How To Build India's Startup Ecosystem @Startup India (& Work Hands-On with The Indian Government) - w/ Rishika transcript

When I entered Invest India even, I was a little confused as to am I a government employee, am I a BSU, am I a quasi, am I, what am I? What exactly is the selection criteria for getting into something like this? We are a quasi-government institution where 49% is actually the government of India, so we work directly with the bureaucrats. I'm Navan Pandey and in this episode featured, not expert, is Rishika Chatterjee.

Rishika is an assistant manager at Invest India, which is the national investment promotion and facilitation agency of the government of India. In 2016, some people, when it was launched, it was a very niche in its court development stage, but right now we have more than 118 unicorns. Do you work with VCs a lot and is a part of your job ever to convince these VCs to put in more money? I would say we have in common such cases, we have blacklist to them.

We go over the nuances of what it is like to work hands-on with the government to boost entrepreneurship in India and our discussion covers incredible economic and geopolitical considerations. It would just be so great if there was just some portal where the government told me that this is a problem that we are struggling with, this needs to be solved. Sounds like that's exactly what Bhaskar will be doing. There's a picture of the internet of my prime minister with Manuel Macron doing a UPI payment from the iPhone Shah. That's insane. That's like the statement of the world.

Just wondering how big of an impact geography plays within India when you're trying to start up. Innovation technology is very limited to metrosities. We need to get it to your total. In line with the theme of learning from somebody just two steps ahead instead of an expert, my goal with this episode is to highlight the amazing work done at quasi-government agencies such as in West India and how one can explore career paths in these severely underrated fields.

This is the Ready Set to podcast and subscribe for weekly episodes featuring not experts on YouTube as well as any of your favorite podcast apps. And now, without any further ado my friends, here's Rishika. Welcome to the Ready Set to podcast where we learn from journeys of not experts who are just two steps ahead of us. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to dive into all of the amazing work that you've been doing at Startup India and you know uncovering kind of layers of the onion when it comes to really just any government job, even though yours is probably the coolest one out there, according to me anyway.

So, but before we, you know, dive headfirst into that for our listeners, do you mind just giving us a really quick and dirty snapshot of kind of your career journey that got you to this point? Absolutely, absolutely. So, I have done my bachelor's from Sanjay V's College Calcutta. Then I went on to work in Deloitte for one year in the trans surprising vertical. That's where I realized that sitting behind a screen and looking into the Excel empty tells us basically not going to be my life and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to speak to people. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to make a difference. And that's when I decided to do my masters at Sionpo.

I went to Paris for your unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know. I was the COVID batch. So, I was only there for like a year came back and then I don't know. I think I got lucky. I got an internship at this incredible French company called 4C Power, which makes lithium ion batteries. So, I run back in 2021 and I started interning there. So, I was on board as a sustainability analyst intern, but I ended up liaising with their Indian counterpart because they were opening up a factory in Pune.

And that's where I got to know about in West India, start up India. I always wanted to come back. My father is the first generation entrepreneur. He has started his business from scratch when he was 50 years old. So, I sort of have a firsthand view of what really the difficulties are on ground. And I really wanted to make a difference. I wanted to pivot to public policy and this seemed like the best opportunity. So, that's how I got to in West India, start up India. I started working in 2021, October. It's been three years, two months for me. Incredible journey. I have worked across teams. I have worked across managers. I have worked across different kinds of people.

And when I say people, I don't just mean, like, you know, for start up India, it's not just people you work with, but it's the bureaucrats who make the final decisions. So, I have been in this in bureaucratic level. We had a different DS when I joined the different joint secretary. And, you know, how the whole mood of the team is affected by who sits at the helm of power. So, it has been an incredible journey. And yeah, that's more or less in a small snapshot.

And I would like to dig deeper into the set of experiences I've had in the different projects that I've worked, which might be interesting. So, yeah, that's just the perfect, you know, launching off point first because immediately, you know, my mind is already full of a bunch of questions. The first being, what exactly is the, you know, selection criteria for getting into something So, I'll tell you just for some context.

And this will probably, you know, I'll just be outing myself in terms of how, you know, how much information I lack on this entire topic. But it feels like as far as I'm concerned, all of the government stuff is either like IAS, IPS, your railway stuff. And then I actually straight up don't even know what exam one would need to take or what's the process for anything that's not that, you know, like code administrative.

Although as I say that yours is probably also administrative. So, maybe I should just shut up and, you know, let you talk us through what, how exactly does one get into this type of thing. You would absolutely do not the first person to ask me sometimes, you know, when I entered investing, even I was a little confused as to, am I a government employee? My parents, this was the question they asked me, they were like, do you eat a car?

Like, you know, whether it's a car, India government, I'm like, no, I will not. But, you know, to me, because then my mind is like, oh, so what are you, are you beneath Are you above the director? Yeah, exactly, but so in terms of qualification, I would have to say that this is something which I feel the government has been doing for quite some time now where they hired third parties who are quasi government institutions, so that they can get more private players into the government machinery.

So you still have your year of IRS officers, your IRS officers, you have your, you know, there's something called a section officer, which is the administrative theme of a government So it goes a section officer, then about that you have a director or a deputy secretary, then you have a joint secretary and then you have a secretary. This is the one secretary has various departments under it. And then each secretary or joint secretary, you've given a charge.

