Anirudh Suri, MD, India Internet Group; I’m both an investor and an entrepreneur
Is Anirudh Suri, MD of India Internet Group (Advisors), an investor or an entrepreneur? ‘Both,’ he says, during the course of a telephonic interaction with YourStory. “I run incubated companies and also oversee all our investments globally. Being an entrepreneur keeps me exposed to the day-to-day realities of running a startup in India, and this really informs my investing style and evaluation of startups. On the other hand, being an investor also really informs my work and thinking as an entrepreneur.” That’s what is exciting for Anirudh, personally; something he likes about his role. Read on.
What are the challenges in early-stage investments in India?
Finding quality – quality teams, quality products, quality solutions to simple problems – and finding a team with an ability to execute!
What are the sectors you are bullish about?
- Mobile. This will most likely explode in the next 12-18 months. Within mobile – mobile gaming, mobile payments, mobile search, location-based products, mobile POS, mobile entertainment, etc.
- Organising unorganised markets.
- Ad technology.
- Focus on products coming out of India that can do well in the US.
What will lead to disruptive ventures to come out of India?
Disruptive ventures for India will happen when Indian entrepreneurs really start taking the time and effort to understand the Indian consumer and his psyche, his problems, a lot more deeply than entrepreneurs do today, before they embark on their ventures or their product development.
Disruptive ventures for the world, out of India, will happen when Indian entrepreneurs do the same for the global consumer (understand his problems, his behaviour, his psyche) and then also place undiluted focus on QUALITY – quality of the product, the UI, the integrations, etc.
What makes India a unique market?
So many simple, basic problems that still remain unsolved, and the fact that Internet/ mobile is really exploding. So many markets are still unorganised. So much is still offline. Plus, the Indian consumer is both unique and also similar to his global counterpart in some ways – so he’s hard to figure out. That’s what’s exciting.
About incubatee companies.
The first one was EkSMS.com – which is a location-based recommendations and deals platform over the web and SMS. The other one is in the works!
