I hate being alarmist even in the worst of times but, it is difficult to completely ignore all the bad news that’s been doing the rounds in the past weeks with regard to venture capital and startups. The US Silicon Valley is in deep crisis and some of it, as I noted in my previous post, will spill over into India. That said, India’s fledgling startup economy has survived in the past despite testing and sometimes seemingly hopeless conditions. Take a look at what’s been happening so far and do take the poll at the end of this post:
Top of the charts in terms of bad news would be Sequoia Capital’s ‘gloom and doom’ slides released in early October — see the 56-page presentation at SlideShare. If you have trouble opening the link, send me an email for a PDF version of the same. It’s an intelligent piece of research though the ‘death spiral’ on page 48 was a shudder.
The economic slowdown in India and its impact on startups was top of mind at the recently concluded TiEcon ’08 in New Delhi. Read the VC Circle report TiEcon ’08 tells entrepreneurs to buckle up, save costs.
Indian startups are under pressure (from venture capitalists) to keep costs down, says Mint — Start-ups trim costs to weather downturn.
Finally, not so bad news, for India at least. DFJ co-founder and managing director Tim Draper was in town this month and he’s quite optimistic about the India situation. Read the Outlook Business interview “India can bounce back much quicker than the US”.
Happy Diwali.
IMO, the presentation sucks big time. http://blog.inboxofideas.com/post/55455661/the-r-i-p-good-times-presentation