So this is, so the criteria for this is nothing stringent or specific. You, if you come from an economics background, you come from public policy, of course, you have an added advantage. And having said that we have engineers in the team, we have, there is this one person who has done her PhD in, in, in chemistry. And now she's become a part of the team. So it's, it really doesn't matter if it work matters, especially for start up in your It's the passion to do something different.

It's the passion to make an impact, um, uh, you know, having little knowledge and about the ecosystem, the startup ecosystem of the country will really help you get places. And yeah, there is, there is we are a quasi government, uh, institution where 49% is actually the government of India and 51% belongs to the different industry association. So we, we, our, our client is the government. So we work directly with the bureaucrats on a deal.

So yeah, a couple of notes there just in terms of, uh, you know, just really some reading I've been doing on the side, um, I have been exposed to this idea rather recently that it helps a lot for government sometimes to, as you said, open up the door to private agencies that can come in because they just have the added advantage of really operate like, you know, a capitalist business where they can really focus on delivering what they have to deliver without getting bogged down by all of these, um, layers of, uh, you know, bureaucracy that come into anything that comes with the government.

So on that same note, can do you happen to know or were you exposed to any other, um, as you said quasi government organizations such as this, um, just for a little bit more So there is a quality council of India, which is also under PPI T that's a, that's something that is a part of, uh, that's also quasi government, uh, organization. You have, well, Nithiyog is a fully government organization because it was a, so the planning commission used to be a part before the five year planning commission that was abolished and Nithiyog was established and the Nithiyog has separate, uh, uh, sort of, they have utter tinkering labs, which is innovation in the, in the school stages, then they have utter innovation mission, which is incubation, um, invest India itself. So startup India is one part of it.

Invest India itself is a quasi government institution where the mandate is different. The mandate of invest India is to get FBI into the country and invest India acts as the sort of umbrella body for the different, um, uh, schemes that the government takes off. For example, one of them is startup India, there's another initiative called ODOP, which is one district, one product where they have tried to, you know, sort of geotag eats like a Pashmina shole from Kashmir or a Guntur chilies from Andhra Pradesh, they have tried to make one district have this one product, which is very, very famous for them and try And it's a very successful, uh, any sort of, oh, yeah. That sounds awesome.

So I know you, your reference startup India and invest India. And then, so I guess, you know, just the name gives you obviously a basic idea, but before I start extrapolating wrongly, uh, can you walk us through exactly, you know, what these organizations were doing, which one you were tied to, uh, you know, more tightly and really just kind of looking for a day in the life, uh, of, you know, what, what goes on at these, So, um, it also, uh, as I said, invest India's mandate is very different from what I do in The demand date is to get FDI into the country.

So say, for example, uh, there are different sector teams, different country teams that exist within the organization, where you say that you are a automobile company from Western Europe and you want to invest in India. Invest India employees become your first contact because they understand the Indian market. They understand the compliance is the regulatory checklists, et cetera. And that's how they sort of act as the liaison point between the people coming in and the people shop and the bureau. Is it actually outward or is it inward in that?

Are you reaching out to the all of these various, uh, foreign companies or normally do they For some countries, some regions are much more active than the others. Uh, uh, like for, for, for, for say, a Western Europe, we have to scout more, but for Southeast Asia, the sort of one to partner with us better. So it's, it depends on which region you're a part of. Uh, now coming to start up India, what I do on a daily basis.

So I have, uh, had multiple roles over the last couple of years, um, starting with, we do something known as DPI T recognition. It is essentially the government's, uh, credible mark saying that, okay, the government recognizes We came up at the definition in 2016 of what an ideal startup should look like. Then we sort of amended it. We tried to change it with time, uh, added much more, uh, rules and regulations to it. East of certain rules and regulations on it. And, um, so I started with this, a GPI recognition.

Once you get that, there are a host of benefits associated with it. So I used to look at, you know, the data aspect part of it, I built the first data dashboard for startup India, which sort of like give you a overall picture of how the Indian ecosystem We have a very large database of 15 lakh bus startups. We are constantly working towards getting more market access opportunities, more funding Uh, we also do a lot of these international events, um, you have like slush in Finland or a Vwa check in Paris or, you know, there is actually a colleague of mine is just moving even to leaving for Korea tonight and he's taking a delegation of 10 good Indian startups to showcase outside barring all of this, one interesting project, which I feel, um, is something I should talk about is something we did, it's called state startup ranking framework.

So how we know that India has a cooperative federalism, right, where there is a central government and then there are state governments. So now to impact any change, you can't just put a law in the central government and say everybody has to follow it. And also to really reach the district and the masses, you need to, um, have state governments And that's what we do as, uh, we, we started this first exercise back in 2018 or 19, you Uh, what we do is we do a benchmarking study and we come up with a framework of what we feel an ideal state startup ecosystem should look like.

For example, they should have a nodal body in the government. They should have a website which is dedicated to start up. They should have a fund which they give to the start up. So these are just some of the things that I'm telling you. So we have a very long, like, you know, 50, 60 page document where we do these benchmarking and then we sort of evaluate the different states and rank them and we come up with state specific reports for each of the 30, 60 and UT Z parts.

And this sort of gives you an idea of how the whole ecosystem in the different states of the country are functioning, how the industries in the different states are different. What are the different? If, for example, in Uttarakhand, you would see more tourism related startups coming up than say in a Maharashtra. So it is very, it's incredible to watch this. It's incredible to see the startup ecosystem going. Like India went from being an equal in 2016, 17, when it was launched where it was a very nascent, uh, um, you know, uh, it was a very nascent, uh, in its stage in its court development And now we have more than hundred and eighteen unicorn. We made unicorns left, right and center.

