Startup Innovation Can Help Establish Deeper United States-Indian Business Ties

In recent years, due to the government’s specific policy interventions, Indian start-ups have been greatly promoted.

This dedicated work is helping emerging entrepreneurs create a stronger ecosystem so that their ideas can be spread. The United States is enviable because of its famous entrepreneurial hubs such as Boston Cambridge, Seattle, Virginia Tech Corridor, Silicon Valley, and so on.

Many organizations in the United States are looking for ways to collaborate with Indian institutions and startups to achieve mutual success. These measures can push the US-India business relationship into a new and deeper stage, independent of the distance and tension of the past.

Startup Innovation Can Help

Indian entrepreneurs have been suffered-from generations but found success. Perhaps this has something to do with Gurcharan Das’s famous book “India Grows at Night”-Ignoring the deliberate success of the decision-maker which is a better strategy for success.

However, wise policy interventions by government agencies can help entrepreneurs, and government policies that stimulate the development of ecosystems can also have compound effects.

Using annual budget speeches as a representative of government policy priorities, entrepreneurs received little attention during the Vajpayee and Singh administrations.

New and updated plans launched in recent years, such as NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission and Startup India at Invest India, are taking concrete steps to build a better ecosystem for Indian entrepreneurs.

The United States has several world-leading geographic ecosystems, and these emerging ecosystems have built-in connections with India. There are some well-known plans to connect major US start-ups with their Indian counterparts.

For example, Tata Trusts, the India Innovation Growth Program organized by Lockheed Martin, and the Ministry of Science and Technology of India helps to upgrade the skills of promising entrepreneurs.

Another striking example is the India-U.S. Science and Technology Forum hosted by the U.S. State Department and the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology.

The third such program is the Nexus Incubator, an emerging incubator in Delhi operated by the University of Texas-Austin in cooperation with the US State Department.

Such programs should be enlarged and replicated. In the next few years, the two governments must consider establishing an advanced platform to study ways to strengthen this partnership.

There are natural complementary relationships, but working with Indian startups will also bring important long-term benefits to our overall partnership.

First, let us look at our complementarities.

Incubator/Accelerator Development: India’s new startup plan is trying to quickly start the creation of accelerators and incubators to help young companies grow. However, India lacks experienced managers in this type of business operations.

Expand Access to Capital: This is a real area of expertise in the United States. India needs to expand access to capital as American investors desire high-growth companies.

Guidance/Mentoring: Guidance is a key part of the entrepreneurial journey. If more relaxed communication channels can be created, then members of the Indian diaspora who are successful as entrepreneurs are likely to seize the opportunity to cooperate with entrepreneurs from their home countries.

Of course, merely having the ability to help India pursue a more efficient entrepreneurial ecosystem is not enough to attract high-level participation. 

However, there are some key strategic reasons and it is very important to expand our innovative connections. These include:

Cooperation with other Developing Countries: Many developing countries share India’s constraints in providing basic public services. Indian entrepreneurs are constantly developing new products and services that improve people’s livelihood. Such innovations should be applied to other countries in need of assistance.

Improving American Livelihoods: India’s “thrifty innovation” environment will produce important products and services that can be reused in the United States; keeping pace with Indian innovation may be an important platform for improving American’s lives.

A bridge to India’s future leaders: Deep-rooted Indian companies are slow to embrace trade and competition. Their impact on policy-making is creating real resistance in today’s overall US-Indian trade relationship. However, Indian entrepreneurs are more likely to accept competition and oppose rash attempts to curb data flow and other attempts to maintain the old order.

Many countries are trying to emulate the success of American innovation centers such as Silicon Valley. The exact combination of policies, institutions, and social values may be difficult to quantify, but it is not impossible.

India clearly has talent and the obstacles that people face every day become opportunities for innovation.

American people and institutions have already played an important role in helping India’s nascent start-up ecosystem. Decision-makers can expand success with proper attention and can recruit more such partners to expand their efforts.

Tiredness and exertion will pay off over time. Connecting innovators may be the key to transforming our business relationship from a friction field to a world-class success field.