My post today is on the difficulty of hiring for startups in India. Quite a few startup founders that I know of in India have complained about the paucity hi-quality talent available for startups in India. I’m not sure how the general audience reacts to this statement since we seem to be constantly surrounded by news of brainy Indian graduates taking over the world.
Let me put it this way – the number of Indian graduates, brainy or otherwise, taking over the world is tiny, no more and no less than those from any other country, proportionately of course. The vast majority of brainy Indian graduates are just brainy, just that, period. They are not what startups, or for that matter, our country needs.
Startups are all about passion, desire to execute and compete, or precisely about those attributes that folks in India don’t have. Tell me the last time you met an Indian who was passionate about anything or believed that thought without action was meaningless or who didn’t believe in the ‘participation is good enough’ drivel that our education system has shoved down our throats for ages. Tell me.
We are, as a people, lazy and content with accepting things as they are, which is one reason there are a very small number of Indian startups that have become successful with home-grown talent. It typically takes for us to go abroad for some time, get our asses kicked to figure out what competition is all about and then come back home to execute with those learnings.
Unfortunately, not every startup has the luxury of hiring people who have returned from abroad. We hire people from wherever, which sounds nice, but since we are based in India, most of our applicants are from here as well. Most people from across the world are not ready to move to India yet.
Komli today is a 40 member company, up from 2 in Oct 2006 and we could easily be a 80 member company, except that we can’t find people. Sounds like a joke in a country of a billion people, right? We get plenty of CV’s, we probably interview about 10% and make an offer to 1-2%. Pretty tough, you are thinking. It’s not that we want to be tough for the sake of it, but we are not finding the kind of talent we want. We are getting CV’s of some very smart people with some great credentials, but they lack most of the key attributes, enumerated above, that startups need. We make it a point to drill down deep during our interview process and usually come up short on passion and drive. Most people just seem to be, diplomatically speaking, going with the flow. Sleepwalking through life. That’s not what we need. That’s not what our country needs.
Another unexpected problem I’ve encountered during the hiring process more than a few times is when applicants insist that they do not want stock options, just a higher salary. I can understand if you don’t want any stock options from a no-name company, but I’m pretty sure that when applicants ask to work at a company like Komli, in its current stage today, without stock options, they either don’t understand stock options and/or don’t care to understand and/or don’t really care to think about why they want to want at a startup in the first place. These aren’t huge problems in themselves – there are more fun things to do in life than understand stock options — but if money is your goal, which it is for a lot of people, then I expect you to make the connection between risk and rewards. A staggeringly large number of people I’ve encountered just don’t. I lean towards thinking that this isn’t particularly smart of healthy (isn’t this representative of our society’s fixation on short-term gains?), but who am I to make that call.
I still dream of the day when a really solid candidate will come to us and say forget the salary, pay me with stock options. The startup scene in India would have arrived then.
China Bhai,
Visit http://startuplunch.proto.in. Things are definitely getting better.
I’d say that the issue in India is that we dont have a success story yet. And with a case without any prior examples, what you can promise as stocks and bonds are meaningless. I know I do, and quite a few people get involved in things that try to help breed a success story out of india soon enough so that this issue can be solved. We do our part. Are you doing yours?
Comment by Vijay — April 8, 2008 @ 7:57 pm
I work for a startup over in the US, and I can’t say things are great here. We have high turn over, and can’t seem to attract quality employees who have the desire to make this startup work.
Comment by crazyhecallsme — April 9, 2008 @ 1:43 am
‘People , Passion ‘ – Do you people think these traits are common enogh to find them easier in any one to execute your project with you.
If your call is yes – Then go find it in you (I MEAN)
These problems are every where around the globe. What you have to do is Focus on your options rather looking for problems. I admit it’s hard to think without potential employees. But we have to know the skill of HOW TO USE LIMITED RESOURCES FOR OUR BENIFIT- We have to look out for the positive & you know what
EVERY GATE OF SUCCESS WILL OPEN FOR YOU THEN.
I also know that – It’s easier said , then Done !
Comment by Vishwas Shikhola — April 21, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
what do you want a person to become passionate about? the fact that the founders will mint money if their startup is acquired and he will get a good “learning experience”. i’m from iima, and believe me, this is the oldest con game in the world, selling a vision in place of hard cash.
grow up, you’ll find “lazy, content” people everywhere.
I’ve got a friend who quit a top firm and started his own. he did that coz his wife is also earning, so his standard of living is less impacted. As compared to that you expect ppl to live on peanuts for an ideal?
Comment by anonymous — September 26, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
lols well said, its basically selling vision and fooling passionate guys. why cant it be both money and stock ?
stop kidding, and start sharing your VC monies !
Comment by abhishek — October 5, 2008 @ 9:59 pm
We have faces the same issues. Finding talent for start-ups is a hard nut to crack. People here want money. They need to understand this thing that big money in not in yearly packages. It’s with the stocks that start-ups offer. Once they realize this and have this sense that working hard for start-up is like growing money which you can harvest later.
Our start-up founders also have throw some more options to the employees to make this work. On the name of stocks, they don’t give much and expect a lot. Both ends have to compromise to make this start-up a family and joint venture for all the employees.
Comment by Baljinder — October 20, 2008 @ 4:33 pm