People are reaching billion dollars, like anything valuation, we have soon accounts. So it's really been quite a journey. And I would like to think that we played a little part in, you know, getting it here. Honestly, even the hearing you talk about this, it, it, you know, the, what you put into this is really shining through it. I can tell, uh, when I'm talking to somebody that's, that just has a job versus when somebody actually cares about what they're doing, just not just because of the podcast, but also generally I like talking to people and I feel like I have a good gauge on them.

But I am curious about what you said with that, uh, you know, with such a meteoric rise. What do you think caused that? And what I am thinking now is, you know, how, um, when somebody starts investing, the only thing that they say, oh, I wish I'd started doing this way before. So that same thing is coming to mind. It was, what do you think was holding us back from doing this, uh, until like just only Do you, do you happen to know? I realized that's kind of a broad open-ended question. I mean, I have my opinions on it.

I may be completely wrong, but, uh, which is, I would say, yeah, I, I would say that, uh, I think two, a couple of things worked in our favor. Number one, uh, when COVID hit, it really took off. I mean, I mean, right now we don't talk about bijuice much because of whatever has happened, but at one point they really did take off that like everybody was, anybody was employed So now we have physics wallow, who's doing incredibly well and I feel internet penetration, smartphone penetration in India really helped the digital, you know, bring us, put that digital there. ATM did incredible work.

The, these companies just started coming up right in center. India has become the poster child for fintech. Fintech has done so well in this country and it is because of the, I feel like the internet penetration in the country. It's done, it, most of like not just that. So once internet penetration happened, I feel fintech picked up at that picked up and then you had e-commerce pickup after that. You look at these e-commerce, you have good glam group, you have nika, you have, um, sugar They are doing incredibly well and to an extent, I feel the government's push in saying that, okay, this is a legitimate asset class invest.

And that's how the private players came into play because this started seeing return. Of course, I feel like now, slowly the time is changing a little bit in terms of the kind of startups that are coming up. It's more to do with green technology. You see a lot of drone startups that are coming up. So that initial push, especially during COVID helped a lot. I don't know if you remember, but this was very famous. I think I'm forgetting with status, state it was, but they used a drone to deliver medicines to people, which was incredible. Nobody had thought I am, I'm forgetting me.

So Trakhan, maybe it was Himachila, I'm forgetting with state it was, but to see technology take that turn, I think that really reinstated a lot of faith in the ecosystem and plus India's given India's position right now, especially when we had G20 presidency, we were out there in the world to see people are just, they just have more faith, I feel just, there's just a lot of things. Yeah, there's more optimism for sure.

Like, you know, people like us, I would never imagine my parents when they were our age. I remember I, like they wouldn't discuss all of this. Like, when now I go to office, most of the time, all my friends are just talking about is, Oh, I have invested in this talk, this talk is going to go up that I'm going to start I mean, the fact that investment, start up as an asset classes, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's highly risky, but people are willing to pick that risk because they believe they I really liked that analysis.

I think a lot of what you said makes just, you know, logical sense in that, yeah, there was no way to, for us to explode when you don't even have people that have smartphones. Like, how are they even going to interact with technology? When I feel like for most of these things, it's not true for every startup, but I feel like in some shape size or form, every startup can eventually be reduced to a technology that, you know, improve, either improve something or adds value that wasn't existing before.

So on that same note, a little bit, um, on this podcast, I had the co-founder of Grad Capital, which is, it's really just a VC fund, one of the, you know, better VC funds in India, I would say, and the work they do is selectively with student founders. And the reason I bring this up is he actually funded a company, it's called Airbound, which, which does exactly what he just referenced is using drones to deliver. They do, um, blood banks.

So there's, is a little bit more, uh, you know, complex because as you know, blood needs to have, uh, like a certain temperature and such and you can't just have it flying around. So, but what the question that prompted, uh, that, you know, this segue is, do you work with VCs a lot and, uh, is a part of your job ever to convince these VCs to put in more money and really connect, you know, the VC founder duo in a way that's meaningful for And how has that been? Um, interesting question. We actually do not work with VCs a lot.

I mean, and we do have a funding arm, which is a small number because we have our own funds and our funds are distributed to startups via incubator because we are doing all the start-up in your seed front skin, which is, uh, usually given to companies, which are in the very early stages of development. We do interact with VCs. We do curate sessions for them. So we, it's more, sometimes it's more of an outbound request that they come to us and they're like, okay, we are looking to, you know, on board so and so start ups and so So this is our cohort size.

This is the kind of sector we're looking at at this stage of start-up we're looking at. I feel because of the database that we have, we have a very large database of, uh, 150,000 startups, which is, uh, like it's huge in number and we have, we have been collecting So, uh, one reason we appeal to VCs a lot is because of the database. They do come to us, uh, in terms of, you know, how, if we cannot, we usually organize a lot of pitching sessions for them where we actually train the start-ups, we do a mock pitching session with them beforehand and we're like, okay, listen, these VCs will ask you these questions and show you're prepared with all of it.

And we try to prepare them as much as possible, but we don't really know what they are looking for at the other end because it depends on VC to. And you, you have no way of knowing that either. It just, yeah, it depends on their requirement because obviously some VCs like to do more I just meant to say that, yeah, different VCs have like different requirements and it can be your job to have like an Excel where you list down what they all want and then make sure that they're matched with that particular sort of that fits that criteria. So yeah, that feels like a bit much.

