like a great way to run a startup!
And they have the audacity to call it "The Indian version of YC".
I doubt PG and co sit around approving line items and writing checks every other day! AFAIK they hand over the money at the beginning and that's that.
(If you were being sarcastic, I couldn't detect it in your sentence, so I will respond to it as written. Apologies if I didn't catch the tone right.)
yeah sure. When a seed funder decides to spend 10,000 $ on a company after extensive interactions with the team, his first concern is to avoid "collusion corruption and casteism" and so he has to have line item veto ;-)
I wonder if PG and co lose their 17,000 $ occasionally to people who just take the money and blow it gambling in Las Vegas? After all they just hand over the money, with no "guarantee" that the team will actually start coding/running a company.
Freeman, you should reconsider stuff like this. People you have met and qualified as able entrepreneurs, who, in a risk averse society like India are taking the risk to start a startup - do you think they are out to steal 5 lakh Rs? If these are people who couldn't make 5 lakh Rs a year at a job or people you don't trust, you shouldn't be funding them at all.
This is a shame.
Having said that, I think the initiative is good, though its not mature yet. They are evolving over time, they have come from saying something like "we will put in a big place and give you a bed, table, pc and Internet connection so that you can work whenever you wake up" [treating as kids or just coders, 2008] to saying something like "we will give 5L and open an account for the company" [treated as entrepreneurs, 2009]. Still, a long way to go.
The 2008 archives with some photos http://www.ciieindia.org/blog/category/iaccelerator/ . I do agree that they have a bad choice of photos on the blog, it does effect PR.
Moreover they will need someone like PG to make it like YC, that ain't happenin' that easy. :-)
Still, I wish them luck! We do need "worthy" YC clones in many countries.
Comparisons to YCombinator is highly unfair to YC.