Since childhood, I have suffered from a problem of sorts- I always believed in the notion that I am the best ;) This notion remained with me very strongly when I moved from Bihar to Delhi for my higher studies. I don't know if it happens anymore, but 10 years back if you were a Bihari in Delhi and that too in a college like St.Stephens, you were an aberration in a way. I remember many young students at that time asking me questions like - do you have proper roads in Bihar?, do all Biharis have an accent (often followed by that silly grin :) ), is Bihar safe? Infact, I remember eating my first pizza in Delhi and while I was all too happy with the cheese and novelty of it, my cousins were laughing at my naivety. Ofcourse in Bihar while growing up we did not have pizza outlets, etc. I have loads of stories of how it was to come out of Bihar and be in Delhi for the first one year. Yes, there were moments I felt bad and a little bit insulted but in all those moments I had a sense of pride… it might sound a bit peculiar but I had a sense of pride of coming from Bihar, of not being exposed to a lot of things, of not having a lot of material comforts but an early maturity which you intrinsically have coming from a small town. Sometimes I wonder the insane drive, and big dreams that define me, would have not been there had I not been born and brought up in Bihar and lived in one of the politically most regressive era of the state.Circa 2013, here I am back from my first 3 weeks trip to Silicon Valley. Having heard innumerable tales of the glory and greatness of Silicon Valley, I had to make the trip. Most conversations in the startup eco-system in India will have a reference point to Valley, for Silicon Valley defines the comparative success of startup culture. It will require a lot more articles to share my lessons and revelations in Valley (Yes, I met more than 120 interesting people and can most humbly claim abundance of knowledge) but let me share with you one key observation.
Silicon Valley, like any other place is defined and shaped by nothing else but the people who live there. While it took me 3 days to get into the groove and pace of the Valley eco-system, please allow me to say that Silicon Valley has abundance of capital, resources, incredible infrastructure, a breathless pace to the way things are done and a magical energy which makes you believe anything is possible. What was very distinctive was that any startup you meet in the Valley seems to be building the next big thing that will change the world. Yes, they are thinking big all the time. It was interesting to dig deep into this psychology of "building for the world" and soon enough I realised one reason that is driving it - Silicon Valley is a pot pourri of people from all over the world, you name a country and I am sure you will find someone in Valley from that part of the world. I myself must have met people from 20/30 nationalities who have come here (mostly second generation kids) to chase the big dream. When you are living and talking to people from all over the world on a daily basis then it’s natural that world becomes your market-place. For me, this was one remarkable learning.
But coming back to my headline and context of this article - I felt proud to be an Indian entrepreneur there, I might not have the largest of infrastructure, exposure and accesses but what I had was my unique Indian learning's and abilities to make the best out of limited resources. For me running around the whole of Bay area in caltrains and meeting dozens of people in a day was refreshing. What made it refreshing is the endorsement I got from one and all on the need for more humanness in businesses and stories… it’s the missing link and we Indians have abundance of that. Somewhere I hope we continue to believe in the awesomeness we bring to the world because of our cultural upbringing. Our country (and here in particular the startup ecosystem) which definitely lacks a lot of infrastructural capabilities, has so much to give to the world in terms of just teaching the art of giving and sharing, being less individualistic and more humble and accommodating in our attitude to do things and finding solace at the end of the day in the karma of being and doing good.
To all my fellow entrepreneurs, let’s keep climbing the global peaks while retaining the pride of coming from the incredible nation that is India.