We do ask them, you know, right off the bat, we do ask them that you give us some pointers that we can help the start-ups prepare a pitch deck or help them prepare. What exactly is it that is because some VCs, for example, put a lot of emphasis on the background of the founders, the team they want, they want to know more about the team. They are very interested in the, what are the future plans? And then there are some VCs who are more, who are looking into the present.

They're like, okay, we don't care as long as you're profitable. Your innovation is cutting. It's very, very different across VCs. We do have sort of like a checklist that we've made for ourselves because we've interacted with so many, you know, funds and VCs and these over the years. So we do have a fund. We actually have it on our website, we call it the start-up and your funding guide. So whenever we sort of train these start-ups, we sort of ask them to go through it.

But again, as you correctly pointed out, it's very different exactly to understand what Where is it that they're seeing value because we could be looking at impact, they could be looking at numbers. There, it's definitely a challenge to have alignment there on the front of fostering innovation specifically. This is something that I'm personally, I really just have become invested in off-slade. Just as I've learned more about really how impactful it can be for, you know, like the really the whole trajectory of a country to just change completely based on how much innovation it can drive from the ground up.

So, but and I have ideas and I've given it a lot of thought around, you know, how would I solve this problem in a hypothetical world where I was in charge of solving this? And I've actually, you know, mostly drawn blanks. I've come across stuff like equal opportunity, make sure everybody has access to good education. They understand they, you know, are able to think critically for the most part and so on and so forth, but all of these feel mostly, you know, superficial and almost like cop out answers where they're not actually attacking or they, at least to me, they don't feel like So what can you tell us about how you have, because you've like directly attacked this problem, I'm sure.

So what can you tell us about the way you did that and kind of what your takeaways were from that in terms of boosting or creating a spirit of innovation or startups where previously they just weren't any. You know, there was a colleague of mine, he recently, you know, moved on from the organization. He made a brilliant analogy for what we do. He said that you think of yourself as a healthcare professional. You know that in the startups that exist out there, maybe 0.5% of them will succeed or But the only thing you can do is you can tell them that I'm here for you and I have given you the opportunities that you may not have gotten otherwise.

So that's, I feeling to me, as I said, my father's a first generation entrepreneur. And when he was starting out, just the fact that the government is there to back him up or there are people who are there to listening to him, he gets it, he gets the grant, he doesn't get the grant, he gets the opportunity, he doesn't get the opportunity, that's different. The fact that he had access to it, that is what makes a difference, I feel.

And that is what we sort of try to embody in our everyday lives, that, you know, whenever we go for these events, I was at Amazon somehow event today and we had a booth and I was constantly speaking for six hours and people came up to us and they kept asking that, oh, you know, I don't have a company, but what should I do? The fact that there is somebody who's ready to listen to you, lending you, tell you what is there that exists, and I kept telling them that, okay, there is a chance that you may not get it because you have to understand.

The competition is intense, but we have an opportunity for you and you have like there's no partiality, there's no biases, you have complete access to it. I feel that makes a difference. Secondly, the fact that entrepreneurship has a steady vertical is coming up, like in terms of profession after class 11, 12, like because when we were in school, we were like engineer, doctor, or, you know, CA, that's it, these are the clean lines, you choose one of them, otherwise your parents are going to speak to you for the rest of your life.

But now if somebody says that I want to open my own company, I feel like slowly, maybe in the metrocities, not so much in tier two, tier three, but slowly in cities like Bangalore or Calcutta, people are okay, the more these schools and colleges are coming up with their own innovation labs, the better it is becoming in terms of accepting entrepreneurship as a And it also, I'm sure certainly helps that you see on the news every other day, some new company became a unicorn.

So that has to serve as motivation in some way and make it, yeah, also true. Last time, I'm on the, you know, celebrities, depending on their goal is a celebrity right He's coming on couple show and everything, so parents know who he is, so they know there is COPA, my son or my daughter to also be on the TV. So they're like, okay, you know, do I do it? So from what you laid out for, so, okay, so for these people or, you know, these future entrepreneurs to even know that there is such a thing, there is such a dedicated organization that exists just to help them, it sounds like they would need to hear off that.

So is a part of maybe not your specific job, but somebody in your ministries, is it their job to do this marketing in like a really cool, you know, chic way that appeals to the younger people and have you been exposed to that aspect at all? Very, very interesting question and a very similar question we were posed to at the beginning of this year and we found sort of a solution for it, which we like to think is it is, we have come up with this networking platform called Husker, it is an acronym, there is a long, you know, it's an acronym from Bharat Access startup knowledge registry, we call it Husker for short, it's a very non-government just looking website, you know, I was one of the people, me and my colleague, Nan, we sort of went through different websites,

so what, you know, how Singapore is doing it, how say Vienna is doing it, and then we were like, okay, we will not make typical, click here, click there, we want a video, we want colors and, and you wanted all colors, you know, we wanted orange, we wanted cream, we wanted blue, we want everything on it, so we have actually come up with this networking platform called Husker, which is by the government India, where we are sort of getting in all the people, it's sort of, I don't want to call it a LinkedIn, it's sort of like a social media, but just for the startup system of the country, right now we are doing a lot of awareness sessions and we are onboarding people onto the platform, it's basically like a, you, you know, you like somebody's profile, you go connect with them, and once they accept

