A presentation I gave at Harvard Business School on my learnings throughout the last year and a half living in Bangalore, India. Slides on mobile/internet penetration courtesy of wearesocial (http://www.slideshare.net/fullscreen/wearesocialsg/social-digital-mobile-around-the-world-january-2014/1)

1. India’s Exciting & Booming Tech Sector
Opportunities, Risks, and the Way Forward
A presentation by Troy Erstling

2. My Story
International Studies from the
University of Arizona, Tucson.
Awarded the IDEX Fellowship
in Social Enterprise
Studied abroad in
Buenos Aires, Argentina.
NEN
Zoom
Ekho Water
From Manalapan, NJ
Taught English in Seoul,
South Korea

3. My Story
We help young professionals find employment
opportunities abroad with early stage startups and
social enterprises.
Bringing Talent to Startups in Emerging Economies

4. What you need to know
World’s fastest growing Startup Ecosystem with
over 800 new tech startups sprouting every year!
Investment is flowing – unlike other parts of SE Asia
money is flowing through India at record numbers.
Venture capital and private equity investments
expected to double to $1.2B in 2014
India recently rated #9 in the world for expat quality
of life
Over 50% of all startups come out of Bangalore

5. Notable Companies

6. Why Bangalore is awesome:
Startup Ecosystem Report 2012

7. Most attractive cities for young grads
Percentage of movers who are young graduates
17.9Phoenix, Arizona Area
42.3Paris Area, France
39.9Washingtom D.C. Metro Area
39.8Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area
39Madrir Area, Spain
37.8Greater Chicago Area
37.6Greater New York City Area
34.8London, United Kingdom
34.3San Francisco Bay Area
33.8Bengaluru Area, India
33.6São Paulo Area
32.7Houston, Texas Area
32.7Greater Boston Area
32.3Greater Seattle Area
30.3Pune Area, India
29.9Greater Los Angeles Area
28.5Greater Atlanta Area
28Hyderabad Area, India
28Greater San Diego Area
24.7Greater Denver Area
22.3New Delhi Area, India
20.8Mumbai Area, India

8. Downsides
Many «Me-too» ideas
“Instagram/FB of India”
Services oriented
Data Analytics, Web Development, Mobile Apps
Investors with unfavorable terms
Series A crunch

9. Two Valuable Lessons
As per Paytm estimates, there are about 60 million
smartphone users in India out of which Paytm will
have over six million monthly users by end of this
month.
300,000 transactions on a daily basis.
On a monthly basis, Paytm has been doing around
seven million transactions and it’s confident
enough to enable a million transactions on a daily
basis sometime in 2015.
This is more than Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra
Lesson #1 – Mobile First

10. Two Valuable Lessons
Platform for creative expression for University
Students – akin to a FB for creatives in the early
days
“Unmagazine” enabled them to penetrate 2000+
campuses
Organize on campus events, recruitment fairs,
contests, internships to promote their brand at
Uni’s.
Lesson #2 – Importance of Offline Marketing

11. Companies Started by Expats

12. Difficulties Starting Up
Ranks as one of the worst countries in terms of ease
of starting a business (#176)
Lack of sufficient infrastructure
Legal Red Tape
«24 hours vs. 24 days» in responses
Payments on time
Scaling difficult due to cultural issues
Hiring and retaining talent - only specific talent
buckets - as you scale becomes increasingly harder
to get quality talent on board

13. Key Markets
Indonesia
Jakarta
Population 241M 95M 28M89M 64M 5M
55M 30M 17.5M30M 17M 3.6M
Internet
population
92% 99% 124%60% 115% 150%
Mobile
subscriptions
vs population
$2.41 $4 $15$5 N/A $35.4
Mobile ARPU
in $USD
Vietnam
Ho Chi Min
Philippines
Manila Bangkok
Thailand
Kuala
Lumpur
Malaysia
Singapore
Singapore
Singapore
20% 20% 27%10% N/A 73%
Smartphone vs
feature phone

20. Thank you !
Troy Erstling /Founder and CEO
+91 8197953465
Troy@braingain.co
Looking for a job abroad ?