your connect request, your email address is visible to them, so unlike LinkedIn, there is no email, there's no extra money, you can just directly connect with the person, we are in the MVP phase, we just launched it two months ago, so we, we keep doing this, like we are doing this awareness sessions, we are doing one with IIT Bombay, like, like slowly but surely we're going to try and incorporate this into the other schools and colleges that exist out there, where people can come on, like students can use this platform to connect to existing startups, look for internships, look for mentors, etc, etc, that's the ultimate goal and aim that we have for this platform, but barring that, we also do, you know, in terms of not just students, but reaching out to different districts, we have a district

outreach program, where we have, like, you know, two of my colleagues last week were in Mizoram, you know, his work, and they were going to the different villages of each district to find innovation, to scout for innovation, and this is a long run process, we've been doing this for the last one year, we, my, my, my colleagues have visited wonderful places, they've been to move, Haryana, very small district they've been to, they recently went to this district in, I think it was Kerala, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not remembering the state exactly, but they discovered this girl, who is running, she has basically taken money from the government as a subsidy grant, and she's gotten manufacturing devices to her village to produce sanitary napkins, he's selling them at a very low cost, and she's

doing it in a village where the population is like 600 or 700, no internet connection is remote, so we are making an effort to scout innovations like this, because they exist, and they exist in the most remote parts, so we are making an effort, we hope, it buys fruit, we hope to, you know, get more such people, give them the limelight that they deserve, give them the space, the market that they deserve, but wonderful, there are some incredible, there's some incredible work going on in the ground level, like.

Around what you said with Pascal, it's funny because I have a nephew who's currently in third year of engineering, and he's studying computer science, and maybe no surprises there, but he was recently talking to me, asking me about, you know, I want to, I have ideas, I want to build stuff, but he was like, but I don't randomly want to build anything without knowing anything, and it would just be so great if there was just some portal where the government or whatever any, you know, a higher authority governing body told me that this is a problem that we're struggling with, this needs to be solved, and he was like, then that would help me, you know, just pick a problem that I associate with, and then just solve that, and it sounds like, that's exactly what Pascal will be doing, so, you know, it's so great

to hear that this stuff that you've been working on, it's also tangible, like, these are not made up problems that, you know, will come in five years into the future, this is stuff that will benefit us immediately, so, yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised to learn, you know, just all of the entire broad scheme of things that have been going on in this sphere, but from there, it does sound like, though, you know, given that you probably, I should let me begin here, do you get your funds from the government of India, is that, so yes, or no question, I guess, we get it, so we are a path of DPI, which is under Ministry of Commerce and Industry, that's why we get our funds from it.

Makes sense, so then, with that, nationally, what I'm thinking is, what you're laying out sounds like one of those things, where the more funds you have, the better work you can do across the board, you know, it's just like a direct correlation between those two, at least in my, in my mind, so have you ever been involved with, maybe not directly, but have you seen there being, you know, kind of, terms of war type situations, where you're like, give us more, and they're like, no, that's enough, and really, have you dealt with any other type of, you know, I'm sure, we rock the seas, that just come into this sort of thing, without you, you know, trying to necessarily, so, I'll take you back to last year, we did G20, we actually established the first engagement group on startups, it's

called Start at 20th, become, it's been accepted in the New Delhi's declaration, so the final declaration, which is signed by all the countries, saying that they accept whatever is written over there, and then they pass it on to the next country, so Start at 20 was one of them, my team and I, we actually worked on the first concept paper for it, and we did events, you are round, okay, we did events in different places, and what happens is, once you're done with the events, you usually make the payments after that, and that's where struggle starts, so I understand the kind of questions, because it does, there's a lot of back and forth involved, a lot of back and forth, like, it takes months to resolve an issue, and it's not just for events, it's for every single thing that we do, every trip that we take, every day for

example, I'm going for a district outreach, what is the, just because at the end of the year, you have to realize it's tax payers' money, so I have to, I need to have a very, very good reason to spend it, I can't just say that, oh, you know, I was feeling like this would be about the district so I went there, no, I need to have a proper justification, or I could not say that, you know, this hotel looked really good, so I did an event there, I need to come up with why did I do it, was it the least cost method, was, did you look at other vendors, so these are the kind of questions we get asked a lot, which is really honestly, I don't mind answering, because I know it causes delays, it does, you know, the bureaucracy of it, but I understand it, because I see my dad paying the taxes, you

know, your family's paying taxes, you're paying taxes, if I'm spending money on something like this, I would like to know the, you know, accountability of it, what is happening, I would not like it to be spent just in the air, right? So we do get into a lot of ourselves and fights with our financing, but then I also understand their point of view that they need to have the justification very, very clear on why we are spending and what we're spending.

And has there ever been where you get a specific directive where you have to prioritize a certain type of startup over the others, even when it's not the best decision, I guess, are you all the complete short collars here, or do you have to sometimes, you know, heed what the head office has to say here? Well, it's a missable, we do like a lot of short listing is done by us because we are the ones who have the data set, so, and also we are the ones who sort of deal with them So we are in a good position to tell them which ones are legit startup, which one can just feel like, you know, somebody off the corner.

So we do a lot of short listing, but there's always higher authorities who have a more final say because like, you know, if I understand that, what is the other ones, we're going to be safe representing the institution, representing the government, representing the country, you know, if you're doing some market opportunity abroad, if you're going to some event abroad, so we need to be very, very careful about who we send as India's representative.

And that's where I feel like a thorough background check is necessary, or a thorough check of everything that they do is very, very necessary because we cannot have them doing anything on a public platform. It becomes really embarrassing for the country, for the bureaucrats, for the institution for startup India, for all of us, because at the end of the day, this is the data that we are saying that, okay, we are giving you this via it. So we also need to be in the current.

So we do a lot of short listing, but the final call usually depends on who's asking for it We always have a jury, which consists of a government employee, a private player, and So it's always like there is marks given or there's always, we always ensure there is parity in terms of the percentages that is given to each of them. And then we try to come up with a fair value system. We don't, we don't just stop, you know, because we understand that these are, these are very, these are startups that we're giving a good opportunity and we don't want just general We want to ensure that we're doing it end-to-end and we're doing it correctly.

And on that same note of giving these startups that opportunity, I know this must just be an exception, but I have to think that it happens at least regularly enough for it to, you know, feature or for you to at least know what I'm talking about, where you just have these startups that aren't actually really committed to making any money. They just want, you know, free money from the government to like blow it all off and then just be like, oh, sorry, we fail. Does that happen at all? And how do you deal with that? Because that's just such an interesting problem to solve. It does, you know, that is our question.

So I'll speak on behalf of incubators who sort of the other ones were like the first point of contact for us with startup because an incubator then has like 50, 60 incubators under And they are the ones who are aware of the operations of the particular startup. So we've had this question from these incubators a lot where they asked us that how do we know that this startup has not availed a grant before? Now our point is we can't, we can't ask them to divulge data that they don't want to.

There are startups whose point is to just take money wherever they can. We find out about it eventually. Sometimes it is difficult because, you know, the trickle down effect is so low down there. It's so difficult for us to pinpoint one because we hope the incubator, the VC, whoever is giving them the grant, giving them the money because we, I have to tell you, we do not give money to startups directly because as the government we have a conflict of interest because we are taking their data. We cannot be giving it to them directly.

So all the evaluations are always done via incubators or via alternative investment files or via VCs, et cetera, investors who are on it. So we do put a lot of pressure on these institutions to sort of do their due diligence very well. That it is your job to ensure that before you pull in your money or if you pull in the government money that you make sure that everything is in line. And of course we have income tax exemptions, you know, so that is also it goes to a whole I would say we have encountered such cases that have been we have blacklisted them.

We have, you know, we have given them a strong warning that this is not why we So don't take advantage of it. But I would have to tell you the cases, the ones that you could see were not that way. They were like, okay, they were not that. You could maybe file them under the honest mistake compartment south side, right? And then so yeah, this, this will be interesting angles to this. I suppose in the three hours, well, I was going to say hours, but you've been there But in the three years that you've been over there, however, you've seen the perception of India change abroad, because I know you work a lot with, well, you know, companies and organizations overseas.

I know there's been a change at least for sure in America, given I have been here, but I actually can't, you know, cannot speak for the rest of the world. So how has that been like? I'm assuming it's positive, but hoping you can shine a light on the aspects that they like in that you will show the GDP apparently on paper is good and whatnot. But what, what evades these overseas firms or companies to even consider investing in Very interesting point, very interesting question, sorry. So I feel I was in Paris in 2019, 2021 period.

And at that point, I wasn't really looking like, I didn't really see India becoming a big thing that the new English, the new that we were smart, we are known for our mathematics And there's a lot of us. So it's kind of hard to ignore. So I had to miss that. So I had every 7% you see is us. So you can't just say that you don't know India, that's, that's all, but the fact that India can be somebody, you know, in terms of geopolitics that we can, we need to be You can't take decisions by not taking us into account.

That is something which is, I must say, like I'm going into a little bit of geopolitics for it, but, you know, breaks has really got that. The fact that these countries, Russia, China, if they all come together and if they come up with a new currency, which can sort of directly compete with the dollar, it's going to be very difficult for the West to sustain, but that's, that's just my two cents on, you know, geopolitics.

But in terms of technology, last year in Viva tech, India was the country of the year. So we were the pavilion, which everybody came to visit. And that is when I understood that, okay, now they understand that we are doing incredibly well in terms of, because in the best, the whole frenzy of startups has died down a little But it's still there in US is, you know, Silicon Valley is just that. So it's kind of a different thing.

Europe, I feel like the last time Europe innovated and built a good big company was, I don't know, early 2000s. They just have stopped doing that and I think they just focused completely on regulation now, which feels so backwards to me. That's just where things are. I mean, exactly good for us. And also because of the demographical age that India is in right now, we are, we have the maximum amount of working population.

And like, for example, look at Japan, Japan, it's, it's a dying population. It leaves a dying population that very large number of old people than young people. And India is right. Like our working population, we are right now, you know, remember, we used to learn in environmental science, there is this a waste type diagram for population. So we are right now in the middle section. And I say that was really working super well for us.

And the fact that last year, India got the G20 presidency, we went out there and we are much more, I feel, maybe it is because of digital technology. For example, UPI is now being accepted in France. And I also know that the Indian government has partnered with a few other foreign governments also to kind of teach them for lack of a better word, how to implement UPI. There is a picture out there on the internet, you know, irrespective of what my political views are, there's a picture of the internet of my prime minister with Emmanuel Macron doing a UPI payment from the ice and tar. A statement to the water.

So I think all of these differences, they are making, like India's making a slash, you cannot, you cannot take any important geopolitical decisions without taking us into account. And especially given the instability, the world has gone through in the last couple You have your Ukraine work, you have, you know, what's happening in the Middle East. It's a terrible place right now. So to have some stability, to have people who are young, to have people ready to work, I feel that is just, it just gives you a lot of faith in the country.

You know, you're 100% right and especially around the bricks. I think it was actually just two weeks ago or one week ago where Trump was, you know, he put out a very incendiary tweet around that we will not let it fly, bring down bricks, whatever, blah, blah. You have to trade in the dollar still. So yeah, it's, we're, we're, we're gearing up for some rather interesting times. Yeah, we don't have some feathers, which is good. That's, you know, that's exactly how I feel about that.

I don't know what will happen or like, I honestly won't even pretend to understand the full implications of what a bricks currency would do or not to, but the fact that we are, or at least part of a group that is seeming like a problem for the West is a good thing. I think that's the net good thing. You should always be dangerous, at least on paper, you know, you'd rather be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war that felt apt.

So I've always wanted to say that in an actual conversation and it just, it just happened to be that, but from here for the road ahead, what do you think are some things that, you know, so from this chart I learned from you that we're doing great, you know, in terms of going zero to one, we've done a lot of things that were really important fundamentally. And now it sounds like it is really the time to put, you know, pedal to the metal and you know, go full ballistic.

So what are some things that you would want our listeners to know, myself included obviously about things that, you know, general Indians can do, or you don't necessarily even have to straight up start a start up to help, but really to contribute to the India growth story, what are according to you, some of the most important things that are low hanging fruit that most people could do, but are just not aware of. Interesting point.

I would say, as you said, that we went from zero to one really quickly, but the thing that I feel relies ahead for us, it's a difficult journey that's going to lie ahead because we have most of our good innovation technology is very limited to metrosities. We need to get it to tier two, tier three, and we need to come up with, I don't know, like some policy, state level or national level, whatever, which targets these people from tier two, tier three. Now this is on a national level.

I feel like that is, that is most important because we do speak a lot about, oh, we want innovations from the ground up and everything, but what I were doing to scout here is my So we do one program here, but that's not enough. You have to go out there and record it. Personally, you go for Indian products, go for boat, boat is incredible, personally, just It is an incredible brand. And the fact that Amman Gupta, founder of boat, co-founder of boat, he's openly, you know, his ads, he basically places an apple product and then he places boat and he says, "Choot this, I want to become a replacement to apple." And my point is, why not?

And they are building an ecosystem, why are you being meant to us? We are doing it in house, manufacturing in India, boat has huge factories and they're doing wonderfully well for themselves. So try and encourage local produce, there are a lot of millet-based startups that are Try and use, try and eat them, try to go for these really nice, you know, there are so many expos, et cetera happening in the city because in Delhi, it keeps happening all the It really doesn't cost any money.

You can just go and talk to startups when you're talking to these, you know, youngsters, young people, people who are already starting their things at the age of 50, 60 god knows what, try and understand what they're doing. In terms of individuals, in terms of corporates and companies, I would say, make good use of your CSR money, like make good use of it. Don't, for example, if Zomakto did something very recently with us, they are trying to look for sustainable packaging and we had a small grand challenge where 10 startups came in and presented their products and they are now giving pilot orders to the window.

There was this one startup which was making plastic out of CME, can you imagine? It's incredible, the kind of, the kind of process, the kind of people are doing. So Zomakto has taken this step through, you know, do it. So I'm sure Zomakto is doing something, you know, I'm just saying, use your CSR money very Try and get into these, you know, trying to go local individually and corporates should try out some pilot orders because otherwise nobody will take these startups.

Somebody has to show them some, you know, faith that, okay, I know you. And direction, right? You cannot solve a problem that you don't even know exists for sure. I love that and I love how you covered kind of every layer in there because that's not necessarily how I would, you know, approach that particular problem, but it makes a lot of sense to have, you know, different rules for different, because yeah, obviously not everybody has a multi, you know, you know, a really big company to run.

But when they do, you're right, they should have, they, well, they do have funds for CSR, but yeah, where they're allocated is can differ and it, yeah, that makes a big difference. And then really last question here before I let you, I know you've had a long day, but you know, so just wondering how big of an impact really geography plays in where you are, at least in India, within India, when you're trying to, you know, start up because obviously, as I'm sure we know without, you know, naming any names, there's a lot of states where I feel like entrepreneurship is actively stifled. There is, you know, an active effort to be like, don't do that. There's no point in doing that. It's always villainized to even think of, you know, innovation. So should people in those areas just go to other areas

where it's not the case, or do you think because of the internet now, there is still a possibility for them to build what they would have built anywhere else while still being in that or confined in that geographic area. Very, very interesting point. So not naming the state, but maybe a state that is common between both of us. Maybe it's it. It's tough. I will say very, very careful. Well, that's disappointing. No, I would have, yeah, no, but please go ahead. I mean, I am curious to hear your reasoning.

Oh, I say it's tough because again, there is a lot of politics at play here. And rarely people have the larger picture in mind, you know, we, I would like to believe that me as I'm not talking about, I'm not talking that I'm affiliated to any political party, you know, to this I work for my government. I work for my country. So I or my team, we are all making an effort to go out there, but you need to also it. We can only do 50%.

The rest of the 50% has to be covered by you. And if you categorically refuse to do things, it becomes very difficult because you have to understand when I'm talking about geographical, as you said, very, very rightly pointed out, you know, you know, when I remember the stuff about SRF, the state ranking framework where we come up with the benchmarking, you won't believe just absolutely the last month, a last framework that we released, we specifically had this point that, okay, you give us how many incubators you have in your state, state run incubators, not private, which districts are these incubators in. And the startups which are incubated under these incubators, which districts are there, because to me, if, if the area is so big and you're only concentrated on the top, west part, then makes more difference

than why you do it, because other everybody else is losing opportunity. So we made it, made it an effort to see and that is where from there, the district outreach program was where we were like, okay, no, no, we need to go on ground. So we are making this interest. In terms of geography, very important. I cannot trust this enough. It's just your proximity to a VC, your proximity to multiple events that are happening, your proximity to, you know, places where the market access is greater, just, it makes it, it makes it honestly. I, my personal choice, if I had something I would probably shift out of where I'm seeing it's not happening. Of course, unless my manufacturing plant is there and that's when then it becomes a different flight. But if there is something, if it's a technological based thing, I would,

like I would say, geography plays a very, very important role because you also have to realize your taxes, your compliance is your approval. They all rely on you being on with geographic location unit, because different, different states have different rules in terms of, you know, everything that we deal with. So that becomes a very important. So fascinating to hear that. But yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, as they say, it is what it is. For now, anyway, you know, there's only so much you can do or you and I as individuals can do obviously, but yeah, hopefully we can all, you know, not in not so much in the distant future, end up in a spot where this is at least not a, you know, problem that we're having to solve for where it's bad to be an entrepreneur. Because, you know, society loses out straight

up when that's such it's not going to be the case. I'm sure we're on a very good path. And it's only, it's only going to get uphill. It's only good exactly 100%. And then finally, I have you seen just because I noticed you're coughing it and I just seeing all this stuff about Delhi, it just feels horrible. I'm just so like my heart generally goes out to anybody that's in the area. Why is it that there isn't any big startups that are solving this? Is this not a problem that can be solved technologically at all?

You would not believe this is exactly what I was talking with talking about with my, my bureaucrats senior. I know colleagues to do that. Why is it's not nothing? It's nothing new. It's not like it didn't happen last year. Or the fact that it won't happen next year. It's happening. It's not clear. But somehow, because, you know, cloud, cloud seed, Dubai has done cloud seeding. We know that they've probably used technology, which maybe an Indian was creating there. So why not us? It's just, I, it's a very good question.

I feel like, you know, people are so forgetful. They are so, what's the word? I'm not getting the word. They just so finicky in terms of what they remember, what they don't, because you need public outrage. You need people to be like, no, this is something you need to change. But as soon as winter will be over, they'll forget. And then again, next year, when it happens, they'll go back because at one point, we have 1780. It's like, yeah, that's it's there. If there is a level beyond hazardous, it was that, you know, it's it's work. Yeah. I don't think it would make it any like any further, right? And also, there was this one name I saw with said that, smoking and Bangalore is, you know, then doing yoga and Delhi. Correct. So do you know who Brian Johnson is, by the way, are you familiar with

that name? He's just like this. I shouldn't. It's so strong. Basically, he is a person that has his like whatever late parties and has devoted his entire life to not aging. So everything he has the biomarkers of a like a year old. Yeah. Yeah. So he was in India. Like, I think he's still right now in India. And he shared this tweet that I have pulled up right now, which was really interesting. And he said, he was talking about, obviously, it he must have taken it very personally, given his affinity towards, you know, being healthy and such.

But he noted in his tweet that give me one second while I fish it out, it was very interesting. And I should have been prepared with this, but one second. So it says he had talked about the financial implications of fixing this problem. And what it would mean for our economy for this problem to go away. And he was like, it's literally you're looking at, you know, a billion plus dollars of revenue, not revenue, I guess, but you know, cost avoidance, which in a different, you can look at that as still money saved in terms of tourism, better health, infrastructure, whatever, blah, blah. And that's why that's when I was first thinking about this, that I, yeah, it just breaks my brain that nobody is trying to solve this. And to your point about cloud seeding, it can feel kind of radical. We know Indian people, they're like, Bob,

don't mess with nature. Prakriti is, you know, will destroy us. I think, like tomorrow I'm going to go tell my colleagues if this is a, like, like a proposal we can send to ministry of you and when you can be like, let's do a hack. You're a grand challenge in secret. Why not? That's actually a very point. I was first of all, how cool is it that you can just do that? First of all, I just want to call that. I don't know what happened, but I can certain, no, it's not stood. What else is the harm in me? One small email we'll drop, drop to five, six people, most of them will say no problem, but at least I can track. That's so great. Well, Rishika, I really want to thank you for taking the time to not only talk to us today and go over the amazing work that you've been doing, but actually for also doing the amazing work that you've been doing

over these past years. Thank you so much. You've been too kind. I, you know, when the fact that now that you're talking about it like this, it feels like I've done a lot, but to me in my head, it feels like I've not done anything at all. And there's so much more to do. And I love the fact that people are looking at India like it's the next big thing because it is up to us to make it the next big thing. And I am very, I've realized I'm a very patriotic person. I am all for the, the, the national flag. And I'm all for, you know, yes, Go India, you're the best.

I feel like this is, this is a line of job that people should choose. Like public consulting is something that people should choose. And we really need the private minds to come into the, you know, bureaucratic ecosystem. That's what you make it more efficient. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I hope you have a great rest of your evening. You too. Thank you so much for having me. That brings us to the end of that episode with Rishika Chatterjee. I feel like I learned so much about the on the ground realities when it comes to startups in India. If you would like to support me, the easiest way to do that is by subscribing on YouTube and leaving me up to a five star rating on Spotify or any of your favorite podcast apps comments on my YouTube videos literally make my day

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